J
jmcrae
Guest
That’s correct.
To do so knowingly is a mortal sin, but it is not an automatic excommunication.
- Status
To do so knowingly is a mortal sin, but it is not an automatic excommunication.
E
Elizium23
Guest
Have you asked your Catholic pastor what he thinks you should do in this regard? Does your pastor convey accurate Church teachings? Do you follow his judgement in matters of faith and morals? I presume you are a Catholic. That means you are bound by Catholic faith and discipline.
A
agnes_therese
Guest
No, the poster you replied to mentioned “other Christians.” You’re the one who said “Catholic OR Christian.” (emphasis mine) Which, I’m certainly hope you know, is a false distinction.
A
agnes_therese
Guest
There’s nothing “pruddish” about it. When at a church that doesn’t have the true Eucharist, why would I want to give the false impression that I think they do have it? That’s dishonest.
T
triumphguy
Guest
But…
sometimes being downright honest can be hurtful to one’s friends and family, and can seem overly legalistic or prudish (1 D folks - ex high school teacher alert
).
My in laws are Anglican I know!
sometimes being downright honest can be hurtful to one’s friends and family, and can seem overly legalistic or prudish (1 D folks - ex high school teacher alert
).My in laws are Anglican I know!
P
PatriceA
Guest
There are ways to be polite and still decline to participate in the communion services of other denominations though. Ways that do not come across as being either pruddish or legalistic. My husband’s family is a mix of other denominations, we’ve been faced with such situations ourselves.But…
sometimes being downright honest can be hurtful to one’s friends and family, and can seem overly legalistic or prudish (1 D folks - ex high school teacher alert
My in laws are Anglican I know!
C
corsair
Guest
interesting, so far.
P
Phemie
Guest
Want more interesting? When we attended the scheduled “Week of Prayer for Christian Unity” service at the local Anglican Church a few years ago we discovered that due to the Anglican Primate being in town they had scheduled a Communion Service rather than the ecumenical service we’d been expecting. When it came time for communion, several of our parishioners stayed in their pew – until our Pastor went up to kneel at the rail and receive. Upon seeing him do so these women also went.
J
jmcrae
Guest
It’s not necessary to be brutally honest. You can simply say, “Thank you for your hospitality. I am unable to receive Holy Communion in your church right now because of some special rules we have to follow in my church.”But…
sometimes being downright honest can be hurtful to one’s friends and family, and can seem overly legalistic or prudish (1 D folks - ex high school teacher alert
My in laws are Anglican I know!
You aren’t lying, and you aren’t hurting anyone’s feelings.
C
Crusading_Canuk
Guest
Wait, your Catholic Priest (?) received communion in an Anglican Church?Want more interesting? When we attended the scheduled “Week of Prayer for Christian Unity” service at the local Anglican Church a few years ago we discovered that due to the Anglican Primate being in town they had scheduled a Communion Service rather than the ecumenical service we’d been expecting. When it came time for communion, several of our parishioners stayed in their pew – until our Pastor went up to kneel at the rail and receive. Upon seeing him do so these women also went.
P
Phemie
Guest
Oh yeah. That was pretty much my reaction that night. Great example, right? But he’s no longer our Pastor or even in our diocese so he’s someone else’s problem.Wait, your Catholic Priest (?) received communion in an Anglican Church?
T
TheRealJuliane
Guest
Last week, I attended a memorial service for a friend, at an Episcopalian church. Several friends, also Catholics, attended too. I was the only one who did not receive communion. One of them whispered, “It doesn’t really matter” or some such to me, when she saw I wasn’t going up for communion.
It matters VERY MUCH, thank you.
It matters VERY MUCH, thank you.
L
Luvtosew
Guest
Oh excuse me , I must of mis interpreted you.
well I know some Protestant chruches are getting together now and then and are sharing in the Lords Supper, so I’ve been told, so well in my opinion it sounds like a good thing.
E
Elizium23
Guest
The Eucharist in the Catholic Chruch is the true Body and Blood of Our Lord, which we profess and which separates us from all Protestant understandings of the Eucharist. In addition to this, the fact that all Catholics frequently receive Holy Communion is an outward sign of unity that represents an inward oneness of faith. This oneness of faith is not present between the Catholic Church and Protestant ecclesial communities. Protestants are not true Churches; they do not possess Apostolic Succession and their ministers, who are not validly ordained priests, cannot confect the Eucharist as we understand it. Intercommunion is a serious thing. The Roman Catholic Church practices intercommunion with a few selected groups, such as the ones mentioned by the USCCB in a document reproduced in many missalettes. For example, the Orthodox Churches, the Assyrian Church of the East, and the Polish National Catholic Church. Please read this document. It is short and understandable. Please note the marked difference between true Churches - i.e. the Orthodox - and ecclesial communities - Protestant congregations.
Intercommunion is a good thing. Yes it is. However, it is not to be taken lightly and certainly not as a “grassroots” effort by individuals. Intercommunion is only possible when a oneness of faith is professed and understood by members of true Churches with a valid Eucharist.
It is a shame that anyone would consider eating bread or drinking wine/grape juice at a Protestant ecclesial community’s service. Because that is all you are doing. It is objectively sacrilege to pretend that the bread you eat is anything more than bread, and eating the bread is a visible sign to others that you have split with the Catholic Church. Some have said that it does not incur an automatic excommunication, but I would check with your confessor before doing such a thing, because I am rather sure that it involves the sins of schism and apostasy. Those who say “it really doesn’t matter” are betraying a very poor understanding of the True Presence of the Body and Blood of Our Lord in our Eucharist and our Eucharist alone.
C
Corki
Guest
LOL that’s funnyBut…
sometimes being downright honest can be hurtful to one’s friends and family, and can seem overly legalistic or prudish (1 D folks - ex high school teacher alert
My in laws are Anglican I know!
If someone offers, what’s wrong with “No, thank you”? And if other get up, just graciously step aside. If someone pushes you about your reasons, it’s his/he bad manners, not yours.
T
Tantum_ergo
Guest
Sure it’s a good thing for people who believe that sharing juice and crackers is a symbol of fellowship and honor for God to ‘share that’ with others who believe the same.
But it is not a good thing, in my opinion, for somebody to posit that partaking of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ is ‘equivalent’ to ‘fellowshipping’ with a meal.
The meal might LOOK the same (wine and juice look alike, bread especially in ‘wafer’ form looks the same) but it is very different. And again in my opinion, it is actually hurtful to both believing groups to pretend that because something looks the same, the people who believe it is ONE thing are just as ‘correct’ as the people who believe the other.
Let’s pretend that there is a rare meat that is normally poison (but very slow-acting) unless you spend a couple of years taking an ‘antidote’ that converts the poison to a beneficial vitamin. The antidote costs nothing and is easily available from a friendly group of chemists who mix it up regularly and dispense to the licensed pharmacist who in turn gives it to any person who has completed a simple course explaining how the antidote works, so that the pharmacist and the person both know what is involved. The meat looks like ordinary meat. It is no more ‘expensive’ than ordinary meat and once upon a time, everybody took that antidote and ate the meat, but over time, people (being people) started to tell lies about the meat. Finally, many people completely rejected that meat and persecuted the people who ate it, but because they liked meat, they kept many of the old customs that once all people had observed with the ‘rare’ meat, even though they changed many of the meanings and completely lost sight of what had been the true nature of the rare meat.
Now, suppose that a group of people years later want to eat that meat because they’ve heard how special it is and that it has beneficial vitamins. They’ve eaten meat that looks just like that meat. They don’t WANT to take the antidote because they don’t BELIEVE in it. They feel (because they were taught by people who had been duped) that the ‘antidote’ story was made up to keep the meat only for a ‘select’ group. They will not take the course required by the pharmacist of anybody who wants the antidote, but they WANT THAT MEAT. On THEIR terms.
So they argue and they whine and they hold great banquets where they invite the people who eat the rare meat to come and eat THEIR food. And then they complain that they don’t get invited to eat the rare meat. And the people who eat the rare meat keep trying to explain that in order to eat the rare meat they have to prepare themselves, and they can’t just let people eat it without the antidote. They explain that it won’t cost anything and it’s not hard to master the knowledge to get the antidote. But of course, some people sneak in and eat, and because the poison is slow-acting, they come out and say, "See, you don’t need any ANTIDOTE, I’m alive and happy’. . .
So 40 years on, when people start to drop like flies from the poison’s effect, what will happen? The ones who KNEW that one had to be prepared for the food but who allowed themselves to be swayed by rhetoric and by false arguments and by emotional blackmail will have to take some of the responsibility for the deaths, don’t you think? Not ALL the responsibility, of course, but some.
ONLY the people who kept on repeating the truth, who were brave enough to look ‘prudish’ and to seem ‘unloving’, will have been the real ones who loved enough to try to protect people.
V
Vico
Guest
Also in the eastern Catholic canon law CCEO.
Canon 671
Canon 671
- Catholic ministers licitly administer the sacraments only to Catholic Christian faithful, who, likewise, licitly receive the sacraments only from Catholic ministers.
- If necessity requires it or genuine spiritual advantage suggests it and provided that the danger of error or indifferentism is avoided, it is permitted for Catholic Christian faithful, for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister, to receive the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist and anointing of the sick from non-Catholic ministers, in whose Churches these sacraments are valid.
- Likewise Catholic ministers licitly administer the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist and anointing of the sick to Christian faithful of Eastern Churches, who do not have full communion with the Catholic Church, if they ask for them on their own and are properly disposed. This holds also for the Christian faithful of other Churches, who according to the judgment of the Apostolic See, are in the same condition as the Eastern Churches as far as the sacraments are concerned.
- If there is a danger of death or another matter of serious necessity in the judgment of the eparchial bishop, the synod of bishops of the patriarchal Church or the council of hierarchs, Catholic ministers licitly administer the same sacraments also to other Christians not having full communion with the Catholic Church, who cannot approach the ministers of their own ecclesial communities and who request them on their own, provided they manifest a faith consonant with that of the Catholic Church concerning these sacraments and are rightly disposed.
- For the cases in 2, 3 and 4, norms of particular law are to be enacted only after consultation with at least the local competent authority of the non-Catholic Church or ecclesial community concerned.
T
triumphguy
Guest
What I find is that some people choose to feel that they are being judged. and choose to get upset by it all, and if that person is the grandmother of your kids it can get messy.
You can’t just pop a balloon a little bit! One little pin-prick and the whole thing blows up!
P
ProVobis
Guest
Good points.
That pretend part bothers me too. As does any undermining of the Holy Sacrifice.
S
SecretGarden
Guest
To clarify a few things: a Catholic can have communion at an Anglican (Episcopalian) service. The reverse can also be said. They both believe in almost the same thing which means both can have communion at each other’s church. Whether or not one decides to is another story but I have heard that is permissible by many Catholics I know.
I think we need to show other Protestant denominations respect especially when their communion is served, just because we don’t believe in the symbol doesn’t mean we should turn our noses up to it either. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ and they deserve our love and respect. I think there is no reason why we can’t join them in the symbol especially during special times of the year such as Easter. At the United church in my area, the communion table is open for all believers regardless if they are United, Catholic or Pentecostal etc. I know one person who is a dedicated Catholic and will join in only for the grape juice because she wants to join in their celebration. She doesn’t take the entire communion but she will join in the symbol of the grape because she desires to spend that time with her brothers and sisters of Christ. She joins in the symbol because it means that they can be one body of Christ for a few minutes. I believe what she does is special because she doesn’t see them as Protestants, a separate body but simply her other brothers and sisters who she loves. Although most you will start quoting why it isn’t allowed, it’s important to see inside her heart as well as other because Christ is love and that is why He chose to die on the cross. We often forget we can also attend an Orthodox and a Copic church and have communion there. Catholicism isn’t just a bunch of rules that we obey it is an active relationship with Christ and that is in her case how she meets Christ as well.
God is love.
I think we need to show other Protestant denominations respect especially when their communion is served, just because we don’t believe in the symbol doesn’t mean we should turn our noses up to it either. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ and they deserve our love and respect. I think there is no reason why we can’t join them in the symbol especially during special times of the year such as Easter. At the United church in my area, the communion table is open for all believers regardless if they are United, Catholic or Pentecostal etc. I know one person who is a dedicated Catholic and will join in only for the grape juice because she wants to join in their celebration. She doesn’t take the entire communion but she will join in the symbol of the grape because she desires to spend that time with her brothers and sisters of Christ. She joins in the symbol because it means that they can be one body of Christ for a few minutes. I believe what she does is special because she doesn’t see them as Protestants, a separate body but simply her other brothers and sisters who she loves. Although most you will start quoting why it isn’t allowed, it’s important to see inside her heart as well as other because Christ is love and that is why He chose to die on the cross. We often forget we can also attend an Orthodox and a Copic church and have communion there. Catholicism isn’t just a bunch of rules that we obey it is an active relationship with Christ and that is in her case how she meets Christ as well.
God is love.
- Status