Arinze insists intercommunion restrictions must remain
The Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze has said that Communion can only ever be received by Catholics who are in a state of grace, writes James Roberts.
Speaking at the Benedictine monastery Buckfast Abbey on 23 May, the former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments addressed two ongoing controversies regarding who may receive the Eucharist. In an interview with Catholic News Service, Cardinal Arinze objected to interpretations of Pope Francis’ 2016 apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, which allows divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion in some circumstances. “If a person is divorced and remarried (without the first marriage being annulled) there is a problem,” said Cardinal Arinze, as Jesus taught that such arrangements constituted adultery. “It is Christ who said it. We cannot be more merciful than Christ.”
Cardinal Arinze, 85, said that sharing Communion with Protestant spouses was not an issue of “hospitality”. “After Mass you can go to the refectory and have a cup of tea and a bit of cake. That’s OK. But the Mass is not like that,” he explained.
A controversy over the German bishops’ pastoral handout on “Mixed Marriages and Common Participation in the Eucharist” has divided the bishops. “The Eucharistic celebration of the Mass is not an ecumenical service,” the cardinal said. If Protestants wished to receive Communion in Catholic churches they should become Catholics. “Come, be received into the Church, and then you can receive Holy Communion seven times a week. Otherwise no.”
The cardinal was visiting England to attend a 24 May Mass to celebrate the millennial year of the founding of Buckfast in 1018.
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