Q. Can
Catholics receive communion in a non-Catholic ceremony?
R. Catholics
believe that the Eucharist is a sign of unity.
This is one of the reasons that Protestants can’t ordinarily receive
Communion in Catholic churches. The same
holds true in the opposite direction:
For a Catholic to receive Protestant communion would not only give the
impression that the Protestant version is valid, but it would also create a
false sense of unity. There is no true
unity between us sadly and for us to receive communion in a Protestant church
would be lying with our bodies. Almost
as if we would say yes by bobbing our heads up and down in the affirmative but
saying no with our words. We would be
giving a mixed message, and a confusing one.
And therefore lend confusion as to what the Catholic Church actually
teaches on the matter.
And that, my friend, is the main
reason a Catholic Christian shouldn’t receive communion in a non-Catholic
church. The Catholic Church teaches in
the True Presence of our Lord in the Eucharist, most other churches do not
believe in this change. For a Catholic
to receive communion in a non-Catholic church would be saying to the other
Christians of that church that he believes as they do. The Eucharist is the source and summit of our
faith. Everything revolves around this
fact, the fact that Jesus Christ is actually present in the consecrated bread
and wine. We would be doing a great
disservice to those Christians by going along with their ideology. We ought to provoke their thinking instead
and to wake them up from their complacency by simply not partaking of communion
and keeping to the truth. In fact, we
are not in full communion with each other yet and pretending that we are is not
helpful for any member of His Church.
God Bless
Nathan
