Philadelphia Cardinal Rigali: One Must Believe What the Church Teaches to Receive Communion

Now this is a true Prince of the Church! You must read this article: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jun/08062003.html.

Here are some of his awesome quotes:

"St. Justin in the second century tells us: 'The only people who are to go to Communion are people who believe everything we believe'. So it's a question of our faith."

"We have to accept the teachings on the body of Christ and we have to accept the teaching of the body of Christ, which is the Church, on other things to be fully worthy," he said.

Cardinal Rigali added that "obviously the Church has an obligation to safeguard the Eucharist against abuses."

"To be in the state of grace you must embrace what the Church embraces, you have to embrace the faith of the Church, and you're not free to receive the Eucharist if you don't embrace the faith of the Church. This is St. Paul, this is St. Justin, this is the whole history of the Church."

Why is this so hard for certain well-known church leaders to understand? Why don't they teach this to their people? Why do they permit scandal among the faithful who see pro-abortion politicians receive the Eucharist? Doesn't this make them wonder why only 57% of Catholics believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist? (Sacraments Today: Belief and Practice among US. Catholics - CARA 2008)

It's not terribly surprising that so many Catholics see Senators Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and Christopher Dodd receive the Holy Eucharist and say to themselves, "Well, I guess the Catholic Church really doesn't believe that the Eucharist is Jesus Christ if it allows people who strongly support the killing of the unborn to receive too!"

It not so much a matter of denying people their perceived "right" to receive, as much as it is a matter of protecting the sanctity of the sacraments of the Church which were instituted by Jesus Himself!

Sacraments Today: Belief and Practice among US. Catholics

In February 2008, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University surveyed 1,007 self-identified adult Catholics in the United States from Knowledge Networks large national panel of households, which is assembled by regular random telephone survey methods (probability sampling). The primary focus of the survey is participation in the sacramental life of the Church as well as beliefs about the sacraments. The poll also addresses many other issues of importance to the Church, including other forms of participation in Church life and other teachings of Catholicism. A survey with this number of respondents has a margin of sampling error of ±3.1 percentage points. As a rule of thumb, every 1 percentage point of the total adult Catholic population is equivalent to approximately 500,000 persons. The following are the primary topic areas of the survey:

How Catholics have entered the Church
The general sacramental lives of Catholics
The Mass and Eucharist
Reconciliation
Anointing of the Sick
Ordinations and vocations
Religious devotions and practices in daily life
General Catholic beliefs and attitudes
Parish life in a time of fewer priests
Satisfaction with Church leaders

Here is a link to the slides from the CARA PowerPoint presentation for the June 12, 2008 Meetings of the USCCB in Orlando, FL:

http://cara.georgetown.edu/Sacraments%20Today%20PPT.pdf.

This link is for more detailed info from CARA on other aspects of the study:

http://cara.georgetown.edu/sacraments.html.

Submitting Comments

Just a point of order for submitting comments to be posted. Someone recently submittted some very good questions as comments to the post below titled, "Can Catholics Who Vote for Obama Still Receive Communion? " Unfortunately the poster put my name with their comments which made it appear as though they were mine. I therefore had to reject the comments. If the individual desires to post their comments again with their name or anonymously, please do so and it will be accepted. Thank you!

Can Catholics Who Vote for Obama Still Receive Communion?

It's well-settled that those who support abortion "rights" should not present themselves for Holy Communion. This obviously includes politicians who support abortion.




However, a question that many may not have considered is whether a person who VOTES for a political candidate who supports abortion may present themself for Holy Communion. Click on this link for a very clear explanation of the answer to this question:


http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jun/08061208.html