Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Why Catholics Have Closed Communion

Canterbury Tales has a good post on this at Do Catholics Wrongly Exclude Protestants? (Regarding the Holy Mass)

Here is just a part:

...........................The Catholic position even more so. In most cases, Protestants:

A) deny the the substantial change of bread and wine into the true Body and Blood of Christ;
B) They don’t “acknowledge the body of the Lord (either substantially or ecclesiastically as described in 1 Corinthians 11);
C) They deny the sacrificial aspect of the Mass;
D) They deny the liturgy of the Mass which does invoke saints at times;and
E) They reject the papacy and the apostolic succession of the local bishop–both are commemorated in the Mass.

Consequently, its impossible to “include” Protestants since they would “protest” elements of the Holy Mass nearly every minute of the liturgy.

So Protestants are welcome to enjoy Eucharistic communionem in sacris if they would like to do so–but only if they truly believe what the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is and what the liturgy says. If this were the case, they would be interested in becoming fully Catholic. They would cease "protesting" and would cease being "Protestant."

Likewise, if I desired to receive from the "Lord's table" at a Protestant church, I would have to renounce several of my beliefs (e.g. abjure transubstantiation) and hold their doctrines (eg. justification by faith alone, etc.).

In conclusion, the Catholic Church isn't doing something mean or intolerant. The Catholic Church is merely practicing charity. For us, the Eucharist is the source and summit of our lives because It is Christ Jesus. It would be wrong for us to allow others to partake if they denied this reality. Similarly, it would be wrong for a Protestant to allow a Catholic whom the Protestant deemed "idolatrous" to receive Communion...............

As I have always stated when you say Amen when you recieve the Sacramanet and say the great AMEN in the luturgy a Catholic is affirming a lot there.

2 comments:

Rick67 said...

At my grandmother's funeral mass I did not take communion (although many of my Protestant relatives did) not so much for my sake but out of respect for the Catholic Church which said quite clearly in the missal (inside cover I think) "we're glad you're here but if you are not Catholic please don't take communion (and yes there are a couple exceptions)".

When I visit St Matthews Orthodox Church I do not go up to take the bread/wine. Same reason.

(And when visiting the big temple in Trivandrum, Kerala, India did not go in because they ask non-Hindus not to enter. No prob.)

James H said...

Partof the problem is that some Priest allowed this to happen too.

I never understood the big deal of why people got upset over this. WHen A Catholic starts saying this I expect he himsled is not familar with the essentials.

I never get upset with a Baptist closed communiin for thhe reasons above. Thought I would love to be able to take communion at an Orthodox Church I don't and we even agree with each other on the fundamentals there.

I think a lot of it comes down to people being told they "can't " do something