CARDINAL SARAH: "NO INTER-COMMUNION BETWEEN CATHOLICS AND NON-CATHOLICS. YOU MUST BE CATHOLIC”
by Matteo Orlando
"Inter-communion is not allowed between Catholics and
non-Catholics. It is necessary to confess the Catholic faith. A non-Catholic cannot
receive communion. This is very, very clear. It is not a matter of freedom of
conscience. " This is how Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Divine
Worship Congregation, responds to those who have seen an intercommunion between
Catholics and Lutherans in a response given by Pope Francis to a Lutheran
during his recent visit to the Lutheran community of Rome. "We give communion
to Catholics," giving communion to everyone is "a nonsense,"
says the African Cardinal.
"There is no intercommunion between Anglicans and
Catholics, between Catholics and Protestants. If they go together, the Catholic
can go to communion, but Lutherans or Anglicans do not. " Without a union
in faith and doctrine, opening the doors to intercommunion "would promote
profanation." "We cannot do it. It is not that we must speak to the
Lord to know if we can make Communion. We need to know whether we are in
agreement with the rules of the Church. Our consciousness must be illuminated
by the rules of the Church that says that, in order to communicate, we need to
be in a state of grace, without sin, and have faith in the Eucharist. It is not
a desire or a personal dialogue with Jesus that determines whether we can
receive communion in the Catholic Church. A person cannot decide whether he is
able to receive Communion. Must be Catholic, in a state of grace, properly
married [if conjugated] ". The inter-communion does not allow unity
because "the Lord helps us to be one if we receive it properly, otherwise
we will eat our condemnation, as St. Paul says (1 Corinthians 11: 27-29). We cannot
become one thing only if we participate in communion with sin, with contempt
for the Body of Christ. "