Whom to allow to communion is a big question these days, with many Protestant churches going to an “open communion” policy (anybody who wants to take it can), while the Apostolic Churches retain the strictness inherited from ancient Tradition. Recently, a high-ranking Vatican official, Cardinal Llovera, has affirmed the Catholic Teaching that withholding communion is a practice of charity in truth. “Wait a minute,” you may ask, “telling someone he can’t take communion is love?” You may be thinking “that isn’t love; that is mean!”
To understand this, we must understand what the Catholic definition of love (charity) is. It is not love as American pop culture defines it. Love, for the Catholic, is willing and acting in a way that is in the best interest of the other person. So, for us, love means treating others with respect and dignity. However, love also involves more difficult (at least from the vantage point of living in a society that doesn’t understand love to be much more than an emotion) things such as loving correction, discipline, possibly refusing a request, penance, and so forth. Some would define love as giving the alcohol abuser those extra drinks, because it makes him “feel” good, whereas Catholics would define love as withholding those drinks (but being there if he does take them).
As I was watching an Andy Griffith Show episode the other day, I was reminded of this principle. A free-wheeling hobo was influencing Opie, causing the boy to do bad things, and confusing his sense of right and wrong. The hobo, a kind of post-modernist, suggested Andy let “Opie decide” which system of right-and-wrong the young boy wanted to embrace, Andy’s more classical understanding, or the Hobo’s “anything goes” system. Andy rightly proclaimed that his duty as a father involved keeping Opie on the correct path, so that Opie could see in the long run that what his dad was saying was true, since, as Andy pointed out, kids will always gravitate toward the “shiny,” that is, the easiest morality possible. From a Catholic perspective Andy loved. The Hobo did not. Andy did what was in the best interest of his child, even though it was difficult.
Nonetheless, postmodern America will tell you that “love” is letting Opie do whatever he wants. This is why some churches allow anybody to take communion, because denying communion seems exclusive or mean. However, for Catholics, denying communion is a means of correction, a means of treating a sick patient with the intention of his or her eventual return to wellness. To never deny holy communion is to never offer the possibility of healing. If you don’t recognize any possibility of sin, you deny any possibility of grace (since the righteous don’t need a physician). Denying communion is never pleasant, and it is not “fun,” but it is an example of Christian love.
