One has written before on this blog about how theological ecumenism with Roman Catholicism is an impossibility for Latter-day Saints to engage in, in spite of the agreements we have on many moral/social issues. While there are some LDS who try to ignore this, the reality is that anyone who takes Catholic theology seriously, one will realise why I and others are correct in this assessment. Consider the following from Catholic priests on the nature of the Mass and, implicit and explicit in such, that they and other priests are, sacramentally speaking, an alter Christus (“another Christ”):
. . . the Mass is not a mere memorial, a mere representation of the sacrifice of the Cross. It is the sacrifice of the Cross in its essence. This is important because all true devotion is founded on dogmatic truths. The essence of sacrifice is contained in the victim. In the Mass there is the same Divine Victim on Calvary. He is no longer offered up in a bloody manner, but it is the same Christ—whole and entire, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity—Who is offered up. The priest, moreover, is the same because the Great High Priest, Jesus Christ, is always the principal priest at the Mass; the ordained minister only takes His place, impersonates Him. At the Consecration, the priest says; “This is My Body,” showing that for the time being the great power of Christ Himself overshadows the priest. As he pronounces those words, they are ratified in Heaven, and at that moment Christ, true God and true Man, becomes present on the altar. It is the same when the words over the Chalice: “This is My Blood,” are pronounced . . . Since Holy Mass is the same sacrifice as the sacrifice of the Cross, we are privileged to co-offer the sacrifice of Calvary.
One Mass has infinite value, One Communion can make a saint, we are told. Why are we not saints? It is not for lack of grace; it is because our hearts are not large enough. There is no limit to the grace of the Mass or Holy Communion; the limitations are all on our side. The grace of Mass and Communion is infinite, a reservoir of grace upon which we can call. Let us ask the angels and archangels to surround the altar when Holy Mass is being offered. What a beautiful act of worship God has placed in our hands! What dignity it gives to our day! Can we ever grow weary in the service of God when we are so closely identified with the actions of our Divine Lord? How little the world must seem in the light of all this! Is it not wonderful to think that at Mass you give God more glory that He could ever receive from the choirs of angels in heaven? Thank Him for the Mass. It is the Mass that makes a difference: it keeps before you the sacrificial element. Since Christ is being perpetually offered up for you, you ought to be offered for Him, through Him, with Him and in Him. Then, indeed, your actions will be pleasing to Him and will merit eternal life. (Richard Cardinal Cushing, Meditations for Religious [Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, n.d.] 244-45, 248)
If the priest is aware of the excellence of his state and the sublime holiness of his ministry, he will never approach the altar without holy fear, or leave it without infinite gratitude. God is more honored by a single mass than He would be by all the actions of men and angels, however fervent or heroic they might be. We should then consider the offering up of the Mass as the greatest and most important function of [the lives of priests] and perform it with all possible perfection . . . The priest going to the altar should consider himself no longer as a man, but as Jesus Christ who is about to speak by the priest’s mouth and offer Himself by his hands. He should therefore do no exterior act of the Mass of which we could not say: “Behold an act of Jesus Christ.” (John Croiset, The Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus: How to Practice the Sacred Heart Devotion [trans. Patrick O’Connell; Rockford, Ill.: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1988] 210-11, comment in square brackets added for clarification)
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