This is not a statement by the one writing this reflection, but by Pope Francis during the press conference on his return from his trip to Hungary in September 2021. “I have never denied the Eucharist to anyone. I have never been aware of having a person like the one you describe in front of me. The only time I had a sympathetic thing, in a nursing home, I said who wants to receive communion, raise your hand. An old lady got up, took communion, and said, ‘Thank you, thank you, I am Jewish.’ I answered her, ‘This one I gave you is also Jewish!’”
At the time, Pope Francis spoke of the “storm unleashed with Amoris Laetitia... always condemning… enough of condemnations… they are children of God who need our compassion.”
On the other hand, it was the Vatican itself that warned conservative US bishops to curb their pressure to deny communion to politicians who support abortion rights, including President Joe Biden. But despite this, the US bishops insisted and wanted to vote on the issue at a virtual conference, back in June 2021.
On that occasion, the ‘holy crusade’ was led by some bishops whose priorities were to reiterate the centrality of opposition to abortion in the Catholic faith by taking a hard line. However, the Vatican’s concern was not to use access to the Eucharist as a political weapon.
Pope Francis had said this in June 2021 that communion “is not the reward of saints, but the bread of sinners.” And Cardinal Luis Ladaria, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote a letter to the U.S. bishops warning them that a vote on the issue could “become a source of discord rather than uniting the episcopate and broadening the Church in the United States.”
On that occasion, the ‘holy crusade’ was led by some bishops whose priorities were to reiterate the centrality of opposition to abortion in the Catholic faith by taking a hard line. However, the Vatican’s concern was not to use access to the Eucharist as a political weapon
No, the Eucharist is not the reward of the good but the medicine of the weak. Pope Francis wrote this phrase in Amoris Laetitia, and he repeated it several times in several of his homilies. It may seem like just another phrase, but it is revolutionary. Until now, we saw the Eucharist and Eucharistic communion as the gift given to those who led a life in conformity with the teachings of the Church and denied to those who were excommunicated: cohabitants, divorced and remarried, homosexuals. So, inevitably, to receive communion meant to be part of those in good standing, a sort of seal of respectability.
Exclusion from the sacraments and communion, therefore, produces enormous suffering in those who suffer it because they perceive it as a rejection or, worse still, a condemnation directed against their person and towards situations in life for which they do not feel guilty at all or from which there is no turning back. The Pope’s perspective seemed to turn things around to say that communion should be given to all, not because every kind of life is right but because we are all sinners. With the power of the Eucharistic food, everyone can heal from their sin and do the best they can in their life according to the teachings of Christ.
Has that papal perspective really reached the Church? Communion does not mean that we are rewarded because we are part of the good but that we receive strength, each of us, to walk towards our model, Christ. Is this new perspective fully understood? Are we, the ordained ministers, the censors: ‘yes to you’ and ‘no to you’?
…communion “is not the reward of saints, but the bread of sinners.”
Pope Francis
Many theologians and ordained ministers affirm that no one should be denied communion and that it is up to the individual Christian to decide whether to follow a path of discernment.
Doesn’t denying Eucharistic communion today sound like a great wound that we ordained ministers inflict in the hearts of so many people who are already living in situations of suffering? In this sense, it is a scandal for which we are guilty. Isn’t the new perspective that gives the proclamation of the Word and the sacraments to everyone much richer in love and simultaneously says to the conscience of each one: “Reflect, evaluate, pray, and do your best to resemble Christ”? What if we were to recognise the part of beauty, goodness, kindness in a love relationship between individuals with diverse sexual orientations??
“I have never denied communion to anyone…”— Pope Francis.
Father Joseba Kamiruaga Mieza CMF
