How is anybody who is not a catholic supposed to know what the catholics rules are? Other churches do this.
There is no excuse for the governor not to have known the protocol. As for regular folks, normally at a Catholic Mass when the priest knows there are many attending who are not Catholic (wedding/funeral), they will announce diplomatically that Communion is only for Catholics who are ‘in a state of grace.’ That means Catholics who’s been to confession and had their sins absolved.
The reason Communion is exclusive to Catholics and only Catholics in “a state of grace” is that Catholics believe the Communion host they are receiving has been ‘transubstantiated’ during its consecration into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ, not a symbol of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, as non-Catholic Christians believe.
when I go to a Catholic Mass, I just sit back in the pew and let Catholics who are receiving Communion go by me. It’s not a big deal to observe that respect for their faith.
I was taught as a child that it was impolite to accept communion in a church to which you were not a “confirmed” member. Confirmation, meaning you went through the structure of that denomination’s teachings in an organized class.
So as a Lutheran, if I had the occasion to attend other denomination’s (Presby lets say, or Catholic), services that you should not accept communion in that denomination’s services as a general matter of respect. Not that it was sacrilege, but that it was impolite and not proper etiquette. I know that the Episcopal Churches, Methodist Churches, teach the same things as do most denominational churches. Some of the non-denominational churches are a little more free wheeling in this regard.
What it does is it places the preist in the awkward place of having to refuse communion to someone, during the service. He’s not looking at everyone and thinking “are you a catholic” he’s looking at the clock, and the program.