Sunday, 1 July 2018

NZ BISHOPS DOING PROTESTANTS NO FAVOURS (letter to NZ Catholic, July 2)



No Protestant observing New Zealand Mass-goers, how we generally behave like we’ve turned up for a concert, with little or no acknowledgment of the Real Presence, is likely to believe that in Communion - in the hand! - Catholics receive Jesus Christ.

And if a Protestant wishes, he’ll receive Jesus too. Why not? After all, it looks like Communion’s just a symbol. And ‘it’s good for unity’. And Father has ‘permission from the bishop’.

The bishop however, has ‘permission’ in Canon law to give that permission only in “grave necessity like danger of death”. And he’s doing that Protestant no favours, "for all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves" (1 Cor 11:29). 

To receive Communion, non-Catholics must believe in the Real Presence, be baptised, confirmed and in a state of grace. As Cardinal Arinze, the Vatican’s former liturgy chief, states, “Be received into the Church and you can receive Communion. Otherwise no.”

The Catechism tells us the Eucharist “never ceases to be an occasion of division” - a division ignored and glossed over by our bishops under pain of sacrilege.

Unity will never be achieved by intercommunion, because intercommunion is disobedience to Scripture, Magisterium and Tradition.

NZ’s bishops need look no further than intercommunion to know why they’re so short of priests.

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