WHEN CAN NON-CATHOLICS RECEIVE COMMUNION?

WHEN CAN NON-CATHOLICS RECEIVE HOLY COMMUNION?

Why does the Catholic Church in New Zealand largely ignore the requirements in Scripture and Canon Law for the reception of Holy Communion by non-Catholics?

I attend Mass regularly at a retirement home where Communion is offered to everyone in the room, Catholics and non-Catholics alike. “Would you like to receive Communion today?” asks Father, as the intended recipient lolls in their chair, sometimes fast asleep. It’s as if a plate of mallowpuffs were on offer.

And at the abbey where I’m often privileged to attend Mass it’s ‘come one, come all’. It seems like everyone - including people who obviously don’t know the responses to the parts of the Mass - goes up to receive Communion.

Lest you are about to quote Pope Francis’ statement in November, to the effect that the question of whether or not a non-Catholic can receive Communion in the Catholic Church is one that “must be responded to on one’s own”, we should remember that the Pope wasn’t speaking ‘ex cathedra’. His statement doesn’t come with a guarantee of infallibility. And his prefect of the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal Robert Sarah, reminds us that not even the pope can change divine law on Communion:

“The entire Church has always firmly held that one may not receive communion with the knowledge of being in a state of mortal sin, a principle recalled as definitive by (St) Pope John Paul II in his 2003 encyclical ‘Ecclesia de Eucharistia”.

So the question arises, how can a priest know that non-Catholics presenting for Communion even know of this divine law? Let alone be in a state of grace? Cardinal Sarah says of interfaith communion that “it would promote profanation. … My conscience must be enlightened by the rule of the Church, which says that in order to communicate, I need to be in the state of grace, without sin, if married be properly married, and have the faith of the Catholic Church.”

“Rare and exceptional” is the case presented by an Anglican who believes in the Real Presence, but that “is something extraordinary and not ordinary”.

Well, if you’re an Anglican who believes in the Real Presence, wouldn’t you want to be received into the Catholic Church and so be entitled to receive the sacrament, and its inestimable graces, every day? And are such people asked by the priest giving the Sacrament if they wish to be received into the Church?

27 Therefore anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily is answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.
28 Everyone is to examine himself and only then eat of the bread or drink from the cup;
29 because a person who eats and drinks without recognising the body is eating and drinking his own condemnation.
30 That is why many of you are weak and ill and a good number have died (1 Corinthians).

And Canon Law is very clear. Canon 874 states that ‘Catholic ministers may lawfully administer the Sacrament only to Catholic members of Christ’s faithful’. Exceptions are allowed if there is danger of death, or ‘when other Christians not having full communion with the Catholic church … cannot approach a minister of their own community and who seek such on their own accord, provided that they manifest Catholic faith in respect to these sacraments and who are properly disposed’.

So there are two conditions for non-Catholic reception of Holy Communion: grave necessity and manifestation of Catholic faith in the Sacrament.

Surely the Catholic Church, in giving Communion to non-Catholics who are presumed to manifest Cathlic faith in the Sacrament, is missing out on a whole lot of putative converts, some of whom might eventually prove to have a vocation to the priesthood.