I've come up with a thought experiment to reveal your ethical priorities when forced to choose between well-being in the here and now or in the hereaf

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Could you please tell me when it would be more important to receive the Eucharist instead?
 
The hypothetical wasn’t important. The question was summarized several times.

And the question is whether and when spiritual nourishment takes precedence over physical nourishment.
Lest anyone miss this, I did indeed ask a simple question that was repeatedly not even attempted.
 
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howmanymakecommunity said:
is it more important to receive the blessed sacrament for spiritual nourishment or to eat for physical nourishment?
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Is it more important to dress warmly in cold weather or to dress light in hot? Is it more important to swim in summer or to ski in winter? Is it more important to turn your headlights on at night or to turn your windshield wipers on in the rain?

My questions make as much sense as yours does, which is to say, none at all.
 
Great we’re getting somewhere now!

The difference between yours and mine is that in my question, the weather is the same. It’s more like: is it better to wear a gorilla suit in winter and look ridiculous or to wear jeans and a tshirt because those were your two options? If you say the latter, it would be something like choosing “spiritual nourishment”.
 
Then a better hypothetical would have been whether the priest would have ministered to the starving man’s physical needs first before turning to his spiritual needs. Which a priest would certainly do because priests understand people need to have basics like food, warmth and shelter before they will be in the right mindset to receive spiritual nourishment.

A priest does have a duty to celebrate Mass daily though, so while he might delay that to urgently help a starving man, he can’t just skip it and say “too busy today”.
 
Is the question of whether spiritual needs are more important than physical needs really unanswerable? Why?
 
howmanymakecommunity said:
so chose to flame me instead of answering,
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I didn’t flame you, I was perfectly levelheaded in how I responded. And if you want to talk about doing philosophy or intellectual curiosity, then maybe recognize that from my end, I’m trying to encourage good discussion, and I found your way of asking the question to be unhelpful. Don’t take it personally. And don’t attack me personally as you did.
howmanymakecommunity said:
they’re apologists for anything.
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I’m not sure what you’re talking about there. The Catholic Answers Forum hasn’t had professional apologists posting to it in a very long time. I don’t claim to represent them and neither does anyone else here.
 
I understand the reflex to defend yourself, father. But do note that I didn’t respond the same way to the person who came in here and simply restated the question in an admittedly better way than I had, and answered sufficiently. Please understand that people come to a forum like this when they are struggling to understand what “faith” is really all about. That means that they’re going to feel like they have more to lose in the so-called war game than you. Add to that the dogpiling that goes on and the circling the wagons against the intruder, and there’s plenty reason why I felt I had to give as much as I got. I was given short shrift. Everyone here was being incredibly dismissive from the get-go.
Have a good evening.
 
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As the Eucharist is referred to as Viaticum when it is received at or near death, That might be an excellent time to receive it as part of the preparation for death, along with the sacrament of the Sick (previously called Extreme Unction).

If, in your scenario, the individual is one day away from death at the most (i.e. with a meal today he will die tomorrow in any event), and assuming details you have not laid out (the individual is Catholic or is within a narrow exemption from that, irrelevant to the discussion) then preparation for death is far more important than having a meal.

I have been around enough people dying that “one more meal” is an irrelevant comment; it will not keep them from dying; but to go along with your scenario, I will assume we are not in a “then tomorrow, we face the same issue again” with some “! day at a time” indefinite extensions. Your person is going to die today or tomorrow.

In such case the priest can provide the Eucharist and does not have to say Mass to do so as there is Eucharistic Bread reserved for such instances.

And since that part was not provided, I provide it.

In short, therre is no "either/or, but in the event of someone dying, receiving the Eucharist is far more important than getting a meal to survive one more day, but not receive.

And I do have a degree in Philosophy, and we did not take wild hypotheticals in our Ethics class, as we had more than ample real word examples from which to study ethics.

Although you may have intended to ask a simple question, your means of asking it masked the simple question with an impossible scenario. I think I have answered your simple question; for someone dying, the Eucharist is more important and is relevant to the dying person, but does not include any ethical corundum for the priest.
 
Huh? The Blessed Sacrament IS food! Divine food; the bread of angels. It says you are Catholic. True? This question reminds me of the Pharisees who constantly tried to trap our lord with a question.

Ever read Philippians 1:20 and following? What Saint Paul and I share is that we both (as should every Catholic)strongly desire to depart this vale of tears and be in God’s presence. God is infinitely more merciful than this world.

Besides, why would a priest have both, but only give one? One nourishes the body while the other nourishes the spirit. Of the two, the spirit is the more valuable.

And no, I’m not going to argue. I just checked and I have a fever. It could be the beginning of the end.

Praise God!
 
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I don’t know what you’re saying but I like the cut of your jib.
 
If you are Catholic, read up! No other belief or non-belief provides such profound comfort. No other has been tested for two millennia and has passed every test.

Peace and good.
 
otjm said:
And I do have a degree in Philosophy, and we did not take wild hypotheticals in our Ethics class, as we had more than ample real word examples from which to study ethics.
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It was amidst my studies for my Bioethics degree that I realized that hypothetical questions are, in the words of Qoheleth, “vanity and a chase after the wind.” Morality happens in the concrete, not in the abstract.
 
Having been verbally clopped up the side of my head a couple of times by professors, I learned to not try to propose hypotheticals.
 
howmanymakecommunity said:
What sort of person butts into a conversation to tell the people talking that they’re wasting their time?

Do you want me to explain to you why it’s a good question?
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I’m a philosophy major, so while I don’t ask you to “take my word for it”, this is what I do for a living, and so I think I have a bit to say in this realm.

You present the scenario as if a person could only choose one or the other, when it’s more likely in reality (and is the case in reality) that a person can actually choose both (or neither, if they choose to do so). You create a false dichotomy where a person can “only” care about one or the other, and they “lose” no matter what, even though their response here isn’t reflected in reality (because the state of affairs you present, where one can only choose one or the other, doesn’t exist).

This is why I compare it to the trolley dilemma, and why I say it’s useless. Philosophy is good only insofar as it has meaning, and how does a thing have meaning except in our experience of it?
 
If I were starving to death and at death’s door, then I would pray for the mercy of receiving the Eucharist…

the man you mention, would the priest know that he was going to commit a mortal sin the very next day for sure?
 
We’re just regular people, man. The Catholic Answers apologists don’t usually participate in threads here. There used to be a specific “Ask an Apologist” forum for directing questions to them, but it was discontinued.
 
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