Praying with Protestants

A recent Crisis article criticized the practice of pro-life Catholics praying together with non-Catholic Christians at pro-life rallies, vigils, and demonstrations. The author, Kennedy Hall, suggested that the Church has taught it is “mortally sinful” for Catholics to pray with Protestants and with those of other Christian denominations at such events, especially when non-Catholic Christian ministers are the ones leading the prayers.   

The author’s argument can be summarized as follows: the Catholic Church forbids Catholics from participating in what the author calls “public displays of religiosity” with non-Catholics. According to the author, doing so has “always been considered mortally sinful.” Catholics who pray at pro-life events where non-Catholics are leading the prayers are participating in non-Catholic “public displays of religiosity.” Therefore, according to the author, such Catholics are acting contrary to the Church and are sinning grievously.   

If the author is correct, it means that Catholics and non-Catholic Christians should cease praying together at 40 Days for Life, marches for life, and any other kind of pro-life event. Before addressing the author’s central claim, some history of the Church’s teaching and progression of thought and praxis on this matter is necessary.   

English saint John Henry Newman (d. 1890) once wrote to a Catholic student who was lodging in the house of a non-Catholic Christian and was expected to attend “family prayer.” Newman, summarizing Catholic teaching on the matter, stated: “From time immemorial, from the earliest ages, members of the Church have been forbidden ‘communicatio in sacris’ [i.e. participation in things sacred] with those who were external to it [i.e., the Catholic Church].” Newman added, however, that it was his opinion that a concession might be made in which the student could attend family prayer, “provided he took a crucifix or Garden of the Soul [book] in his hand, and said his own prayers to himself during the devotions.”   

Newman’s concession was summarized some decades later in the 1917 Code of Canon Law. While Canon 1258 states that it is “not licit for the faithful by any manner to assist actively [active assistere] or to have a part in the sacred [rites] of non-Catholics,” it added that “passive or merely material presence [praesentia passiva seu mere materialis] can be tolerated” in various circumstances. Already in 1917, we see the Church, following Newman, making a crucial distinction between active participation and passive presence with regard to Catholics attending non-Catholic prayer/worship events. According to this distinction, Catholics may not actively participate in praying the distinctive prayers of non-Catholics as if they were professing allegiance to that belief system. They may, however, passively be present with non-Catholics at such events.   

St. Alphonsus Liguori (d. 1787) had already alluded to such a distinction over a hundred years prior to the 1917 Code in his treatise Moral Theology when he wrote: “It is not permitted to be present at the sacred rites of infidels and heretics in such a way that you would be judged to be in communion with them.” In other words, Catholics can be present at such rites as long as they act in such a way that it is obvious that they are not assenting to the belief system; that is, they can be present with a passive presence.   

By 1949, thirteen years prior to Vatican II, the Church began expressing eagerness to find a way forward to heal the divisions in the body of Christ. The Congregation of the Holy Office, the Vatican office then responsible for safeguarding Catholic doctrine on faith and morals, released a document that year titled “On the Ecumenical Movement” which called the unification of “all Christians in one true faith and Church” a “noble” work.

While expressing caution about “ecumenical” meetings and conferences, the Holy Office allowed Catholics attending these meetings to join with non-Catholics in “recitation in common of the Lord’s Prayer or of some prayer approved by the Catholic Church…for opening or closing the said meetings.” It was indeed a development in praxis for the Church to allow Catholics and non-Catholics to pray together, albeit using prayers approved by the Church.    It was indeed a development in praxis for the Church to allow Catholics and non-Catholics to pray together, albeit using prayers approved by the Church. Tweet This

This helped prepare the ground for the Second Vatican Council’s decree on ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio. The Church taught in this document: “In certain special circumstances, such as the prescribed prayers ‘for unity,’ and during ecumenical gatherings, it is allowable, indeed desirable, that Catholics should join in prayer with their separated brethren.” In what might be construed as further development in praxis, the document is silent on the question of what prayers are to be said in common. This suggests that prayers other than prayers approved by the Catholic Church may be used as long as they are in agreement with the deposit of faith and the truth of the Gospels.   

The Council Fathers root this teaching on “prayer in common” in the understanding that “men who believe in Christ and have been truly baptized are in communion with the Catholic Church even though this communion is imperfect.” The Council Fathers stated that “all who have been justified by faith in Baptism are members of Christ’s body, and have a right to be called Christian, and so are correctly accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church.” These are “separated brethren” who are called to the “fullness of life in Christ” as found in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. The Fathers highlighted that Christ Himself is the “tie” that “bind[s] Catholics to their separated brethren.” Influencing their thinking here is a key passage from the Gospel of Matthew, which they quote: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”  

This decree was not an outlier document that would be ignored or forgotten by future popes. John Paul II used it as a springboard for his 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint in which he taught that common prayer between Catholics and those not in full communion with the Catholic Church is an act of love which leads to the unity that Christ prayed for in the Gospel of John: “that they may be one.” He wrote:

Even when prayer is not specifically offered for Christian unity, but for other intentions such as peace [or an end to abortion, it could be added], it actually becomes an expression and confirmation of unity. The common prayer of Christians is an invitation to Christ himself to visit the community of those who call upon him. 

Again, it is suggestive that, just as in the Vatican Council decree, the pope does not specify what prayers are to be said.   

For John Paul II, common prayer between Catholics and the separated brethren is the number one priority in working toward the unity desired by Christ. 

Along the ecumenical path to unity, pride of place certainly belongs to common prayer, the prayerful union of those who gather together around Christ himself. If Christians, despite their divisions, can grow ever more united in common prayer around Christ, they will grow in the awareness of how little divides them in comparison to what unites them. If they meet more often and more regularly before Christ in prayer, they will be able to gain the courage to face all the painful human reality of their divisions, and they will find themselves together once more in that community of the Church which Christ constantly builds up in the Holy Spirit, in spite of all weaknesses and human limitations.  

The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls the desire to recover the unity of all Christians a “gift of Christ and a call of the Holy Spirit” (CCC 820). It lists “prayer in common” as a necessary requirement to “respond adequately to this call.”   

Mr. Hall’s particular claims can now be addressed.   

1. Hall: “Since the Second Vatican Council, the notion that Protestants and Catholics should not pray together has gone out of fashion, even though it is a perennial Catholic practice.”  

Response: Following Liguori and Newman, the Church taught almost five decades earlier than Vatican II—in the 1917 Code of Canon Law—that Catholics may be passively present at non-Catholic prayer/worship events. The CDF clarified 13 years prior to Vatican II that Catholics can pray Catholic prayers with non-Catholics. It is, therefore, not a perennial Catholic practice that Protestants and Catholics should not pray together. 

In fact, in the past 100 years, the Church has carefully opened up a pathway to allow Catholics and the separated brethren to participate in “prayer in common,” which leads to the unity of the Church as prayed for by Christ.   

2. Hall: “However, public displays of religiosity with non-Catholics were always forbidden, especially those led by heretics and schismatics.”  

Response: The Church, in her desire to work toward the unity of the Body of Christ, as prayed for by Christ in the Gospel of John, has opened up a path for Catholics and non-Catholic Christians to come together both privately and publicly in “common prayer” that is rooted in Christ, in the recognition of the oneness of Baptism, and in the duty to glorify God. The Church views such “common prayer” as distinct from “communicatio in sacris” [i.e. worship in common], which, as Pope Paul VI wrote in 1964, is forbidden by God since it “harms the unity of the Church or involves formal acceptance of error or the danger of aberration in the faith, of scandal and indifferentism.” 

Unfortunately, there are Catholics today who are ignorant of the Church’s teaching on this precise matter of “communicatio in sacris” and who, in their ignorance, abuse the Church’s new latitude when it comes to Catholics “praying in common” with non-Catholics. It is not the scope of this piece to address this concern nor how the Church might more effectively communicate her teaching on this matter to such Catholics today who see no problem with common worship with non-Catholics in practically any situation using problematic prayers and non-Catholic forms of worship. 

The solution, however, must not be to throw the baby out with the bathwater—that is, for the Church to once again forbid Catholics from praying in common with non-Catholics. Part of the solution must involve an authentic formation of Catholic conscience to discern the “voice” of Christ the “Good Shepherd” in such common prayer, and, if a stranger arises who seeks to pervert and destroy, “they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers” (John 10:5).

In the end, all authentic prayer, whether coming from Catholics or the separated brethren, must conform to the revealed truths of the Faith. Catholics who, with the Church’s blessing, pray in the presence of non-Catholic Christians, must always bear in mind that they must pray as Catholics, not as Protestants. They must always keep this in mind, especially when praying in “common prayer” with the separated brethren, which the Church encourages them to do.   

3. Hall: “As noble as the pro-life cause is—and it is very noble—there is no excuse to do what was always considered mortally sinful.” Catholics who do this have “failed to consider the grave evil of fraternizing in a religious setting in ceremonies that is [sic] hateful to God on account of the heresy and sacrilege associated with Protestantism.”  

Response: While it is not licit for Catholics to actively participate in the liturgical rites of non-Catholics (communicatio in sacris), it is, according to a development in the Church’s praxis, laudable for them to unite with non-Catholic Christians in “common prayer” for the unity of the Church and other intentions, such as peace, or for an end to abortion. John Paul Meenan, a professor of theology at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College, confirmed in comments for this article that the Church has developed her praxis on the question of Catholics praying with non-Catholic Christians. 

The Church’s stance was previously stricter (peruse Pius XI’s 1928 encyclical Mortalium Animos), and there were reasons for that at the time, and still are. But there are also reasons for, on certain occasions, allowing greater scope for prayer in common, guided by right reason, prudence and counsel. 

Meenan pointed out that Catholics must 

avoid any scandal or appearance of indifferentism or syncretism, and this will vary according to circumstances, not least who is present (children vs. well-formed adults). We cannot participate formally in their public worship, but may, again, pray with them, but always praying as Catholics.

Meenan had words of caution to those who make “blanket condemnations” of Catholics who are striving to “think with the Church” when it comes to the Church’s desire for unity in the body of Christ.  

The pro-life movement, in which Catholics and non-Catholic Christians unite in common prayer in the public square to call on the name of Jesus to end violence in the womb and the scourge of abortion, is the kind of ecumenical work the Church has called for. This work begins to realize the Church’s desire for unity among all baptized followers of Christ. In this way, the pro-life movement is at the vanguard of the Catholic Church’s work for unity among Christians.

When pro-life Catholics and the separated brethren pray together in the name of Jesus at vigils, rallies, and demonstrations across North America, they embody the unity of believers desired by Christ and His Church. The cause of life has organically become one of the most significant examples of ecumenism today.  

The pro-life movement is a beautiful testimony to how Catholics and non-Catholic Christians grow in what John Paul II called the “awareness of how little divides them in comparison to what unites them.” In the Gospel of Luke, the Apostle John told Jesus that he had ordered a man to stop casting out demons because the man was not one of their number. Jesus’ reply is relevant to the matter at hand: “Do not forbid him; for he that is not against you is for you.”