Ready, aim, fire! (Benedict XVI takes aim at Liturgical Experts who bag Eucharistic Adoration)

One of the bits I really enjoyed from Sacramentum Caritatis is from paragraph 66, where Benedict scores a direct hit against the enemies of Eucharistic Adoration:

A growing appreciation of this significant aspect of the Church's faith has been an important part of our experience in the years following the liturgical renewal desired by the Second Vatican Council. During the early phases of the reform, the inherent relationship between Mass and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was not always perceived with sufficient clarity. For example, an objection that was widespread at the time argued that the eucharistic bread was given to us not to be looked at, but to be eaten. In the light of the Church's experience of prayer, however, this was seen to be a false dichotomy. As Saint Augustine put it: "nemo autem illam carnem manducat, nisi prius adoraverit; peccemus non adorando – no one eats that flesh without first adoring it; we should sin were we not to adore it.

Lutherans, of course, will recognise the anti-adoration argument, but will also recognise the fact that Luther was aware of Augustine's saying that "we should sin were we not to adore" the body of Christ (see his Great Confession of the Lord's Supper 1536). But Benedict is not taking aim at the controversies of 500 years ago: He is aiming at more recent "reformers", such as Nathan D. Mitchell author of "Cult and Controversy: The Worship of the Eucharist Outside Mass". John Paul II strongly opposed this sort of nonsense, but Benedict has actually exposed the entire lie for what it is.