In the last two editions of The Tablet there has been reference to inter-Communion, which prompts me to write with my own experience. I grew up worshipping with my family in the Anglican tradition and was prepared for confirmation by a vicar who explained about the Reformation, saying that he did not believe that the King’s excommunication meant that the ordinary English worshippers were not part of the True Church.
My conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1961 as a teenager was after receiving instructions from the Catholic Truth Society, which used to arrive in the post in plain brown envelopes – as if they were illegal publications. I had become interested as I was intending to marry a Catholic.
For the next several years I hardly dared enter an Anglican church nor invite my parents to worship with me. After a time I found this unacceptable and started to attend their church when I was visiting them and to welcome them into the Catholic church that I attended. I told them they should receive the Eucharist with me there – but never ventured to ask the priest’s permission because I was confident it would not be given. I receive Communion when I go to an Anglican church and have also shared the bread and wine in a Methodist Church.
I think our Church devotes too much effort to pointing out the differences between the Christian faiths instead of looking at the possibilities of sharing our common commitment to Christianity. The recent comments of the Pope Emeritus (The Tablet, 1 November) really disappointed me.
Alison Flath, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
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