Were there abuses in wedding I attended

[Pjs2ejs]

I attended a wedding and can someone tell me exactly what if any abuses existed. First, it was outside, apparently because the local church was being renovated. There was a preist there but here is where it went bad. The priest told us that we were going to be having communion; there was no consecration. He then invited all to participate - everyone. Some of the attendants did not know how to receive the host. The woman who was “Eucharistic Minister” (I don’t think she was actually a minister) did not know what to do when I wanted to take from my mouth. She kind of put it out there and I grabbed it from her. Was I wrong in thinking there was something definitely wrong here?

 

[Kielbasi]

I’d say its a gross, but unfortunately common, irregularity for non-catholics to receive communion at weddings or funerals.

Whether or not its technically an “abuse” or not, I ain’t an expert, but it certainly isn’t proper.

The way the whole event unfolds, even if the priest didn’t verbally ‘invite everyone’, to an ordinary non-catholic it just seems as its an invite or at least “when in rome do as the romans situation”, an implied situation where folks will do what they think they are expected to do.

I didn’t watch the NBC program Committed which was widely panned by the Catholic League and others, in which the story was about a Jew and a Protestant were inadvertantly given communion at such an event. The subsequent actions and humor, from what I picked up, were pretty sacreligious, but the basic premise of the program was torn from the pages of real life in America.

 

[stbruno]

Holy cow! It is truly unfortunate that this goes on. My spouse and I do wedding rehearsals, and we remind the wedding party of who is able to receive communion. If there was no consecration, then communion should not be offered. There is a beautiful rite of marriage that is done outside of mass which we strongly recommend when both parties are not Catholic and no communion may be offered. Definitely this was a case of flagrant abuse. Pray!

 

[gelsbern]

stbruno:

Holy cow! It is truly unfortunate that this goes on. My spouse and I do wedding rehearsals, and we remind the wedding party of who is able to receive communion. If there was no consecration, then communion should not be offered. There is a beautiful rite of marriage that is done outside of mass which we strongly recommend when both parties are not Catholic and no communion may be offered. Definitely this was a case of flagrant abuse. Pray!

The rite of marriage outside of mass is also used when one party is catholic and the other is not. In those cases, there is not a consecration, but there is communion for the catholics using pre-consecrated species. Also there are times when there are 2 catholics being married and there is no priest available, and a deacon is given facilities to marry the couple, again there is no consecration but there is communion offered.

It is good that you tell the people who may recieve communion, and the couple should definitely inform their guests, but the priest or deacon should make a short announcement too.

Of course we don’t know if the couple were both catholic or not because the original poster didn’t state. BUT the priest may have brought pre-consecrated hosts, which is acceptable, but giving it to everyone is not. ALSO

In order to do a wedding outside of the church, permission is needed from the bishop, but once that permission is given, a Mass can be said outdoors which if it were a Mass would include a consecration.

But I am assuming, from the original post that the priest had pre-consecrated hosts with him. The only problem I see in the whole thing was that it was given to everyone, and not just the faithful.

 

[stbruno]

I am a deacon too…I should have said, when one of the parties is not Catholic and the other is…otherwise, we couldn’t marry them in the church. and there is no communion allowed outside of a mass at a wedding in our diocese. It is not allowed in the rite at all!