There seems to be a plethora of communion-related stories lately. This one comes from the Religion News Service's blog:
In case you missed it, Quinn, who's somewhere between an atheist and an agnostic, decided to take Communion at Tim Russert's funeral last month. She said she did it to "get closer" to Russert. Most Catholics would say one takes Communion to get closer to God. But I digress. Quinn wrote:
"I had only taken communion once in my life, at an evangelical church. It was soon after I had started "On Faith" and I wanted to see what it was like. Oddly I had a slightly nauseated sensation after I took it, knowing that in some way it represented the body and blood of Jesus Christ."
The utterly predictable uproar ensued. Most found Quinn's actions disrepectful, ingorant or just plain tacky. My problem with the whole affair was that Quinn is billing herself as a newly minted arbiter of all things religious, but anyone who knows even a scintilla of Catholic doctrine would know that it's an absolute no-no to take Communion in a Catholic Church if you're not Catholic. You don't need a Ph.D. in theology for that, and frankly, she should have known better. Granted, her intentions may have been innocent, but that doesn't quite cut it for someone in Quinn's job.
The reality is a bit more complex than the writer would let on. On the one hand, it's certainly part of Catholic doctrine that non-catholics should not partake of communion, on the other hand, depending on where you attend, that is a requirement that is often honored more in the breach than in the observance.
I had a professor at Andover Newton that insisted on taking communion in Catholic churches whenever he attended (he was protestant), and argued on the basis of Catholic canon law that he was permitted to do so and could not be prevented. Not being a scholar of canon law myself, I have no idea if he's right.
But I've also taken communion in Catholic churches, administered by Catholic priests who were fully aware of my non-Catholic status. Since my own understanding of the nature of communion is that it is not something that the Church (big "C") has the right to withhold from me (or anyone), I've never had a problem with it. But last summer, at the Collegium conference -- a conference for faculty at Catholic colleges -- we were informed that the host institution asked that non-Catholics refrain from taking communion. Although I was hurt and appalled, I ultimately decided to accede to their wishes, so as not to be a "stumbling block" for others. But that didn't mean that I though they were right.
I'm going to try to flesh this out some more and write a bit on the theology of communion in the coming days, but the key point from my perspective is that, regardless of one's theology of the eucharist, insofar as it is the central sacrament of the Chrisitan community, and insofar as the community is defined, not by adherence to a particular understanding of ecclesial authority but by one's faith in Christ, one's status as "Catholic" (big "C"), is not relevant to one's fitness to partake of it.
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