Sir, - The unequivocal use of the word "sham" by Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in the following extract will doubtless throw interesting light on the controversy about the President's taking of Communion at Christ Church:
". . . no eucharistic fellowship is possible between the Catholic Church and the Churches of the Reformation. This is because communion in the body of Christ is the bodily form of communion in the truth, in the unity of faith. Sacrament and faith are inseparable; if communion is not communion in faith then it is nothing. If Herms should think that eucharistic fellowship (`fellowship at the Lord's table') is possible while at the same time there is `contradiction and dissent' on essential fundamental questions of faith, then this would show that his understanding of the sacrament is fundamentally distinct from that of the Catholic Church and that hence such `fellowship' would not be fellowship in the same thing but merely a sham." (Church, Ecumenism and Politics, trans. by Robert Nowell, St Paul Publications, 1988, p. 132.) Clearly Archbishop Connell is in good company. - Yours, etc.,
From (Dr) John E. Chisholm
UCD, Dublin 4.