Posted on 04/17/2003 1:05:24 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
ANY hope that Tony Blair had of enjoying a happy, Catholic Easter with his family will be crushed today by the Pope.
John Paul II is issuing a new encyclical that The Times has learnt will explicitly forbid Protestants like the Prime Minister taking Communion with Catholics such as Cherie Blair and their children.
The 83-year-old Pope has chosen Holy Week to stamp on what he sees as dangerously “liberal” interpretations of the Roman Catholic doctrine that only those “in full communion with Rome” can take part in the Eucharist.
Mr Blair, who remains a committed, if ecumenical, member of the Church of England, regularly attends Catholic Mass with his family. He also used to take Communion with them at the St Joan of Arc church in Islington.
But in 1996, he received a letter from Cardinal Basil Hume asking him to desist. In his reply, Mr Blair did not conceal his dismay at such theological conservatism. Saying that he merely wished to worship with his family but had not realised his behaviour was causing offence, he promised he would not do so again. The letter added: “I wonder what Jesus would have made of it?”
Since then Mr Blair, who admits he is strongly drawn to Catholicism, has more than once explored the limits of this doctrine. Britain has never had a Catholic prime minister and in 1998 he had to deny reports he had converted after being spotted going to Westminster Cathedral for Mass unaccompanied by his family. Suggestions that he had received the Eucharist on this occasion were never confirmed.
There have also been rumours that when Mr Blair is on holiday abroad he has taken Communion with his family.
The Pope´s fourteenth encyclical slams the door on the many Catholics and Protestants who currently take Communion together and represents a setback for Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is a firm advocate of ecumenism. When Mr Blair visited the Pope at the Vatican last month, he may have got a hint of what was to come. While his family went to take Communion with the Pope, the Prime Minister only received a blessing. The Pope also made it clear that he disagreed with Mr Blair about war in Iraq.
To deny anyone Communion, if they choose to accept it, is FUNDAMENTALLY UN-CHRISTIAN.
1 Corinthians 11:
27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.
29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.
We simply follow Paul's advice. It is not "fundamentally un-Christian" to prevent those who do not "discern the Lord's Body" from "eating and drinking" themselves to damnation.
In fact it's quite charitable to prevent your brethren from falling into a pit.
SD
See my post 25.
Do you affirm that the Bread and Wine offered in the Catholic Communion are the actual, physical Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Jesus? Do you believe the Bread and Wine change substance and actually become the Body and Blood?
Or is it symbolic?
If you do not affirm the former, then you are not of one faith with us, and we do you a great favor by preventing you from communing.
SD
Don't buy the Times' spin. It is attrocious.
Blair is not "suddenly" forbidden. This is just a re-affirmation of existing law, which has slipped in practice in some renegade jurisdictions.
And pedophiles are not in a state to receive communion either. But if you knew anything instead of wanting to cast stones, you would know that already.
Leave what you don't understand alone, OK?
SD
But I think he should ban the guilty priests from more than just communion.
Is being ingracious to your hosts a matter of Protestant piety?
If someone politely requests you respect his ceremonies, why would you proudly spit on his request?
Obviously, no one is policing anything and you were not physically prevented from making a mockery of what we hold sacred. But to imagine someone to be so ignorant as you are is laughable.
SD
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.