It’s that time of year again. When mostly well meaning Catholics will host/participate in some variety of Seder Meal in order to learn more about the Jewish roots of Christianity, or to get closer to Our Lord. Or something. Having recently engaged in a conversation about this, I thought would put together all the info I found and put it together here.
At first I didn’t think too much about these Seders, assuming it was framed mostly as a kind of history lesson (which it really isn’t but more on that below). But it seems that some folks were hyping these things up as some kind religious observation which would be flat out inappropriate, and most likely offensive to God. To be clear not every Catholic who does a Seder meal is doing the same thing. Some do try to do it strictly as a historical/cultural event. Some try to stick to the exact Jewish custom including observing it with religious intentions. Some try to hold a “Christianized” Seder with Christian prayers replace some or all of the Jewish prayers. So here is what I found regarding the appropriateness of Catholics participating in Seder meals.
As noted above there are basically two types of Catholic Seders. History lesson Seders, and religious events. A Seder as a religious observance is an act of false worship, is prohibited by the Church, and is sinful to attend (false worship is a sin against the first commandment). The Seder as a history lesson is pointless because, as I recently learned, the modern Jewish Seder probably does not much resemble the Seder meals of the first century, particularly before the Temple was destroyed. The current Jewish ceremony was probably codified around third or fourth century.
It is a long standing teaching of the Church that ceremonies of the Old Covenant have been abrogated by the New Covenant and cannot be observed without sin since the promulgation of the Gospels. The reason is that the disposition of the old ceremonies was one of anticipation of the coming Messiah. But the Messiah has already come and the old ceremonies have been replaced with ones that reflect that truth. Participating in an old covenant ritual is tantamount to saying that the Messiah has not yet come. St. Thomas Aquinas lays this out for us (Summa 1, 2, quest. 103, art. 4):
All ceremonies are professions of faith, in which the interior worship of God consists. Now man can make profession of his inward faith, by deeds as well as by words: and in either profession, if he make a false declaration, he sins mortally. Now, though our faith in Christ is the same as that of the fathers of old; yet, since they came before Christ, whereas we come after Him, the same faith is expressed in different words, by us and by them. For by them was it said: “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,” where the verbs are in the future tense: whereas we express the same by means of verbs in the past tense, and say that she “conceived and bore.” In like manner the ceremonies of the Old Law betokened Christ as having yet to be born and to suffer: whereas our sacraments signify Him as already born and having suffered. Consequently, just as it would be a mortal sin now for anyone, in making a profession of faith, to say that Christ is yet to be born, which the fathers of old said devoutly and truthfully; so too it would be a mortal sin now to observe those ceremonies which the fathers of old fulfilled with devotion and fidelity. Such is the teaching Augustine (Contra Faust. xix, 16), who says: “It is no longer promised that He shall be born, shall suffer and rise again, truths of which their sacraments were a kind of image: but it is declared that He is already born, has suffered and risen again; of which our sacraments, in which Christians share, are the actual representation.”
I have seen it asserted that Pope Benedict XIV indicated in his encyclical letter Ex Quo (1765) that the Old Covenant practices can be observed without sin if one does them for Christian purposes. It does not seem to me that the actual document says anything of the kind. I believe the relevant passage is this one (third paragraph of section 67):
Certain schismatics have tried to calumniate the Latin church by saying that it judaizes by consecrating unleavened bread, observing the Sabbath, and retaining the anointing of kings among the sacred rites. But Leo Allatius counters their rash claim in his splendid work de perpetua consensione Ecclesiae Occidentalis et Orientalis, bk. 3, chap. 4. He refutes them particularly by arguing as follows: “Since Jews observe Sabbaths, a man who observes Sabbaths acts in Jewish fashion: therefore the man who does not eat the flesh of strangled animals acts in Jewish fashion since the Jews are forbidden by the Law to eat such food: but the Greeks do not eat such food: therefore, the Greek judaize” (loc. cit. n. 4). Then to Our purpose he concludes (n. 9) that it cannot be absolutely asserted that that man judaizes who does something in the Church which corresponds to the ceremonies of the old Law. “If a man should perform acts for a different end and purpose (even with the intention of worship and as religious ceremonies), not in the spirit of that Law nor on the basis of it, but either from personal decision, from human custom, or on the instruction of the Church, he would not sin, nor could he be said to judaize. So when a man does something in the Church which resembles the ceremonies of the old Law, he must not always be said to judaize.”
It’s really a stretch to say this authorizes Seder meals. First of all, it seems to me that these Seder meals, Christianized or not, are “on the basis of the Old Law.” The whole point is to explore how the Jews worshiped God. And to a lesser or greater extent depending what the participants actually do, they are imbued with the spirit of the old law. Again, the purpose of these Seders is to do what the Jews did. In any case, you would be hard pressed to make the case that this passage refers at all to ceremonies of worship like a Seder. The context I think, is acts such as circumcision and abstaining from the meat of strangled animals, both of which can be done with no regard for the Old Law at all. A little further down from the St. Thomas excerpt above he mentions that a man could be circumcised for health reasons and that would not be sinning. But it is very difficult to see how Seder meal could be totally divorced from the spirit and basis of the Old covenant, even if the “end and purpose” is indeed different.
Also consider these other quotes from Ex Quo:
61: The first consideration is that the ceremonies of the Mosaic Law were abrogated by the coming of Christ and that they can no longer be observed without sin after the promulgation of the Gospel.
63: … nevertheless the Church of Christ has the power of renewing the obligation to observe some of the old precepts for just and serious reasons, despite their abrogation by the new Law. However, precepts whose main function was to foreshadow the coming Messiah should not be restored, for example, circumcision and the sacrifice of animals…
At this point I think it is clear that participating in a Jewish Seder religiously is flat out sinful. Further, It is hard to see how a Christianized Seder could be sufficiently “not in the spirit, or on the basis of” the Old Law. Besides that, it is still going to retain its character of anticipating the Messiah (especially the lamb part) which, as St. Thomas explains, makes it a false profession of faith. If the ceremony required the participants to affirm out loud that they look forward to the coming of the Christ, doubtless all Catholics would omit that part. But St. Thomas is saying that the actions of the ceremonies make that very statement. To escape that consequence, you would have to alter the Seder so much that it would no longer remotely resemble a Seder. In fact you would probably end up with the Holy Mass. For more on how the Old Covenant Passover ceremonies foreshadow (and therefore anticipate) the Messiah, Scott Hahn’s book the Lamb’s Supper does good job exploring and explain that.
As a matter of historical interest the Seder meal also falls short. We simply don’t know how first century Jews celebrated the Passover. The Jewish Seder in place today is not at all the same as what the Jews did before the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. From the Jewish Encyclopedia:
The destruction of the Temple, while reducing the Passover-night service into little more than a survival or memorial of its old self, again brought husbands, wives, and children together around the same table…
The book used by Jews for the Seder is called the Haggadah. The earliest it was written was 170 AD, but more likely between the late 3rd century and mid 4th century. So, as a historical experience, these Seder meals are dubious at best. Unless you are studying how Jews of late antiquity observed Passover.
I want to emphasis that I believe an understanding the Jewish roots of our own religion is important, and certainly worthwhile to study. It would deepen any Catholic’s faith to learn how the rites of the Old Covenant foreshadowed the Christ and the rites of the New Covenant. I am all for that. I will teach my children about these things. I just don’t see that Seders help with that.
Besides all that, there are so many worthwhile Catholic devotions, public and private during this holy season, who has time to mess around with Seders? I wish I had more time just for regular old Catholic practices, the Divine Office, more masses, more frequent Stations of the Cross, novenas, rosaries, devotions to various aspects of the passion, spiritual reading, and on and on. And that is where we should keep our focus.