Restrictions on Christians from other denominations receiving Communion in the Catholic Church could be relaxed, the Archbishop of Birmingham has said.
Archbishop Bernard Longley, who is co-chairman of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission (Arcic), said he foresaw a loosening of guidelines that already exist allowing baptised Christians to receive Communion, although stressed he could not predict the pace of such a change.
In an interview with the Church of Ireland Gazette, the archbishop pointed to a Vatican document in 1993 that already allowed for Communion to be received by non-Catholic Christians in certain circumstances and following specific criteria.
“Given that that represents a change and a very significant shift away from the impossibility to the limited possibility then I could imagine and foresee one of the fruits of our ecumenical engagement as moving towards a deeper understanding of communion and a deeper sharing between our Churches … which perhaps would lead to a reconsideration of some of the circumstances,” he said adding he was speaking “personally”.
The 1993 Vatican document Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism states: “In certain circumstances, by way of exception, and under certain conditions, access to these sacraments [Communion, Penance and Anointing of the Sick] may be permitted, or even commended, for Christians of other Churches and ecclesial communities.”
Archbishop Longley also called for better knowledge of the 1993 directory and One Bread One Body, issued in 1998 by the Bishops’ Conferences of England and Wales, Ireland and Scotland, which laid out circumstances when a non-Catholic Christian could receive Communion. These include a parent at their child’s baptism, First Holy Communion and confirmation; the parent or wife of someone being ordained; and the intimate family of the deceased at a funeral Mass.
Archbishop Longley said he had come across situations where Communion could be given to a non-Catholic but where the people concerned were unaware of the norms. He cited the example of a couple whose granddaughter was receiving First Holy Communion. “They are a mixed couple, Anglican and Roman Catholic, and they have said how much they missed the Anglican partner being able to receive Holy Communion on that occasion. That’s precisely one of the occasions which One Bread One Body references as an occasion for joy in a family where the spontaneous need of the spiritual well-being of somebody closely related in those circumstances should lead to using what’s possible,” he said.
Archbishop Longley said, however, that obstacles in relations between denominations over the last 20 or 30 years had held back sharing the Eucharist together.
He also pointed out that while other denominations shared the sacraments, this had not led to “full recognition or interchangeability of ministries, the recognition of orders, which is something so central to the Eucharist”.
The archbishop added that the Church holds the Eucharist as both a means towards unity and an expression of full, visible unity.
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