Saturday, April 4, 1998

Clinton partaking in a Catholic rite upsets U.S. bishops

By ANN RODGERS-MELNICK / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Catholic priest who gave Communion to President Clinton in South Africa has said he was more worried about having to preach to the scandal-ridden president about the woman caught in adultery than he was about offering Communion to a Southern Baptist.

Knowing of the scandal surrounding Clinton, "When I saw (the Gospel reading) I thought, 'Oh my God,' but what could I do? I had to follow the reading of the day," the Rev. Mohlomi Makobane told Catholic News Service.

In that Gospel passage, Jesus saves a woman accused of adultery from being stoned to death, telling her: "You may go. But from now on, avoid this sin."

But just as Makobane believed he followed the rules that require him to preach on specified Bible passages each day, he believed he was following new guidelines from the bishops of southern Africa when he told Clinton that it was up to him to decide whether he wished to receive Communion.

But those guidelines are as controversial as the act of giving Catholic Communion to a Southern Baptist.

While many Protestant denominations open their Communion table to Christians of all traditions, Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches do not. Their stance reflects their distinctive beliefs about what happens at Communion, as well as their beliefs about the nature of the church.

In fact, in March, a group of bishops from Pennsylvania complained to Vatican officials that the southern African bishops were too liberal in allowing Protestants to receive Communion. The U.S. bishops were upset because they have tried hard to uphold church teaching even when they knew that it sometimes hurt and offended other Christians.

"It creates a very serious pastoral problem for us here in the United States because, on one hand, you hear that the church is monolithic. And on the other hand you have a group of bishops in southern Africa saying that this can happen," said Bishop Anthony Bosco of Greensburg, Pa.

"What now complicates it even more in my mind is that all the allegations about what is going on at the White House are going to add to it. For some people it may not be a question of intercommunion, but of whether he ought to be going to Communion anywhere."

Bosco was in Rome three weeks ago for a visit that each diocesan bishop makes every five years. The U.S. bishops confronted officials of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith about what they had to say about the African document.

"They were cautious in their response because they hadn't seen the exact document. But, let me say that they expressed Roman surprise. That isn't expressed by people screaming and yelling and throwing their hands in the air. It's proper surprise," Bosco said.

The reason for the surprise was that, according to Vatican rules, the sacrament of Communion is limited to Catholics, except in cases of extreme necessity Ñ such as impending death Ñ when no non-Catholic clergy is available and when the recipient shares basic Catholic beliefs. The U.S. Catholic bishops allow Orthodox faithful to receive Catholic Communion, but the Orthodox bishops strenuously object to that.

Normally, Catholic priests do not refuse Communion to anyone who comes forward. In situations where they know non-Catholics will be present, however, they are expected to explain the rules.

But the African bishops wrote that, "a special need (for Communion) can be said to exist on occasions when Christians from other churches attend a eucharistic celebration for a special feast or event. On these occasions, eucharistic sharing may be both meaningful and desirable, expressing the degree of unity that the participating Christians already have with each other."

It also said that the recipients must be unable to receive it from a pastor of their own church, must "manifest Catholic faith in the sacrament" and "must have the proper dispositions for the fruitful reception of it."

It would be very strange to find any Southern Baptist who manifested "Catholic faith in the sacrament."

Communion Ñ also known as Eucharist or the Lord's Supper Ñ is the church's response to Jesus' last supper. At that meal, he said that the bread and wine were his body and blood, which his followers should eat and drink in remembrance of him. Various Christians understand his words very differently.

Catholics and Orthodox, as well as many Anglicans and Lutherans, emphasize the idea that the consecrated bread and wine somehow become the body and blood of Christ Ñ although they differ about how that occurs. Southern Baptists and many other evangelicals stress the idea of "remembrance," saying that the bread and wine are symbols. Presbyterians and Methodists fall somewhere in between.

The traditional explanation of what happens in Roman Catholic Communion is called "transubstantiation." It is based on the idea that things have both "substance" and "accidents." Accidents have to do with whether it is wheat or rye, dark or light, hard or soft. In transubstantiation, Thomas Aquinas taught, the elements take on the substance of the flesh and blood of Christ, while retaining the accidents of bread and wine.

The Catholic church also teaches that Christ lives in a unique way through its clergy, sacraments and members. While Protestants are recognized as Christians, they are considered "separated brethren."

"People argue that sharing the Eucharist is a means of achieving unity and that, just as we pray together (with other Christians), we should come to the table of the Lord together. We say no. The Eucharist is a sign of unity achieved. And the fact that the church cannot permit intercommunion is, for us, a reminder of the fact that though we share so many things in common, we still are not one church," Bosco said.

This can confound Protestants, who commonly open their Communion table to all other Christians.

"We believe that a person needs to have made a commitment to Christ to participate in it. The scripture says to examine yourselves, so (whether to participate) is between them and God," said the Rev. Craig Montroy, associate pastor of Pittsburgh Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist congregation .

Southern Baptists do not call the Lord's Supper a sacrament, but an ordinance. Typically they don't celebrate it very often.

Like Catholics, Presbyterians and other Reformed churches believe in the "real presence" of Christ in Communion, said the Rev. Keith Nickle, interim pastor of Sunset Hills Presbyterian Church in Mt. Lebanon, Pa., and a former co-chairman of the Lutheran-Reformed Committee for Theological Conversation.

What they don't agree on is how that real presence gets into the bread, wine or grape juice, which some teetotaling denominations use.

Although some individual bishops have spoken, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops is staying out of the Clinton Communion dispute.

"This is a matter for the South African bishops," said Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokesman for the U.S. bishops' conference.

So far, the most pointed response from the Vatican has come from Bishop Geraldo M. Agnelo, secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.

"Since this is a person who is not a Catholic, he cannot be admitted to eucharistic Communion. This is a canonical norm ... and therefore no bishops' conference can advance a different rule," he told Catholic News Service.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)