Pope wrong? (News in Brief).

Toronto--Pope John Paul signed his 14th encyclical, The Church of the Eucharist, during the Mass of the Last Supper in Rome on Holy Thursday, April 17, 2003. Ten days later, religion writer Tom Harpur of the Toronto Star (April 27), denounced it under the title "Pope's communion stance wrong."

"The Pope has issued an archaic-sounding encyclical repeating his Church's ban on Catholics and non-Catholics taking Holy Communion from each other," Harpur stated.

"At its best, religion should not provoke disappointment and anger," he wrote, but now the Pope has "repeated the time-worn but wholly uncharitable mantra, that because full unity is still lacking between the various Christian denominations "it is not possible to celebrate the Eucharist until those bonds are fully established."

Harpur, formerly a Rhodes scholar and an Anglican minister, today a hopelessly confused non-denominational sort of agnostic, accused the Pope of "rigid reasoning" about "a rite which clearly belongs to God and to any believer who wants to receive it. It should not be viewed as the private reserve of any institution, building or religious clique."

Harpur indignantly noted the indirect reprimand administered recently by Ottawa Archbishop Marcel Gervais to Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson for receiving Holy Communion in Catholic Churches (see C.I., March 2003, pp. 28-20); the order to Tony Blair to desist from doing the same by the late Cardinal Hume; and the rebuke from the Archbishop of Dublin, Desmond O'Connell, to the Anglicans in Ireland (here called the Church of Ireland), for inviting Catholics to their communion service.

The Pope, Harpur concluded, is "the possessor of an ardent medieval mind," promoting "division between his own flock and those who share the same faith."

It is Harpur who is wrong.

The encyclical We Are The Church of the Eucharist explains how central the Holy Eucharist is to the Catholic faith, because "Jesus Christ entrusted to his Church the perennial making present of the paschal mystery...."

In section 30, the Holy Father gives thanks for the progress made in ecumenical relations but repeats that "ecclesial communities separated from us (in the sixteenth century) lack that fullness of unity with us which should flow from baptism, and we believe that especially because of the lack of the sacrament of orders they have not preserved the genuine and total reality of the eucharistic mystery."

The Pope goes on to say that Catholics, therefore, must refrain from receiving Communion distributed in these celebrations. On the other hand, those not members of the Catholic Church may not partake of the Holy Eucharist in the hope that this will bring about greater unity:

"The celebration of the Eucharist, however, cannot be the starting point for Communion; it presupposes that Communion (unity) already exists, a Communion which it seeks to consolidate and bring to perfection. The sacrament is an expression of this bond of Communion."

Is the Pope "archaic" and "medieval?" Absolutely yes, if this means defending the tradition going back to the earliest records of the apostles and the ancient Fathers of the Church.

This is what Saint Justin, martyr (100-165), writes:

"No one may share the Eucharist with us unless he believes that what we teach is true, unless he is washed in the regenerating waters of baptism for the remissions of his sins, and unless he lives in accordance with the principles given us by Christ" (First Apology in defence of Christians).