Posted on 08/18/2004 6:45:01 AM PDT by NYer
See #8
In the instance of imminent death, I can't imagine that anyone outside the situation would ever have much of a complaint about any ordained Priest/Minister offering communion to someone who requested it from his "death bed".
However, and in response to sandyeggo's comment, to wit: I'll look some more out of curiosity, but if I was a Catholic chaplain ministering to a dying soldier, the first sacraments I would think of would be Baptism and Extreme Unction., (my bold) I would think the doctrine of "once baptized, always baptized" could pose a problem for a properly baptized Protestant, especially one who understood the essential tenets of his faith.
And, in fact, I can "see" the dilemma from both sides of the issue. What I have trouble seeing is that doctrine can - and often does - stand in the way of pastoral ministry.
I do know that for the short period of time I served as a hospital chaplain, and which allowed me to be present at some 12 or 13 death bed events, neither I nor the person who was dying or his/her families really gave much thought to who had which "brand" of Christian faith. We all felt ourselves to be in the presence of God and conducted ourselves accordingly.
Hopefully, nothing I've said herein will ignite the fires of a flame war; certainly nothing like that is intended. I just never worried about such things at that final moment of someone's life.
As an addendum to my #23, in every instance where it was possible under the time constraints of the situation to both ascertain and summon a chaplain of the same faith of the dying person, that was done. I was speaking of those times when that simply wasn't possible.
Sharing Eucharistic outside of the Catholic communion is like sex outside of marriage: it may seem like an expression of love, but it denies the proper expression of love its place, and denies the significance of the unity which it is a symbol of.
In 1996, however, he was warned off receiving communion in a letter by the late Cardinal Basil Hume.
Saying that he had not realised his behaviour might cause offence, Mr Blair promised not to do so again, nevertheless adding: "I wonder what Jesus would have made of it?"
The prime minister and his family met the Pope at the Vatican during an official visit to Rome last month, and although he received a blessing - the first British prime minister to do so - he did not receive communion.
(There is a "conditional baptism" for when you're not sure if the person is baptized or not.)
Dear Religion Moderator,
"I would think the doctrine of 'once baptized, always baptized'"
No Catholic priest acting appropriately would "re-baptize" someone, though if he were unsure of the validity of a prior "baptism," he might conditionally baptize someone.
"I do know that for the short period of time I served as a hospital chaplain, and which allowed me to be present at some 12 or 13 death bed events, neither I nor the person who was dying or his/her families really gave much thought to who had which 'brand' of Christian faith. We all felt ourselves to be in the presence of God and conducted ourselves accordingly."
I certainly hope any Catholic priest would conduct himself accordingly. But nonetheless, it would be inappropriate for a Catholic priest to offer specific Catholic rituals - sacraments - which implied adherence to specific Catholic doctrines that a non-Catholic might or might not hold.
I'm not sure that it would usually come up. I have a hard time thinking that a Baptist in his last moments would think to ask for sacramental confession and absolution, annointing with oil, and the Viaticum (the Blessed Sacrament when given near the time of death).
But hey, maybe I might be surprised. ;-)
"Hopefully, nothing I've said herein will ignite the fires of a flame war; certainly nothing like that is intended."
I can't find anything you said as being flameworthy. Nonetheless, there are folks here who have their own agendas to bait and personally insult and anger, so don't be surprised if it manages to start a flame war anyway. :-(
"I just never worried about such things at that final moment of someone's life."
Like I said with the example of the dying Baptist, I'm not sure much of this would enter into the mind of a non-Catholic in these circumstances. So, perhaps it's seldom an issue.
sitetest
I have experience here, both in my husband's death and the recent death of our priest.
Yes, the sacrament of The Annointing of the Sick (formerly Extreme Unction) can contain a confession as well as a confession of faith. But the Sacrament can also be simply "the laying on of hands. All spiritual needs of the recipient are met through the mercy of God in this sacrament.
The Annointing of the Sick -- check the "In brief" statements.
No, it never did happen like that. :) I wouldn't expect it to happen that way, either.
But it wasn't all that rare for the family of a dying person to ask for communion at the last possible moment, or more often, for the parents of a new born when it became apparant that the baby was dying, to ask for baptism and communion. In the event of a still-birth, of course, there was time to summon a chaplain of the same faith. (And also, of course, no Baptist would ask for an infant baptism under any circumstances that I can think of...)
All I can say is that exigent circumstances make for interesting solutions. The goal, I think, is neither to impinge on the dignity of the person or provide any affront to Christ. And in every case of insurmountable doubt, offer it all to the Lord.
>> TB only received a papal blessing.<<
Since when do we bless tuberculosis?
You always say it so much better than I do!
"Like I said with the example of the dying Baptist, I'm not sure much of this would enter into the mind of a non-Catholic in these circumstances. So, perhaps it's seldom an issue."
I think receiving Communion while a non-Catholic is much more of an "issue" in certain parishes than it is for a non-Catholic dying person or a non-Catholic soldier going off to battle.
A Catholic thinks of the Eucharist as the source and summit of his faith and and I doubt very much that many non-Catholics think of it that way at all since mostly, it is an expression of rememberance more than anything else.
I have seen a Catholic priest at a funeral Mass give Communion to an Episcopalian minister (former Jesuit) in his minister uniform.
The rules are made for traditionalists and conservatives to follow. Others may do as they please with the liturgy and the sacraments.
Dear Religion Moderator,
I wasn't aware that many non-Catholics would ask for communion on their deathbeds.
Short of the exceptions explained within this thread, a Catholic priest ought not offer the Blessed Sacrament to a non-Catholic on his deathbed.
I don't think any Catholic would have a problem with baptizing a dying baby. From our perspective, absolutely anyone could perform a valid baptism, even an atheist.
I'm unsure whether a priest would give the Blessed Sacrament to a dying CATHOLIC baby. Do parents in this awful circumstance ask for communion for infants? From a Catholic perspective, after baptism, there would be little need for anything else.
sitetest
It was not until the Middle Ages that sholastic theologians came to distinguish between 'sacraments' and 'sacramentals', the former referring to those liturgical rituals which were deemed to have spiritual effects in virtue of their proper performance (ex opere operato), the latter referring to those religious actions and objects (e.g. blessings, holy water) which mediated grace in less specific ways. Partly because of the symbolic significance of the number seven, partly because of apparant scriptural grounds for them, and partly because of the widespread adoption of Peter Lombard's (d. 1160) Sentences as a theological source book, scholastics and ecclesiastics alike enumerated Lombard's seven as the sacraments of the Catholic church by the thirteenth century: baptism, confirmatin, penance, eucharist, holy orders, matrimony and extreme unction (cf. Second Council of Lyons, 1274).
Protestant Reformers in the sixteenth century, reacting to abuses such as superstition and simony, rejecting scholastic explanations of the mediation of grace through ecclesiastical rituals, and applying more stringent scriptural criteria to the claim of dominican institution, eliminated all but baptism and eucharist (also called the Lord's supper, or communion) from their listing of the Christian sacraments. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) reasserted the RC doctrine of seven sacraments, but recognized the need for practical reforms in administering them.
Today most Protestant bodies acknowledge two sacraments, though Baptists refer to them as ordinances, and some (e.g. the Society of Friends and the Salvation Army) do not even admit these as important Christian rituals. Both the Roman and Orthodox churches have retained seven sacraments, as does the Church of England, which, however, distinguishes between baptism and eucharist as instituted by Christ, and the remaining five as 'sacraments of the church'.
[snip]
The efficacy of a sacrament is not due to the holiness of the minister or the faith of the recipient but to the working of the Holy Spirit.
But truth be told, I very much doubt that the average Protestant even thinks about the sacraments until and unless they suddenly become "necessary" to his/her life at a particular moment in time. In that sense, then, I don't have much doubt that Protestants and Catholics understand the eucharist in fundamentally different ways, even aside from the issue of transubstantiation/consubstantiation.
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