It all began with a communicant walking out without consuming the Host.

Things escalated quickly.

It led to confrontation, a punch in the face, a police pursuit and reports of the offender throwing a pipe bomb and a Molotov cocktail from his car during the pursuit.

Archdiocesan spokesman Peter Marlow has confirmed an assault occurred during Communion on Sunday.

"It was a person who went up to receive Communion at the 5pm Mass and then didn't consume the consecrated Host" Marlow said.

"There was a visiting person [also in attendance] who stood up and confronted the person and told him ‘You can't leave the church without consuming the Host'" Marlow said.

"And the guy went off and punched him and ran out of the church.

"The gentleman who got punched, I was told, was not in serious condition. He just took a punch and was treated by the paramedics."

He did not comment on what happened to the Communion Host.

Arrest made

A San Francisco City Supervisor reported that police had said the man had "set off a pipe bomb" during the pursuit incident.

He then ignited a "Molotov cocktail" which city authorities said exploded on a street.

The police pursuit ended in another county where the suspect was arrested.

Source

• Catholic News Agency

The crowd waved rainbow flags and according to media reports, sang "All You Need Is Love" by the Beatles.

The mid-September rites included Catholic priests reciting blessings for same-sex and heterosexual couples and, though held outside of Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki's cathedral, represented a bold ecclesiastical affront to the city's conservative archbishop.

Are these rites "weddings"?

That was a crucial issue raised by five cardinals in "dubia" (Latin for "doubts") questions sent to Pope Francis weeks before the Vatican's global "Synod on Synodality," which opened last week.

The five cardinals requested "yes" or "no" answers.

Instead, the pope offered a detailed analysis in which he restated established Catholic doctrines, noting that "the reality that we call marriage has a unique essential constitution that demands an exclusive name."

Thus, the Church should avoid rites giving the "impression that something that is not marriage is recognised as marriage".

Nevertheless, Pope Francis - writing in July - urged "pastoral charity" in this issue.

Thus, the "defense of objective truth is not the only expression of this charity, which is also made up of kindness, patience, understanding, tenderness, and encouragement.

Therefore, we cannot become judges who only deny, reject, exclude.

"For this reason, pastoral prudence must adequately discern whether there are forms of blessing … that do not transmit a mistaken conception of marriage.

"For when a blessing is requested, one is expressing a request for help from God, a plea for a better life, a trust in a Father who can help us to live better."

This drew praise from Francis DeBernardo, leader of the New Ways Ministry for Catholics seeking changes in centuries of Christian doctrine on sexuality.

"The allowance for pastoral ministers to bless same-gender couples implies that the Church does indeed recognise that holy love can exist between same-gender couples, and the love of these couples mirrors the love of God," he wrote.

The Pope's declaration represents "an enormous advance. … This statement is one big straw towards breaking the camel's back of the marginalised treatment LGBTQ+ people experience in the Church."

The Vatican's release of these "dubia" documents underlined the importance of the historic global synod - which will address issues in Church life including the ordination of women, the status of LGBTQ+ believers, clerical celibacy and changes for divorced Catholics seeking Holy Communion.

A strategic leader is Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, who until recently led the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Union and was the Pope's choice as "relator general" for the synod, shaping official documents produced before and after the two-year process.

In a 2022 interview with the Catholic news agency KDA, he said Catholic teachings on "homosexual relationships as sinful are wrong...

"I believe that the sociological and scientific foundation of this doctrine is no longer correct.

"It is time for a fundamental revision of Church teaching, and the way in which Pope Francis has spoken of homosexuality could lead to a change in doctrine."

That kind of shift would shake centuries of doctrine, noted the "dubia" authors - American Cardinal Raymond Burke, German Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, Mexican Cardinal Sandoval Íñiguez, Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah and Cardinal Joseph Zen, former Bishop of Hong Kong.

Thus, they asked: "Is it possible for the Church today to teach doctrines contrary to those she has previously taught in matters of faith and morals, whether by the Pope ex cathedra, or in the definitions of an Ecumenical Council, or in the ordinary universal magisterium" of bishops around the world?

Pope Francis discussed development in doctrines, and claims of absolute truth, during recent remarks in Lisbon, according to a transcript from the Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica.

He criticised Catholics guilty of "backwardness," including Americans who let "ideologies replace faith" and cause divisions among Catholics.

"I would like to remind those people that indietrismo (being backward-looking) is useless and we need to understand that there is an appropriate evolution in the understanding of matters of faith and morals," he said.

Thus, it's important to accept that "our understanding of the human person changes with time, and our consciousness also deepens.

"The other sciences and their evolution also help the Church in this growth in understanding. The view of Church doctrine as monolithic is erroneous."

• Terry Mattingly leads GetReligion.org and lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He is a senior fellow at the Overby Center at the University of Mississippi.
• First published in Religion Unplugged. Republished with permission.

Burke documents the church's history of legislating against giving Communion to persons "obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin." It begs the question of what comprises such sin.

A San Diego group, Catholic Action for Faith and Family, has reprinted, packaged and mailed the 64-page booklet, which retitles Burke's essay as "Deny Holy Communion?"

Founded by Thomas J. McKenna, who acts as Burke's scheduler and is involved with several other lay Catholic organizations, Catholic Action for Faith and Family's two episcopal advisers are Burke himself and San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone.

Determining what comprises "manifest grave sin" seems uppermost in the mind of Cordileone, who last year banned then-Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi from Communion in his archdiocese.

In an April 2022 letter, Cordileone wrote to the speaker, who professes to be a devout Catholic, "You are not to present yourself for Holy Communion … until such time as you publicly repudiate your advocacy for the legitimacy of abortion and confess and receive absolution of this grave sin."

Therein lies the rub, and the confusion. On the other side of the country, Washington Archbishop Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory has said he would not deny Communion to President Joe Biden, another Catholic politician on the wrong side of Cordileone's reading of the law.

Late last month, Bishop Thomas J.J. Paprocki of the diocese of Springfield in Illinois, a canon lawyer who has banned legislators in his state who voted to allow abortion, threw mud into the larger equation with an ungentlemanly critique of San Diego's bishop, Cardinal Robert McElroy, who had published an article in America magazine advocating a more pastoral approach to related questions.

In the middle of all this, the Vatican — in the person of Pope Francis — opposes using Communion as a political weapon.

What does double effect have to do with the fracas? Well, President Biden and the former speaker say they are "personally opposed" to abortion even as they back measures to keep it legal and accessible.

The stretch here is their argument that legalized abortion prevents a worse result. It is a stretch. Does this rise to the level of "manifest grave sin" requiring canonical penalties?

The lawyer-bishops say yes.

The pastoral bishops say no.

Which brings us to the other morality police, the Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal, a Denver group headed by a former employee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which reportedly spent millions of dollars to track clerical use of Grindr, advertised as "the world's largest social-networking app for gay, bi, trans and queer people."

Despite canon law's insistence on not damaging individuals' reputations, the Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal does not see its spying as wrong. Founded in response to the scandal surrounding former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, they say their aim is to protect the church.

From what?

Here, the argument of Military Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the bishops' conference, rises: He connects priest pederasty with homosexuality.

For Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal, then, tracking and sharing clerics' use of hook-up apps has a good intent.

In July 2021, after the group shared its findings with various bishops and others about clerics' use of Grindr and its findings were published by the online newsletter The Pillar, Msgr Jeffrey Burrill was forced to resign as general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

It did not affect his future ministry, however. He is now the administrator of a Wisconsin parish.

The result of all this?

Are Catholics any better evangelized on the problem of abortion as a moral and political issue?

Are the people of God better served when errant clerics are publicly excoriated?

Catholicism does not allow abortion or same-sex relations.

That is well known.

But is this evangelization?

Is anyone even paying attention?

Or have the church and Catholicism in general become ignored footnotes to the news?

• Phyllis Zagano is an internationally acclaimed Catholic scholar and lecturer on contemporary spirituality and women's issues in the church.
• Republished with permission from the author.

In his homily in Knock on Sunday, Bishop of Elphin, Kevin Doran, said he would seriously question the "cancelling" of an invitation to Communion.

"When the Eucharist is thought of as a prize, there seems to be winners and losers; there are some who quite comfortably think of themselves as worthy, while judging others to be unworthy," he acknowledged.

The bishop said neither he as a bishop nor any member of the Catholic faithful have "any business in classifying any group of people as unworthy" of receiving Communion.

His stance would appear to be at odds with several US bishops who have targeted pro-choice Catholic politicians like President Joe Biden and US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

In May Ms Pelosi was barred from receiving Communion by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone in her home diocese of San Francisco..

However, a month later, Pelosi received Communion at a papal Mass while in Rome to meet Pope Francis.

The Pontiff has said he has never denied the Eucharist to anyone.

Last year US president Joe Biden, another Catholic who supports abortion rights, said after meeting Pope Francis in Rome, that the pontiff told him to continue receiving the sacrament even as debate continued among US bishops whether the president should be refused Communion.

Dr Doran acknowledged that the Synodal discussions in the Church had made it clear that "many Catholics for various reasons, feel uncomfortable or unwelcome at the Eucharist".

He said this was not just a problem for those people but "a problem for all of us".

Nevertheless, the outspoken bishop said there are times when a person "cannot honestly accept the invitation to come to Holy Communion, because he or she has done something gravely wrong with full knowledge and full consent".

But he added even then, the invitation is not cancelled. Nobody, he said, "should receive the body and blood of the Lord unworthily. But nobody should stay away unnecessarily".

"In the final analysis, it is the responsibility of each woman or man to follow her or his well-formed conscience in deciding whether or not to come to Holy Communion."

Sources

Irish Times

Independent

Friday's announcement at the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England came from the Global South orthodox bishops as they pressed for re-affirmation of traditional teaching on marriage.

The Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) claims to represent 75 percent of the Anglican Communion.

They declared their position a day after 100 people, including twelve bishops, joined a walk at the Conference's campus venue. The walk aimed to show solidarity with LGBTQ people.

Even before the conference began, documents referring to gay relationships were already causing tempers to flare.

The GSFA says it will table its own resolution at the conference. It will reaffirm Lambeth Resolution 1.10 as the Church's official teaching on marriage and sexuality.

That resolution was formally passed at the Lambeth Conference in 1998. It describes marriage as a life-long commitment between a man and a woman. Same-sex unions are therefore outlawed, the GSFA says.

The 2022 Lambeth Conference organisers have got it wrong, the GSFA adds.

They have failed to recognise the resolution "is not just about sex and marriage".

Rather, it's "fundamentally about the authority of the Bible which Anglicans believe to be central to faith and order".

GSFA chair Archbishop Justin Badi says the GSFA also wants the sanctions imposed on provinces that ordain bishops in same-sex relationships. Provinces allowing same-sex marriages should also be sanctioned.

The Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia is among them, he says.

Badi says the Communion has been "for far too long driven by the views of the West". It has ignored voices from the Global South.

"Today, in Canterbury, we may be ‘gathered together' but we most certainly cannot ‘walk together'".

For that to happen, provinces which have gone against scripture — and the will of the consensus of the bishops — must "repent and return to orthodoxy," he says.

The row over same-sex marriage erupted on the eve of the conference.

The draft conference documents said "It is the mind of the Anglican Communion as a whole that same-gender marriage is not permissible."

Protests from supporters of same-sex marriage followed.

The documents were then amended to note differences among Anglican provinces.

The statement now notes while many provinces ban same-gender marriages, others have a different view.

Besides the 650 bishops from around the globe attending the conference in person, hundreds of others have boycotted it.

They are protesting the support from some parts of the Communion for same-sex marriage.

Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, says the conference is not a synod or a legislative body.

Rather, it is a place where bishops could come together.

While Resolution 1.10 is "still very much part of the Anglican Communion, there's deep division," he says.

"It will need to be decided in each province and diocese."

The Conference - the first to be held in 14 years - will continue after it ends on Friday, when bishops return to their provinces.

Source

• Religion News Service

Weeks and months drifted by without the Eucharist and now we are waking up to a new dawn. Much has changed.

The familiar pattern of Eucharistic ministers waiting to offer each of us the cup at time of Communion seems a distant memory as we revert to previous practices and receive under only one form, with the cup reserved only for the priest-presider.

Maybe it is time to ask some questions in the light of changed ways, questions that challenge our very perception of what we are doing and why we are doing it.

Sharing the cup

We have been told to share a cup, one with another. This practice went directly against the social customs at the time of Jesus and in our times, as well.

For a group of friends to go into a coffee house and order one cup of coffee to share would not be acceptable. In the same way sharing a bottle of wine over dinner demands individual drinking glasses rather than a common cup passed from one to another round the table.

Yet this counter-cultural instruction is at the core of our Eucharistic belief. "Are you prepared to share this cup with me?"

Sharing a cup implies passing the cup from person to person with all the difficulties involved. For this reason, the nature of the goblet or chalice is inappropriate to the purpose we presently assign to them.

A container with two handles or "ears" would be more suitable, like the Ardagh Hoard that a group of boys discovered in Ireland in the mid-19th century. A cup needs to be designed for sharing in order to fulfil the common purpose that is indicated in the instruction given us by Jesus.

Thomas O'Loughlin, a frequent and popular contributor to La Croix International, has some good reflections on this.

Awkward questions don't just go away

So much has changed since the first coronavirus lockdown. Just to go back to Mass without some reflection is not a realistic option. The resumption of a shared cup will hopefully not be delayed too long.

When the dust has settled, we will find that the scenery that surrounds us has indeed been altered.

Maybe one of the consequences of the long COVID-19 pandemic will be to make us re-examine much that we have taken for granted. The security we had become accustomed to continues to be challenged as we take the next steps in our personal pilgrimage of faith.

With change comes challenge, the discomfort of alteration, and the removal of the familiar with all the necessary accommodation that has to be made. Awkward questions don't just go away by being ignored or trivialized.

Remember the words from one of Pete Seeger's songs from the 1960s — "Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing, where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?"

I would suggest that, with the clearing of ground, a time of replanting is at hand, a time to fearlessly question the roots of our faith as we rake over the loose soil in preparation for new green shoots to come to fruition

• Chris McDonnell is a retired headteacher from England and a regular contributor to La Croix International.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

"When you're dealing with a deadly virus, ultimately what you're doing is putting people's lives at risk," Donnelly says.

Clerical abuse survivor Andrew Madden says the bishops are placing children at risk of "reckless endangerment. Again."

At least three of Ireland's Catholic bishops have said they intend to resume First Holy Communion and Confirmation ceremonies in their dioceses, despite the Government's anti-Covid-19 guidelines.

The bishops' stance is yet another COVID controversy between the Church in Ireland. The Church is also arguing with the government about the increase in numbers permitted to attend weddings, which went up from 50 to 100 this week. At the same time, the COVID guideline for funeral attendance remains unchanged at 50 mourners.

In announcing his diocese's intention to resume celebrating these ceremonies, one bishop said he and senior diocesan priests had decided they should be held in line with public health regulations for general religious services.

"The mission of the Church cannot be put on hold indefinitely," he said. The ban is a "guideline" and not a binding law, he pointed out.

Madden, however, says taking public health guidance as advice rather than regulation, reminds him of the late Cardinal Desmond Connell's description of the Church's then child protection measures as "only guidelines" with no authority in canon or civil law.

"That was why Children First [State's child protection legislation] was put on a statutory level," he points out.

In Madden's opinion, the defiance of health guidelines show some bishops "have learned nothing from any of this and are now encouraging people to ignore health and safety ... church before children, old habits die hard".

The Health Minister acknowledges Doran is right to say the communion and confirmation ban is "a public health guideline - not a law" and as such can be ignored by the Catholic bishops.

"But we have a lot of evidence of ‘spreader events' arising out of communions and confirmations. We know this and that's the only reason the public health advice is there not to do it."

Donnelly also says he understands the frustration people of religious faith are feeling and salutes the patience shown by church leaders of all denominations.

"The public health measures have been very difficult for people of faith and for religious institutions. In spite of this, the churches have played an essential role in Ireland's national efforts to suppress COVID," he says.

They are there to keep people safe and ultimately to keep people alive, he added.

"Ireland is doing well and I would ask any clergy considering going against the public health measures to stick with them."

Source

• Irish Times
• Independent
• Image: SkyNews

It will include a section regarding standards for politicians and public figures who support laws allowing abortion, euthanasia and other "moral evils."

The proposed document has already caused controversy. The Vatican has warned against exclusively focusing on abortion and euthanasia and cautioned that the document could further divide U.S. Catholics.

As a Catholic scholar of religion, I would argue that battles over Holy Communion are nothing new in the Catholic Church.

The importance of Holy Communion

In the Catholic Church, the Communion service is one of seven rituals called sacraments that have a primary significance. During this service, called a Mass, Catholics believe that the bread and wine, when especially blessed by a priest, become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Ritually consuming this bread and wine is a special way to "commune," or be united, with Jesus Christ.

Catholics call both the celebration of Mass and the blessed bread and wine the Eucharist, from the Greek word meaning "thanksgiving." Receiving Communion can also be called receiving the Eucharist.

The Catholic Church teaches that in order to receive Communion, a person must not be conscious of serious sin - such as murder or adultery - that has not already been absolved through confession to a priest.

In early Christianity, rules about receiving Communion could be strict. Christians who were known to be guilty of serious sins were not supposed to receive Communion until they went through a process of reconciliation with a local bishop.

In the Middle Ages, very few Catholics actually received Communion at all, as many believed that they were unworthy to do so.

The possibility of scandal

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Catholic Church encouraged a more frequent - even daily - reception of Communion.

Still, one of the main concerns surrounding Communion is that someone publicly known to be committing serious sins would receive Communion. Such cases create "scandal."

In the Catholic Church's terminology, scandal is "an attitude or behaviour which leads another to do evil." So, someone who accepts Communion while at the same time publicly continuing in sinful behaviour encourages others to continue to do the same as well.

When it comes to public policy, the compendium of Catholic doctrine, the Catholic Cathechism, specifically states, "they are guilty of scandal who establish laws or social structures leading to the decline of morals and the corruption of religious practice."

Denying Holy Communion

There is a history of the Catholic Church denying Communion to those participating in what is considered publicly sinful behaviour.

One of the most famous examples is of Ambrose, bishop of Milan, who baptized the theologian Augustine of Hippo, who later became one of the most influential figures in Christian history.

Ambrose denied Communion to the Roman Emperor Theodosius in the fourth century. Enraged by the lynching of a leader of a Roman army garrison, Theodosius gave orders that led to a massacre in the port city of Thessalonica, which killed 7,000 citizens. In a letter calling for Theodosius to take responsibility for his actions, Ambrose wrote, "Are you ashamed, O Emperor?"

From 1208 to 1214, Pope Innocent III asked his bishops to place England and Wales under "interdict," or "prohibition," which banned the performance of all sacraments - including the Eucharist - except for baptism and confession of the dying.

The reason for this extreme act was said to be that King John had rejected Innocent III's candidate for the important position of archbishop of Canterbury.

In the early 20th century, Irish bishops spoke against continuing acts of violence by Irish nationalists who opposed the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921, which established the Irish Free State and ended the Irish War of Independence.

In a letter published on 22 October 1922, the Irish bishops denied absolution and Communion to "irregulars" using violence against the "legitimate authority" of the government.

More recently, it was reported in 2011 that priests in Malta were denying Communion to Catholics who supported legalizing divorce.

In the United States, presidential candidate John Kerry was denied Communion in 2004, reportedly for his support for abortion rights. The same issue saw Joseph Biden denied Communion in 2019 by a church in South Carolina.

Holy Communion controversies

At the same time, the Catholic Church has also been questioned for not denying Communion to Catholic public figures who have behaved sinfully.

In his trip to Chile in 1987, Pope John Paul II criticized the military dictatorship under the Army General Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet led a revolt that toppled the elected government.

Thousands were tortured and executed under his rule. But the pope still gave Pinochet Communion.

When Pope John Paul II was beatified - a crucial step in becoming named a saint - Zimbabwe's ruler, Robert Mugabe, was in attendance.

Among many human rights abuses, Mugabe sanctioned the killing of 20,000 people belonging to the Ndebele ethnic minority who were loyal to his rival, Joshua Nkomo. Nonetheless, Mugabe was allowed to take Communion at the Vatican, in St. Peter's Square. Some in the African Catholic media called this a "scandal."

The path forward

Pope Francis has stated: "The Eucharist, although it is the fullness of sacramental life, is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak."

And so one of the key issues that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' proposed document will surely need to address is when human weakness becomes a serious sin and scandal.

While the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops will issue guidelines for the reception of Communion, it will be the task of individual bishops to decide how to put them into practice.

And some Catholic bishops, notably Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington D.C., have said they will not deny communion to President Biden in their jurisdictions.

At the present time, the Catholic Church in America is highly polarized. For his part, President Biden, who goes to Mass every week, has said that he has no plan to change how he worships.

In such a context, U.S. Catholic bishops will have to move forward very carefully.

• Mathew Schmalz Professor of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross
• First published in The Conversation

Dozens of bishops had written to the USCCB president, Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez, requesting to postpone the debate until a later meeting. They wanted more time to prepare for the debate, and to discuss the issue in person rather than via a virtual meeting.

But prompt action is being sought by some conservative bishops who want to signal that President Joe Biden and other Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should not receive Communion.

Archbishop Gomez explained that the USCCB administrative committee approved a request from Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, for the discussion on drafting a document to examine the "meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the church".

Bishop Rhoades chairs the bishops' committee on doctrine, which would draft the document if approved by the full assembly.

In a memo, Archbishop Gomez said USCCB rules require that the body of bishops first be asked whether to issue a document on a particular topic.

"Importantly, the action item does not ask the body to approve a final statement, but only whether drafting of a text may begin," the memo said.

If the action is approved, the doctrine committee would begin its work, subject to the conference's "usual process of consultation, modification and amendment" when presented for consideration at a future general assembly.

"As you will note, the focus of this proposed teaching document is on how best to help people to understand the beauty and mystery of the Eucharist as the center of their Christian lives," Gomez wrote.

Denver Archbishop Samuel Aquila, one of the conservatives engaged in the discussions, issued a statement Tuesday praising Gomez and saying he "followed the correct procedures to facilitate this critical discussion as a body of bishops."

Aquila referred to a May 7 letter to Gomez from the head of the Vatican's doctrine office, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, urging the US bishops to deliberate carefully and minimize divisions before proceeding with any action on the Communion issue.

"It was clear from it that the USCCB's plan to discuss and debate this important issue is warranted and encouraged," Aquila said. "In contrast, the publication of the letter calling for a halt to discussion at our June meeting on this vital issue risks creating an atmosphere of factionalism, rather than unity amongst the bishops."

But in a recent essay, Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego made a case against the campaign to deny Biden and others Communion.

"It will bring tremendously destructive consequences," McElroy wrote. "The Eucharist is being weaponized and deployed as a tool in political warfare. This must not happen."

Sources

The Tablet

America Magazine

ABC News

Bishop Eduardo Taussig announced June 13 that the Eucharist in his diocese was to be distributed only in the hand, until the pandemic concluded.

The bishop asked Catholics at that time to avoid putting priests or ministers of Communion in a difficult position "by requesting communion on the tongue, either at Mass or outside of the celebration." Read more

1. We believe that Baptism in the Protestant Churches gives exactly the same thing Baptism in the Catholic Church gives — the "state of grace": divine life and the divine gifts of faith, hope, and love. We do not re-baptize Protestants who become Catholics.

2. Pope St. Pius X wrote in his Eucharistic decree, December 20, 1905, "No one who is in the state of grace and comes to the table of the Lord with a good attitude and devotion can be prohibited from receiving Communion."

3. Therefore, any baptized Christian who has not rejected the grace of Baptism by doing something so evil it is called "deadly" or "mortal sin" (1John 5:16-17) is permitted by Catholic doctrine to receive Communion.

Pope John XXIII added: "We address, then, as brothers and sisters all who are separated from us, using the words of Saint Augustine: "Whether they wish it or not, they are our brothers and sisters. They cease to be our brothers and sisters only when they stop saying 'Our Father'" (Ad Petri Cathedram, 86).

If Protestants are our brothers and sisters in Christ, then we are being inconsistent with our faith when we deny them a place together with us at our Father's table.

It is true that Catholic policies—administrative rules that change according to time and place—sometimes add restrictions.

For example, in the Latin or Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, children are required to receive doctrinal instruction before their First Communion. In the Eastern Rites of the equally Catholic Church, babies are given Communion as soon as they are baptized.

These policies are based on practical considerations, and are not absolute. For example, no Roman Rite priest in his right mind would deny Communion to a baptized child in the hospital just for lack of the scheduled doctrinal instruction.

There are official policies that seem to deny Communion to non-Catholics. But Father Bernard Häring (1912-1998), whom some consider the greatest moral theologian of modern times, wrote about a Mass at which he presided while serving in the German army during World War II:

On the eve of the outset of the Russian war, I took it upon myself to celebrate the Eucharist and grant general absolution to soldiers of all faiths, most of whom participated.

Given the seriousness of the situation, and because all of us where one in Christ Jesus, I found it unthinkable, in fact, totally abhorrent,to uphold and maintain any distinctions between Catholics and Protestants.

Consequently, all the men, regardless of their faith persuasions, felt called to share in Communion" (Priesthood Imperiled, Triumph Books, p. 9).

Can you imagine anyone who has the slightest acquaintance with Jesus Christ refusing Communion to a young soldier about to face death, just because he wasn't a formal member of the Catholic Church?

Many official policies—policies made in offices—appear acceptable within the isolated capsules of bureaucratic management. But they lose all connection with religion and rationality when brought down to earth in the mud and blood of the battlefield.

John Paul II gave communion in the Vatican to Tony Blair, Prime Minister of England, while he was still an Anglican. At John Paul's funeral, Pope Benedict XVI gave Communion to Brother Roger, a Presbyterian founder of the ecumenical monastery of Taizè.

That should be enough to settle the question. But let's develop it a little further.

Are we one in faith?
It is Catholic teaching that all who are baptized with water "in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" receive exactly the same gift—the "grace" of sharing in the divine life of God—without any difference. All are equally Christians. All receive the same gifts of divine faith, hope, and love.

But after the Protestant Reformation, we began to speak and act as if there were a difference between being baptized into the "Catholic Church" or into a "Protestant" Church.

There is a difference, but it is not in Baptism itself. Nor is there any difference in the gift of faith that we receive.

By the divine gift of faith we know what only God knows, in a way no creature can possibly know it. For that we have to share in God's own act of knowing. Jesus made that clear: "No one knows the Father except the Son" (Matthew 11:27).

To know God as he is, you have to be God. To know God as Father you have to be God the Son. So when Jesus adds, "and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him," he is saying the Son lets us know the Father as he himself does in the only way possible; that is, by letting us share in his own divine act of knowing. That gift is the "mystery of faith."

When Protestants and Catholics receive the gift of divine life and divine faith through Baptism, there is no difference between us.

But when the wordless light of faith given in Baptism is translated into human thoughts and words, there can be differences in the human expression of the same truth that is in the hearts of all, and in the way people will be taught to live out the gift of divine life each receives at Baptism.

This makes a real and practical difference on the level of "religion" (doctrines, rules and practices). But on the level of the deep mystery of the gift of faith given at, all Christians are the same.

While these differences are important — because we need to be both human and divine in the way we understand and live our religion — they should not make us forget that, down deep, consciously or not, on the level of the divine life of grace that we share, we are all the same.

Whenever and wherever we find evidence of God's light shining in others, whether they are consciously Christians or not, we experience "communion in the Holy Spirit."

All the Catholic bishops in the world affirmed this during the Second Vatican Council, which met in Vatican City from 1962 to 1965:

People who believe in Christ and have been truly baptized are in communion with the Catholic Church even though this communion is imperfect.

The differences that exist in varying degrees between them and the Catholic Church - whether in doctrine and sometimes in discipline, or concerning the structure of the Church - do indeed create many obstacles, sometimes serious ones, to full ecclesiastical communion.

The ecumenical movement is striving to overcome these obstacles. But even in spite of them it remains true that all who have been justified by faith in Baptism are members of Christ's body, and have a right to be called Christian, and so are correctly accepted as brothers and sisters by the children of the Catholic Church (Unitatis Redintegratio, 3).

We could stop right here and ask if it is consistent with our belief to ban from the Father's table those who are "accepted as brothers and sisters by the children of the Catholic Church" because they are children of the same Father.

The foundation of our essential unity is the Truth all Christians believe and mystically know by what Saint John of the Cross calls "the dark light" of faith. What we understand humanly by translating our faith into human words can be misleading.

Recognizing this, the bishops urged theologians "to seek continually for more suitable ways of communicating doctrine to the people of their times. For the 'deposit of faith,' or revealed truths, are one thing; the manner in which they are formulated… is another" (Gaudium et spes, 62).

A special problem

People often make this objection: "But many Protestants don't believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist."

As Catholics, however, conscious of the mystery of faith and grace in them, we would say, without arrogance, that they really do believe in the real presence. They just don't know they do.

The Eastern Rites of the united Catholic Church give Communion to babies as soon as they are baptized. Do these babies have an explicit and conscious faith in the doctrine of transubstantiation?

Could they say, even if old enough to speak, "This is the real Body of Jesus"? No, but they do have faith, because it was given to them as a gift at Baptism.

That gift is the light of God in their hearts empowering them to believe everything God has revealed.

By that gift we must say the babies already believe truths they have not yet learned and are not mature enough either to understand or express. One of them is the real presence of Jesus in Eucharist.

Protestant babies, who receive the same gifts of divine faith, hope and love at Baptism that Catholic babies do, already, in a way deeper than human consciousness, share in Christ's own act of knowing.

Like all whom grace has made "children of God," they know the Father as their Father, as only God the Son can know him (see Matthew 11: 27). And in the same preconscious way, they share in Christ's knowledge that the Eucharist is his real Body and Blood.

But for this knowledge to translate itself into explicit human thoughts and words, further maturity and education are necessary. Continue reading

• The analysis or comments in this article do not necessarily reflect the view of CathNews.

The bishops' conference recommends that Communion only be received in the hand, but individual bishops have the authority to make policy for their dioceses, and have adopted varying guidelines.

A spokesperson for the bishops' conference told the Tablet: "Bishops are strongly recommended to adopt the guidance but bishops have the right to act as they see fit in their own diocese and to accept the consequences of their actions." Read more

One of their concerns is what to do about distributing communion, which is considered a "high risk of contagion" moment.

Cardinal Robert Sarah, (pictured) who is the head of the Vatican's liturgical office, has warned them that the answer cannot be the "desecration of the Eucharist."

"No one can be denied confession and communion," so even if the faithful cannot attend Mass, if a priest is asked to give either they must oblige, he told them.

Although no date yet has been announced for the resumption of Mass, one of the solutions being considered is a "take-out" communion.

This proposal would see hosts placed in plastic bags to be consecrated by the priests and left on shelves for people to take.

"No, no, no," Sarah said to a reporter, when the idea was put to him.

"It's absolutely not possible, God deserves respect, you can't put him in a bag.

"I don't know who thought this absurdity, but if it is true that the deprivation of the Eucharist is certainly a suffering, one cannot negotiate how to receive communion.

"We receive communion in a dignified way, worthy of God who comes to us.

"The Eucharist must be treated with faith, we cannot treat it as a trivial object, we are not in the supermarket," Sarah said.

"It's totally insane."

When the reporter told Sarah (who's sometimes been seen as out of sync with Pope Francis) that this method is already being used in some churches in Germany, Sarah replied:

"Unfortunately, many things are done in Germany that are not Catholic, but this doesn't mean that we must imitate them."

He then said he'd recently heard a bishop say that in the future, there would be no more Eucharistic assemblies - the Mass with the Eucharist - but the Liturgy of the Word.

"But this is Protestantism," he said, without naming the bishop.

Sarah also said the Eucharist is not a "right or a duty" but a gift freely given by God that must be welcomed with "veneration and love."

Catholics believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist after the hosts are consecrated by the priest.

Sarah explained that in the Eucharistic form, God is a person, and "no one would welcome a person they love in a bag or in an unworthy way.

"The response to the privation of the Eucharist cannot be desecration.

"This really is a matter of faith, if we believe it we cannot treat it unworthily."

Regarding Masses being streamed or on TV during the pandemic, Sarah said Catholics cannot "get used to this" because "God is incarnated, he is flesh and blood, he is not a virtual reality."

It's misleading for priests, who should be looking at God during the Mass and not the camera, as if the liturgy was a "show," he added.

Source

• Crux Now
• Image: La Croix International

The new, controversial statement comes after days of heated public debate in Greece about whether the Church of Greece should adopt more drastic measures to limit the potential spread of the disease through its liturgies and the Holy Eucharist.

"For the members of the Church, attending the Holy Eucharist … certainly cannot be a cause of disease transmission," the Holy Synod declared in its statement. Read more

Fr Scott Nolan recently informed Kent County District Court Judge Sara Smolenski she should not receive communion at his church.

The Diocese of Grand Rapids said it supports the decision.

"No community of faith can sustain the public contradiction of its beliefs by its own members".

"This is especially so on matters as central to Catholic life as marriage, which the Church has always held, and continues to hold, as a sacred covenant between one man and one woman," the diocese said in its statement.

Smolenski was baptised in the parish church, educated in the parish school. Her parents were married there and she recently donated $7000 to the building fund.

Smolenski said that St Stephen church helped form her faith.

"My faith is a huge part of who I am, but it is the church that made that faith, the very church where he is taking a stance and saying ho-ho, not you," she said.

Smolenski married her life long partner in a civil ceremony in 2016.

Open about her sexuality, she had never been denied communion before.

On November 17, 2019, Nolan offered her Holy Communion, however on November 23 Nolan phoned her to inform her of his new rule.

Nolan has not responded to media who want to know what brought about the change.

Natalia Imperatori-Lee, a professor at Manhattan College who studies Catholic ecclesiology, is calling the communion denial a "very violent act".

"To deny a parishioner who approaches the altar for communion ... is to replace her conscience with his own, and to usurp the mercy of God," Imperatori-Lee told HuffPost.

"I can't think of anything more antithetical to ministry than that."

While Catholic teaching on same-sex marriage is clear, some are asking if LGBTQ people are being singled out.

Lisa Sowie Cahill, a theology professor at Boston College says it seems the reason for a Catholic priest denying someone communion is more about sexuality than any other issue.

The Church does little about those who contradict Church teachings on e.g. environmental justice, welcoming the stranger or the death penalty she says.

Source

• Huffington Post

He says he wishes the priest (Robert Morey) hadn't taken the issue to the press.

Biden, who is a life-long Catholic, says Morey's move to inform the press is "not a position that I've found anywhere else, including from the Holy Father, who gives me communion".

He said that he was "prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception," but added that to impose that belief upon others through the application of law would be "inappropriate in a pluralistic society."

"There is a debate in our church, as Cardinal Egan would acknowledge, that's existed.

"Back in ‘Summa Theologia,' when Thomas Aquinas wrote ‘Summa Theologia,' he said there was no-it didn't occur until quickening, 40 days after conception. How can I tell you or anyone else that you must insist upon my view that is based on a matter of faith? And that's the reason I haven't," Biden said.

When asked to give his views on the denial of communion, the archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, said he thinks there was most likely a better way to handle the issue than going to the press.

"If only saints could receive Holy Communion, we wouldn't have anybody at Mass, including myself," he said.

Dolan said he would have used a more personal approach rather than making a quick decision.

He also said he's never denied someone from receiving communion, as it's "never come up."

Nonetheless, he thinks Morey had a good point in refusing the sacrament as abortion is a concern of "critical substance" within the church.

"We're talking about life and death in the church. You personally, out of integrity should not approach Holy Communion, because that implies that you're in union with all the church beliefs," he added.

He said he admires people who hold back from receiving communion if they are not fully following the teachings of the church and Jesus.

However, he noted that the Eucharist is "medicine for the soul" and said all should feel welcome.

While the decision to offer communion is made by an individual priest, the choice to deny an official communion based on their public positions is controversial.

Pope Francis has confirmed the Church's continued opposition to abortion but has also suggested that communion should not be withheld from practicing Catholics based on their specific beliefs.

"The Eucharist … is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak," he wrote in 2013

Source

• NewsMax
• PBS
• CNA
• Image: National Catholic Reporter

Biden, who is a presidential candidate, is refusing to confirm the reports,

saying the incident is part of his "personal life."

The priest who refused to give Biden the sacrament, says based his decision on Biden's support for legal abortion.

"Sadly, this past Sunday, I had to refuse Holy Communion to former Vice President Joe Biden," Fr Robert Morey says.

"Holy Communion signifies we are one with God, each other and the Church. Our actions should reflect that.

"Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of Church teaching.

"As a priest, it is my responsibility to minister to those souls entrusted to my care, and I must do so even in the most difficult situations. I will keep Mr. Biden in my prayers."

Earlier this year Biden condemned state legislation across the country that barred women from having abortions.

"I'm a practicing Catholic. I practice my faith, but I've never let my religious beliefs, which I accept based on Church doctrine ... impose ... on other people," he said at the time.

However, Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law has a clear statement in relation to his position on abortion, which the Church regards as a grave sin..

The law says: "Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion."

Biden isn't the fist politician to be denied Communion.

Former Senator John Kerry faced a similar denial when he was campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 because of his stance on abortion rights.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Fox News
• Image: CNN

Then again, you may not be welcome to do so, or you could find yourself simply unsure.

This confusing situation, created by a proposed change to the tradition that the Catholic Eucharist was "for Catholics only," leaves German Catholicism caught between its majority's desire for a relaxation of the rules — a view shared by Pope Francis — and the limits to change in the world's largest church.

In February, the German Catholic bishops approved draft guidelines for priests on when they may distribute Catholic Communion to Protestants attending Mass, signaling a new openness.

But the guidelines immediately sparked a tussle between reformers and conservatives and surprising flip-flops from the Vatican.

Since then, some dioceses have reflected the new attitude toward inter-Communion on their official websites.

Other churches hardly post even a passing reference to it. Meanwhile, a debate has gripped the country's Catholic Church, exacerbated by mixed signals from the Vatican.

The question of inter-Communion, which hardly arises in many other countries, is a recurrent one in Germany.

The country's Christians are almost evenly divided between Catholics and Protestants (mostly Lutherans), and many marriages cross denominational boundaries.

As a result, many German Protestants already receive Communion with their Catholic spouses, often with the agreement of their parish priest.

They do so discreetly, however, because the Vatican seemed opposed to it and because many church leaders fear that officially condoning individual exceptions could be a slippery slope toward full doctrinal change.

Apparently Catholicism's ecumenical principles and their inclusive understanding of the church … are still foreign to some people 50 years after the Second Vatican Council," complained Bishop Gerhard Feige, the bishops conference delegate for ecumenical relations and a co-author of the guidelines.

Pope Francis has taken a more flexible approach to interpreting Catholic canon law than his conservative predecessors and has made better relations with other Christians a priority.

Thinking the time was right to tackle the issue, the German bishops conference — led by Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx, a senior papal adviser — drew up a 38-page "pastoral guide" meant to help priests lead mixed couples to a solution.

The Protestant spouse must share the Catholic understanding of Jesus Christ's real presence in the Eucharist — to which Lutheran doctrine is close — and be in "severe spiritual distress" by being excluded from it, it said.

A large majority of the bishops present — 47 out of 60 — voted in February to publish the document, titled "Walking with Christ —  Tracing Unity," in the near future.

A month later, seven dissenting bishops led by Cologne Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki asked the Vatican to rule whether the guidelines violated Catholic doctrine and the unity of the worldwide church. Continue reading

• Image: RNS

In an introduction to a new book about Communion practices, the cardinal writes, "We can understand how the most insidious diabolical attack consists in trying to extinguish faith in the Eucharist, sowing errors and favoring an unsuitable manner of receiving it," according to a translation published by PrayTellBlog.

"Truly the war between Michael and his Angels on one side, and Lucifer on the other, continues in the heart of the faithful: Satan's target is the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Real Presence of Jesus in the consecrated host."

Cardinal Sarah questions why Catholics stand—rather than kneel—and receive Communion in the hand and asks, "Why this attitude of lack of submission to the signs of God?"

The Vatican allows the faithful to receive Communion in the hand in nations around the world and the practice has become nearly universal in many countries, including in the United States.

Timothy Johnston, a former diocesan liturgy director who now writes for the Chicago-based Liturgy Training Publications, told America that "to equate standing and receiving in the hand to Satan is irresponsible and continues to polarize the Christian community."

"However one chooses to receive holy Communion, it must be done with great reverence. Such reverence is something which we can all agree to seek more fully, no matter our posture," he said, adding that the cardinal's words "deny a valid practice inherited from the early church."

John F. Baldovin, S.J., a professor of historical and liturgical theology at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, said in an email to America that Cardinal Sarah's remarks "betray a fundamental disagreement with a theology and piety of the Eucharist that understand the act of Communion as an act of a loving Savior who wishes to make us a part of his body—both in receiving the sacrament itself and in becoming more a part of his body which is the church." Continue reading

• Michael J. O'Loughlin is the national correspondent for America.

Archbishop Arthur Roche, who is the number two official at the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, says reports of a joint Mass were "utterly false".

Greg Burke, Director of the Holy See Press Office, backs up Roche, saying the claims are "simply untrue."

Their denials followed a report by author Marco Tosatti in "First Things" quoting anonymous sources who said a commission was looking at creating an "ecumenical Mass".

First Things claims to be "America's most influential journal of religion and public life".

The report also says Cardinal Sarah, the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, had not been informed of the plans.

In addition, it says Archbishop Roche and Archbishop Piero Marini - who was the former Master of Ceremonies for John Paul II - were both involved in the commission.

The First Things story was later followed up in The Australian, which put the claims of a possible joint Mass to the Vatican but did not receive a response.

Church teaching prevents Catholics and other Christian denominations from sharing communion.

However, joint prayer services with an ecumenical liturgy was agreed between Catholics and Lutherans to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

Pope Francis raised the possibility of Lutherans receiving communion during Mass in November 2015, although this did not include communion at church.

Canon law and the 1993 Ecumenical Directory allow for certain cases of emergency or "grave necessity" in which "intercommunion" is possible.

Source

• Aleteia
• The Tablet
• Image: Catholic Exchange