They've offended both the queer community and the catholic church in under 24 hours. I wonder if anyone else has ever done that?
(Random thoughts on the communion thing: 1. In the eyes of the church, is it worse to take a host and put it on your pocket, or to accept communion when you aren't catholic? 2. It seems to me that if you're a political leader whose primary strategy is to accuse his opponent of being out of touch with ordinary Canadians, you'd brush up on the protocol of Canada's largest religion before attending a state funeral in that religion's church. Especially since you have access to the services of a protocol office.)
3 comments:
I'm no pope or anything (yet!), but I think it's worse to put it in your pocket. If you take it, you're supposed to consume it. I was once strongarmed by a couple of large Italian groomsmen to taking communion, even though (as I tried to tell them) I'm no longer Catholic. I accepted it and ate it with cynicism in my heart; but I certainly wouldn't have accepted it and then tried to get rid of it somehow, for the same reason I wouldn't remain seated when the rest of the congregation stood just because I don't believe in their stories. It would be impolite. I'm a guest, after all.
There are some restrictions on when you're supposed to accept communion, as a Catholic. You're supposed to fast beforehand (in my family the fast length was an hour, which was pretty easy to deal with when the communion came about 45 min into the ceremony) and you're supposed to be clean of venal sin or somesuch. For us that meant that if we missed mass the previous week for some reason other than illness or travel or whatever, we had to go to confession before we took communion. I didn't commit all that many venal sins as a ten-year-old. I think most Catholics kind of make those rules up as they go along but there's a core principle that is being observed one way or another.
However, I have been at more than one ecumenical service, such as in the military when a Catholic chaplain was providing the week's service, when the priest invited everyone, of any faith, to receive communion. It's a gesture, I think, of respect for other faiths, and the expectation is that the respect will be returned by the people attending.
In Harper's case, it wasn't, which leads to your #2. I agree absolutely with everything you say there.
One of my first thoughts after reading about this, since I was raised in a Baptist church, was that there are quite a few conservative protestant xtians who are not going to be happy about this. A Baptist taking communion from a faith that practises idolatry? Risky!
Of course, those same shocked xtians are also the kind who'll bend themselves backwards to excuse Harper's behaviour, so I don't expect they'll make much of a squawk over it.
M@: You only had to wait an hour? Ours was we weren't allowed to eat anything that day, so we had to skip breakfast (and this is when we were young enough that that was a sacrifice.) In retrospect, maybe my mother just didn't want to have to rush to make breakfast. Or maybe it was handed down through generations of mothers who didn't want to make breakfast.
Sarah O.: That's interesting, it never occurred to me that Harper's own denomination might take offence. I've heard protestants be offended that the catholic church doesn't allow them to take communion, but I've never heard of the opposite.
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