Bishop questions ban on inter-church Communion

A church of Ireland bishop has questioned the grounds for refusing couples in an inter-church marriage permission to take Communion together.

Writing in the current issue of the Furrow magazine the Bishop of Meath and Kildare, Dr Richard Clarke, says: "I believe, and I write this without intention of emotional appeal, that we need to have very good grounds for refusing permission to an inter-church couple to receive the sacrament together."

Bishop Clarke was responding to an article by Father Raymond Moloney SJ in the same magazine on the inter-church Communion debate. Both men had been invited to write in the context of a document on inter-church communion which is being prepared by the three Catholic Bishops' Conferences in these islands and due to be published shortly.

The Catholic Church does not allow non-Roman Catholics to receive Communion, including the partner in an inter-church marriage. Christians of whatever denomination are free to take Communion in Anglican and (relevant) Protestant churches.

The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, and his wife, Cherie, discontinued receiving Communion at Mass together when Cardinal Basil Hume pointed out it was better that people of different denominations should respect each other's traditions.

Bishop Clarke writes in the Furrow: "How do we dare, by our wanton neglect of ecumenism, to damage the spiritual growth of those whom God has joined together in marriage?"

There are many inter-church couples in Ireland who wish to grow together spiritually and to honour each other's traditions, he says, "and although one cannot encourage a `fudge' on the reality of difference between these traditions, a refusal to permit them to receive the sacrament together under any circumstances is a grave matter."

Dr Clarke refers to the charge to a candidate priest in the Church of Ireland ordinal: "If it should come about that the church, or any of its members, is hurt or hindered by reason of your neglect, know the greatness of your fault and the judgment (of God) that will follow."

In his article outlining the Catholic Church's position on interchurch Communion, Father Moloney says the meaning of Holy Communion "is not at the disposal of the worshipper but is essentially dependent, as is the faith generally, on the meaning given it by Christ and declared through his church. Apart from the church we do not even know who Christ is nor what the Eucharist is, so that, for us Catholics at least, sharing the sacrament makes no sense apart from the faith of the church which brings Christ's Eucharist to us."

He describes the Anglican response to documents from ARCIC (the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, which has been exploring the issue of inter-church communion since 1970) as "unsatisfactory from a Catholic point of view.

"To put it bluntly, where Anglicans seek to establish acceptable opinions, Catholics seek to establish that which the Church may authoritatively teach as true." Another issue raised by President, Mrs McAleese, taking Communion in Christ Church Cathedral last December, he writes, "concerns the nature of ecumenism itself."

Quoting from Vatican II's Decree on Ecumenism, he notes it urges the faithful "to abstain from any superficiality or imprudent zeal, for these can cause harm to true progress towards unity." True ecumenism, he says, is essentially a religious movement, drawing its inspiration from the word of God and a mutual respect for each other's commitment to divine revelation.

He also says that "certainly for one party to put moral pressure on members of another church to go against the norms of their church can scarcely be seen as a truly respectful form of ecumenism."