OK, so now I need to know what **“received into the Church” **means… . . .
(Responding after a long break with our snow.)
The code of canon law almost universally uses the term “Christian faithful” to mean Catholics. However, it is possible to distinguish the “Christian faithful” who are in communion with the Catholic Church from those other (baptized) Christians who are not in full communion. (One exception is the distinction that is implicit in c. 844 §1 which speaks of “Catholic members of the Christian faithful.” That implies that there are non Catholic members of the Christian faithful, but the code concerns the Catholic ones.)
Now c. 204 §1 says that the Christian faithful are those who, because they have been incorporated in Christ through baptism, have been constituted as the people of God. So that is the
broad sense of the term. If someone is validly baptized, then he or she is incorporated in Christ.
Then c. 205 gives the
narrow notion of full communion: those baptized are fully in communion with the Catholic Church on this earth who are joined with Christ in its visible structure by the bonds of profession of faith, the sacraments and ecclesiastical governance. (Students will recognize the three bonds that St. Robert Bellarmine mentions.)
Authorities note that Catholic baptism or reception is sufficient to achieve the full communion in c. 205. Consequently c. 11 states that merely ecclesiastical laws bind those who have been baptized in the Catholic Church or received into it, possess the sufficient use of reason and, unless the law expressly provides otherwise, have completed seven years of age. Others are not bound to the laws of the Catholic Church except when they would bound indirectly to some when marrying a Catholic. Though recall all people- regardless of baptismal or religious status- are bound to divine law.
The reception of baptized a Christian into full communion of the Catholic Church " is a liturgical rite [with an effect in Church law] by which a person born and baptized in a separated ecclesial Community is received, according to the Latin Rite, into the full communion of the Catholic Church." (RCIA, n. 473) Through it, a person accepts the three fold bonds in c. 205 before the bishop or a priest to whom this task is entrusted (n. 491). Therefore, reception into the Church makes someone who was a member of the Christian faithful in the broad sense into a member of the Christian faithful* in the narrow sense*.
Confirmation is a sacrament that is administered to Catholics. It does not by itself, make a baptized non Catholic Catholic. (It is not conferred upon Eastern non Catholics when received into the Catholic Church because they have already been validly confirmed.)
Again, if a person is a Catholic, he or she may receive communion before confirmation if otherwise not prohibited by c. law, suitably disposed, and in a state of grace.
Suffice it to say that receiving Catholic Eucharist involves
both unity with Christ (state of grace and proper disposition) and
unity (being in full communion)
with his Body, the Church. Canon 897, though hardly all that can or has been said, offers, in part, that the Most Holy Eucharist is the most august sacrament, in which Christ the Lord himself is contained, offered and received, and by which the Church constantly lives and grows. The Eucharistic Sacrifice, the memorial of the death and resurrection of the Lord, in which the sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated over the centuries, is the summit and the source of all Christian worship and life; it signifies and effects the unity of the people of God and achieves the building up of the Body of Christ.
Canon 912 says any baptized person not prohibited by law can and must be admitted to holy communion. Canon 915 places prohibition related to certain Church penalties and the case of those who obstinately persevere in manifest grave sin. Canon 916 also says that a person who is conscious of grave sin is not to receive the body of the Lord without previous sacramental confession in most cases but the application depends on the recipient rather than the minister of Holy Communion. Canon 923 provides that the Christian faithful may take part in the Eucharistic Sacrifice and receive Communion in any Catholic rite.
However, c. 844 §1 also places the restriction that Catholic ministers administer the sacraments to Catholic members of the Christian faithful alone, who likewise receive them only from Catholic ministers. But there also needs to be suitable catechesis before the first reception of Eucharist, and this has been touched on.
There are exceptions in paragraphs 2-5. Under certain conditions, a baptized non Catholic may receive Eucharist, penance or anointing of the sick from a Catholic minister. This is also addressed in the Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism (Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, 1993). That is the basis of what the US bishops placed in the missalettes. That is a whole discussion by itself that frequents this forum. Sometimes it is discussed accurately and sometimes not.
