Why does the Church deny me Communion, and yet...?

[mlm1234]

Why does the Church deny Communion to non-Catholic Christians yet allow known pedophiles to conduct Mass? This paradox stopped my conversion to Catholicism. I am a lifelong Christian and spent the last year studying the Church and I was ready to start RCIA at our church in September when some of the new facts about the Church’s involvement in covering up pedophile priests came to light again.

I have read and undertand that part of the requirement to convert is that I accept the Church and agree to it teachings. I just don’t understand how the Church would deny me, a professed Christian who believes in transubstantiation, yet allow these pedophiles to make decisions as to my fitness to receive Communion. My wife and I were married in the Church in June after 20 years of a marriage in the Methodist church. My kids did RCIC and took their First Communion. I am trying my best not to think I made a big mistake.

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

To be perfectly frank, I cannot help but wonder why you are reducing the great tragedy of the sexual abuse of children to your “fitness” to receive Communion. In other words, your focus should not be on yourself and what you believe you have been denied, but on supporting others who have suffered immensely by prayer and good works offered up in union with Christ. And you can more fully do so by formally joining the Church, which is the mystical body of Christ.

To answer your questions though:

The Church does not knowingly allow pedophiles to conduct Mass. If a priest has been proven to be guilty of such a crime, his priestly faculties (permissions) to celebrate the sacraments are removed. But justice demands that he first be found guilty, which requires appropriate process. That process used to take considerable time, but that process has been expedited in recent years by reformers such as Pope Benedict XVI himself.

That said, the sacraments are, we might say, “priest-proof.” They are not dependent upon a priest’s personal holiness. Any priest who is validly ordained, follows the proper procedure, and intends to do what the Church intends in the sacraments can validly confect the sacraments. This is not a power given solely for his personal benefit but is given for the souls of those who depend on valid sacraments.

As to ordinarily restricting the Eucharist to Catholics, that is done because reception of holy Communion implies full communion with the Church that offers it. To receive Communion from the Church when you are not in communion with the Church is to lie by your actions, to offer scandal to those who know you are not Catholic, and to give confusion to those who do not know.

**Recommended reading:

**A Crisis of Saints by Fr. Roger Landry
Problems in the Church by Jimmy Akin