Canada's PM in missing host mystery [CN-USA]

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Published: July 08, 2009

The Vicar-General of the Diocese of St John, New Brunswick is demanding that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Office explain what happened to the sacramental communion wafer the PM received at a recent funeral.

During communion at a service held last Friday for a former Canadian governor general, the prime minister slipped the thin wafer that Catholics call “the host” into his jacket pocket, The Telegraph-Journal reports.

Monsignor Brian Henneberry, vicar general and chancellor in the Diocese of Saint John, wants to know whether the prime minister consumed the host and, if not, what happened to it.

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Ha Ha, way to go Harper. I was watching that funeral on tv but I didn’t see him go up for communion. Harper has been fairly open about his Christianity, but he belongs to the Christian and Missionary Alliance, not to the Catholic Church. I suspect that he knows the protocol for accepting communion, but some of our Bishops have a habit of inviting non-Catholic dignitaries up for communion. Obviously nobody stopped him from receiving, because there were five bishops at that funeral. Why he would put it in his pocket, though, is beyond me.
 
Possibly he went up, because everyone else was, thinking it was for a blessing or something, was given a host, realized, as a non-Catholic, he was not allowed to consume it, so he placed it in his pocket? As a Protestant, he would not believe/know of the Real Presence. If this is the scenario, after it has been explained to him, he should promptly return the host and profusely apologize.

I’m sure this is some sort of innocent mistake on his part. I can’t imagine a head of government doing something like this deliberately, commiting a blatent sacriledge in public - his political career would be over.
 
I saw this in the news too. You can see a video clip. Communion was offered to everyone in the front row where the Bishop moved along it, rather than everyone having to come up.

I think it is better that PM Harper pocketed it than eating the host, however, there should have been more briefing in advance.

Why do priests and Bishops offer communion to non Catholics in events like this???
 
PadraigPearce said:
Ha Ha, way to go Harper. I was watching that funeral on tv but I didn’t see him go up for communion. Harper has been fairly open about his Christianity, but he belongs to the Christian and Missionary Alliance, not to the Catholic Church. I suspect that he knows the protocol for accepting communion, but some of our Bishops have a habit of inviting non-Catholic dignitaries up for communion. Obviously nobody stopped him from receiving, because there were five bishops at that funeral. Why he would put it in his pocket, though, is beyond me.
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According to your sig, you call yourself Catholic. You might want to rethink the bolded statement that you made in your post.

I hope this PM pocketed the body, blood, soul, and divinity of our Lord because he knew he shouldn’t recieve Him, and I hope he returns Him to the Church post haste.
 
Ilroy said:
According to your sig, you call yourself Catholic. You might want to rethink the bolded statement that you made in your post.

I hope this PM pocketed the body, blood, soul, and divinity of our Lord because he knew he shouldn’t recieve Him, and I hope he returns Him to the Church post haste.
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That was an attempt at sarcasm on my part. Maybe it didn’t come across clearly, but I wasn’t actually congratulating our Prime Minister for stealing a host. Let’s not take ourselves too seriously.
 
Here is another link to the story:

telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/front/article/722036

As a Catholic in this diocese, I can say that I find it appalling that the Archbishop of Moncton would not make an announcement prior to communion that communion is only for Catholics. I know that Priests in his diocese will say that at certain occasions and any intelligent person would know that at a high profile funeral mass, there would be people who aren’t Catholic.

I don’t blame the Prime Minister per se because I doubt he knows Catholic teaching about Communion however, his protocol advisors should have known that.

Finally at the above link, I get angry at the comments the readers make about this news story. Where do Non-Catholics get off lecturing us about Christianity?
 
According to one of his spokespersons, PM Harper did eat the host.
Code: 
"A spokesperson for Prime Minister Stephen Harper is denying reports he received a sacramental communion wafer recently at Roméo LeBlanc's Roman Catholic funeral mass and pocketed it instead of consuming it..."

 source: [thestar.com/news/canada/article/662767](http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/662767)
 
cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2009/07/08/harper-archbishop.html#socialcomments
Prime Minister Stephen Harper should not have accepted communion at Roméo LeBlanc’s state funeral in Memramcook, N.B., the archbishop of Moncton said Wednesday.
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Msgr. André Richard said the church law is clear, but he is not looking for any apologies or explanations from Harper or the Prime Minister’s Office.
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Well Msgr. Richard, maybe if you did your duty to remind non-Catholics that they shouldn’t receive communion, then this would never have occurred.
 
I just watched the news on CBC and a new bit of information was said on it. Apparently the Archbishop didn’t know whether to give Harper (Evangelical) communion and sought advice on this theological matter with the Prime Minister’s aide’s.

I think its high time that the Archbishop should tender his resignation early.

People here should also know that many of the Church’s (everyone that I have attended) are disobedient to the liturgical rules about kneeling and standing during Mass. In some Church’s they will stand throughout the entire Consecration or in others they will stand after the Memorial Acclamation.
 
I saw the video and you can’t tell what Harper did with the host. I don’t see any reason to think he didn’t consume it.
 
JaMc said:
Possibly he went up, because everyone else was, thinking it was for a blessing or something, was given a host, realized, as a non-Catholic, he was not allowed to consume it, so he placed it in his pocket? As a Protestant, he would not believe/know of the Real Presence. If this is the scenario, after it has been explained to him, he should promptly return the host and profusely apologize.

I’m sure this is some sort of innocent mistake on his part. I can’t imagine a head of government doing something like this deliberately, commiting a blatent sacriledge in public - his political career would be over.
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You may be right there. It reminds me of a story my sister told me about her former boss, Dave.Dave is Jewish, and his finance,Anne Marie(now wife) went to mass together,since she was an Italian Catholic. Well, when they started to hand out the Blessed Eucharist, people get up and start moving towards the altar. Dave also gets up because he wants to get in line too.Anne Marie hisses at him, "Where are you going? To which Dave replied,"I’m going to get a cookie!She then proceeds to tell him to sit down and explained WHY he can’t have a communion host. I laughed my head off at the time I heard this.

Dave, being Jewish, didn’t know about the host or anything,so at least he had an excuse for his action. Someone on the Prime Minister’s staff,especially Catholics, should have told him about the funeral mass, aND ABOUT COMMUNION, and how non Catholics can’t recieve the hosts. The Archbishop should have told all the non Catholics that it was time for us to recieve the Lord,and that those who are not Catholic or Orthodox, may remain in their seats and pray or something.I think Orthodox can recieve communion as well as Eastern Rite Catholics. in a Catholic church.
Boy what a mess,.
 
The only thing learned from this is how ignorant Canadians are about their country’s largest religion. The amount of hateful ignorance posted on the CBC’s article about this in the reader comments section is shameful. The Church needs to do a better job of informing Canadians about why Holy Communion is holy. Maybe then Canadians would give rational reasons as to why Catholics should not be upset when they watch the Prime Minister drop the Body and Blood of Christ into his coat to rub alongside his left-over pocket change.

“Corpus Christi.”
“Amen.” /
“The Body of Christ.”
“I believe.”
 
I have to force myself to stop looking at the comments on the CBC website sometimes, but it’s so hard to do; they’re like looking at a car crash.It’s the same bunch of hateful people who comment on every single story. Any time the Pope or the Church is mentioned, no matter what the story, the hateful throngs come out. The ignorance in some of those coments is astounding. Fortunately most Canadians are not like the posters on the CBC. (And they get the odd Catholic “troll” who corrects them about Catholic doctrine).
 
The Toronto Star has an article on it today:

thestar.com/article/663345
Richard said a protocol officer told him before the ceremony that anyone who wanted to take part in communion would signal their willingness to do so.
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So a protocol officer tells the Catholic Archbishop who can receive communion or not?

Should I write the Vatican or the Apostolic Pro-Nuncio?
 
canadianguy1143 said:
The Toronto Star has an article on it today:

thestar.com/article/663345

So a protocol officer tells the Catholic Archbishop who can receive communion or not?

Should I write the Vatican or the Apostolic Pro-Nuncio?
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That does not change the fact that the bishop willingly gave it so someone who shouldn’t have gotten it…
That someone is willing to partake and signals so does not make him/her eligible…
I still think it has a certain irony to it. Why is it that the church always pays great attention to these things, when it comes to people whom they explicitly don’t want to partake and let this event here happen by doing exactly that: They give it to someone who is not catholic and thereby in their eyes ineligible…
 
Janet1983 said:
That does not change the fact that the bishop willingly gave it so someone who shouldn’t have gotten it…
That someone is willing to partake and signals so does not make him/her eligible…
I still think it has a certain irony to it. Why is it that the church always pays great attention to these things, when it comes to people whom they explicitly don’t want to partake and let this event here happen by doing exactly that: They give it to someone who is not catholic and thereby in their eyes ineligible…
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Dear Janet1983,

I find your post to be incoherent. Can you please restate what you are trying to say?
 
canadianguy1143 said:
The Toronto Star has an article on it today:

thestar.com/article/663345

So a protocol officer tells the Catholic Archbishop who can receive communion or not?

Should I write the Vatican or the Apostolic Pro-Nuncio?
Click to expand...
I would, I think it’s pretty outrageous …BUT, on the flipside of things…is it possible that the PM was taking it to be polite? Maybe he didn’t realize that putting it in his pocket is a grave offense in the Roman Catholic Church? I’m grasping at straws I know…but it didn’t seem like what he did was with malice. It was out of ignorance, I think.

Just my two cents…But, I would definitely write something, CG! *
 
whatevergirl said:
I would, I think it’s pretty outrageous …BUT, on the flipside of things…is it possible that the PM was taking it to be polite? Maybe he didn’t realize that putting it in his pocket is a grave offense in the Roman Catholic Church? I’m grasping at straws I know…but it didn’t seem like what he did was with malice. It was out of ignorance, I think.

Just my two cents…But, I would definitely write something, CG! *
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I totally agree. From the news stories, it seems that the Archbishop is taking orders on Catholic matters from the Prime Minister’s protocol officer. That is clearly unacceptable for any Bishop. It could also be said that the protocol officer needs to be put in his/her place as they shouldn’t have that authority. However, since we don’t know how the conversation went, we can’t say who said what exactly.
 
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