Other Christians: June 2004 Archives

The Vatican's chief official for relations with other Christians gave a speech Friday morning. Here's how our friends at Catholic World News led the story:

Cardinal Kasper backs "Eucharistic hospitality"

Vatican , Jun. 18 (CWNews.com) - Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, has said that "Eucharistic hospitality" is licit in some circumstances.

Speaking at a major conference of German Catholics in the city of Ulm on June 18, Cardinal Kasper said that "there are circumstances when a non-Catholic can receive Communion at a Catholic Mass."

The CWN writer suggests that the Cardinal is at odds with the Pope's recent writings and Vatican directives on the question of non-Catholics and Holy Communion:

In his 2003 encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, Pope John Paul II devoted most of a chapter to the issue, stressing that non-Catholics should not receive Communion. The Pope argued forcefully that the practice of intercommunion is an offense against ecumenism, not an aid, because it creates the false impression that non-Catholics share the Church's teaching on the nature of the Eucharist.

In the recent instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum , the Congregation for Divine Worship reiterated that stand, emphasizing that under any normal circumstances "Eucharistic hospitality" is a grave abuse.

And as you might expect, readers chimed in with expressions of outrage:

"Kaspar is an embarrassment to Catholicism. His positions are heretical and reflective of an apostate who has lost the faith...."

"Cardinal Kasper should be given the boot out of the Vatican's door...."

"What a joke - the head of the council for Christian Unity doing everything he can to destroy unity in the Church. ..."

Now, I don't know where CWN got their impression of the Cardinal's speech, because their article does not reflect what he said on this subject. The term "Eucharistic hospitality" does not appear in the speech. The statement about circumstances in which non-Catholics may receive Communion isn't his opinion: he's citing the Code of Canon Law.

All in all, I think the CWN piece misrepresents the Cardinal's speech, so here's the relevant passage, available from the conference website (my translation):

The Southern Baptist Convention voted yesterday to sever its 99-year relationship with the Baptist World Alliance on the grounds that it includes a Baptist denomination with openly homosexual members.

This is a huge controversy among the Baptists. It's worth reading the whole article to get the gist of it. What they need is a universal magisterium and less autonomy. Though even with the gifts God has bestowed on His true Church, we're still plagued with similar issues of faithfulness to Church teaching.