Michael Courtney
Diocese of Salt Lake City Archivist
In April 1939, Monsignor Patrick F. Kennedy, chancellor of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, announced to pastors that May 7 had been set aside as Communion Sunday for the men of Salt Lake City.
The idea was “for all men to attend the 8:30 Mass in the cathedral, receive Communion in a body, and have breakfast at the Judge Memorial [Catholic] School,” Msgr. Kennedy said.
In a follow up letter, Msgr. Kennedy urged pastors to “contact the men of your parish who are not receiving the sacraments and remind them of the Men’s Communion and breakfast.”
The breakfast became a tradition. In 1947, the Most Rev. Duane G. Hunt, fifth Bishop of Salt Lake City, invited high school seniors to attend the event.
Each year, the Communion Breakfast Committee invited a speaker from out of state to come to Salt Lake City to discuss an issue relevant to the Church. The format of the Communion Breakfast remained the same over the 34 years of its existence: The men assembled in the basement of the cathedral, walked up the stairs together to attend Mass and receive Communion, then traveled to Judge Memorial Catholic High School to have breakfast, listened to a prominent speaker and socialized with other Catholic men from throughout Utah.
This breakfast was discontinued in 1973.
The Men’s Communion Breakfast brought men, who historically did not participate in church, together in community. As a community, Utah’s Catholic men were exposed to some of the most important intellectual currents in Catholic thought during some of the world’s most socially, culturally, technologically and politically challenging times.
Despite the challenges, optimism in the ability of the Catholic Church to address the world’s modern problems underscored the presentations given at the Men’s Communion Breakfast. For example, at the height of the Second World War, during the 1942 Men’s Communion Breakfast, Bishop James H. Ryan of Omaha urged the men to read and study Pope Pius XII’s five points of peace “in the light of past recent history and to see for themselves how necessary they are to the human race, since the breaking down of these principles has been responsible for the wars of the past.”
Pope Pius XII five points were: 1) recognition of the independence of each nation, 2) each nation stops the arms race, 3) all nations create an equal justice system in their countries, 4) all nations meet the needs of their national and racial minorities and 5) all nations and men develop a sense of justice based on the Sermon of the Mount to guide men. He stated that this plan was not American, European or national plan but rather universal, “because it stems from the eternal principles which lie at the basis of all Christian thought and living.”
This notion that Catholic thinking transcended secular ideas persisted after the war. At the first Communion Breakfast held at the conclusion of World War II, the Most Rev. Francis J. Schenk, Bishop of Crookston, Minn., argued that science, technology and disbelief had brought the world to absolute chaos. He believed “Catholicism, thorough-going and integral ... offers the sole basis for sound reconstruction because it faces the issues of our time from the standpoint of eternity, proclaims the inalienable right so man as God-given and provides saving faith, inspiring hope and healing charity.”
Similarly, the Most Rev. Michael J. Ready, Bishop of Columbus, Ohio, maintained that the Church “is seen today, not only as the teacher and defender of supernaturally known truths, but as the almost single-handed exponent of necessary natural truths. The Church is not simply striving to save souls; to that end she is striving to save the mind. She is not alone the promoter of sanctity; she is actually the savior of sanity. We, her children, must be active and articulate in furthering her indispensable service to mankind.”
The supernatural and natural truths of the Church were discussed by the speakers at the Men’s Communion Breakfast in the 1960s, but rather than looking outward, the Church looked inward, critiquing itself. For example, Bishop Sylvester Treinen of Boise, while discussing the Second Vatican Council, contended that although the “essential elements in the Church, the doctrines, the sacraments, the commandments, need no renewal. Christ made the perfect in the first place.” However, he said, “human element in the Church: we ourselves, our customs, our ceremonies, the way we express ourselves and the langue used – these things can need and in fact at time do need renewal. This is the work of the Council.”
The Men’s Communion Breakfast speakers continued the internal analysis of Church into the 1970s, though the critique focused on its own ideas, not customs, language, ceremonies or secular philosophies. For instance, at the 1971 Men’s Communion Breakfast, John McDevitt railed against situational morality, stating that “society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite is placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within ourselves, the more of it there must be without.”
A final change took place in the Men’s Communion Breakfast in the late 1960s: declining attendance. At the Communion Breakfast’s height in the 1950s, four hundred to seven hundred men attended; by the early 1970s, only about two hundred men attended.
The impact of the Men’s Communion Breakfast on lives of the men who attended remains unclear. Still, the Communion Breakfast provided a vehicle for men – at least one Sunday during the year – to actively engage the Church sacramentally, socially and intellectually.
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