really\u00a0<\/em>not have any fences around his communion table? I can understand that he wishes to welcome other nice, intelligent middle class Christians from other mainstream Protestant denomination. I can understand that he wishes to welcome Catholics of a similar persuasion, but does he really welcome everyone?<\/p>\nWould the \u201ccommunion should be open to all\u201d pastor admit Mormons? Seventh Day Adventists? Christian Science? Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses? Unitarians? Moonies? All these groups claim to be followers of Christ and are baptized. Would the nice, liberal Lutheran admit Christians who perhaps he finds more disagreeable? What about Westboro Baptists? Snake Handling Fundamentalists? Billionaire Prosperity Gospel Preachers? Rabid, Right Wing Christian Ku Klux Klan members? Would his charity and open arms reach that far?<\/p>\n
Let us press it further. Should communion be open to all\u2013even to the unbaptized? After all, there are \u201cgood Christians\u201d who have not been baptized. Members of the Salvation Army and other sects repudiate all sacraments and many Baptists aren\u2019t baptized until adulthood. Shall they all be admitted to communion?<\/p>\n
What about non baptized people of goodwill who are \u201cstill on their journey\u201d shall they not be welcomed to communion? What about Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Shintoists, Sikhs or anyone who is spiritually minded?<\/p>\n
Either the \u201copen communion\u201d people must be completely open\u2013in which communion ceases to be a Christian rite at all, or they have some sort of boundaries.<\/p>\n
If they do have some sort of boundary, who decides what that boundary should be? Must the person be baptized? What then of the \u201cgood Christian soul\u201d who loves and follows Jesus but has not been baptized?<\/p>\n
You see where this leads. It leads back to something called \u201cclosed communion\u201d\u2013that some people may receive and others may not.<\/p>\n
The fact of the matter is, while all are welcome to join the church, there must be some way of identifying who is a member and who is not. If everyone is a member, then there is no church.<\/p>\n
From the beginning the Christian Church has had ceremonies and procedures of initiation. \u00a0Communion was the sign and seal of the commitment that was made after proper catechesis.<\/p>\n
For Catholics communion is also the sign and seal of full communion with Christ\u2019s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church which subsists in the Roman Catholic Church.<\/p>\n
All open communion does is muddy the waters, confuse people and water down the faith.<\/p>\n
Instead of open communion with Protestants we should welcome them heartily to the Catholic Church and call on them to do what they can to further the cause of Christian Unity by becoming Catholics.<\/p>\n
Image Creative Commons<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The optimistic ecumenist suggests that the Catholic practice of barring Protestants from receiving communion is an obstacle on the path to unity. A Lutheran pastor (who was a cradle Catholic) wrote to me the other day saying that he didn\u2019t understand why anyone should be refused communion. The call to the Lord\u2019s table, he opined, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":21197,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
Does Ecumenism Demand Open Communion?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The optimistic ecumenist suggests that the Catholic practice of barring Protestants from receiving communion is an obstacle on the path to unity. A\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2016\/01\/does-ecumenism-demand-open-communion.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Does Ecumenism Demand Open Communion?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The optimistic ecumenist suggests that the Catholic practice of barring Protestants from receiving communion is an obstacle on the path to unity. A\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2016\/01\/does-ecumenism-demand-open-communion.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-01-26T15:57:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/149\/2016\/01\/host.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"396\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"326\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2016\/01\/does-ecumenism-demand-open-communion.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2016\/01\/does-ecumenism-demand-open-communion.html\",\"name\":\"Does Ecumenism Demand Open Communion?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-01-26T15:57:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-01-26T15:57:02+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad\"},\"description\":\"The optimistic ecumenist suggests that the Catholic practice of barring Protestants from receiving communion is an obstacle on the path to unity. A\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2016\/01\/does-ecumenism-demand-open-communion.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2016\/01\/does-ecumenism-demand-open-communion.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2016\/01\/does-ecumenism-demand-open-communion.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Does Ecumenism Demand Open Communion?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/\",\"name\":\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad\",\"name\":\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/dwightlongenecker.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/author\/frdwight\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Does Ecumenism Demand Open Communion?","description":"The optimistic ecumenist suggests that the Catholic practice of barring Protestants from receiving communion is an obstacle on the path to unity. A","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2016\/01\/does-ecumenism-demand-open-communion.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Does Ecumenism Demand Open Communion?","og_description":"The optimistic ecumenist suggests that the Catholic practice of barring Protestants from receiving communion is an obstacle on the path to unity. A","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2016\/01\/does-ecumenism-demand-open-communion.html","og_site_name":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","article_published_time":"2016-01-26T15:57:02+00:00","og_image":[{"width":396,"height":326,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/149\/2016\/01\/host.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2016\/01\/does-ecumenism-demand-open-communion.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2016\/01\/does-ecumenism-demand-open-communion.html","name":"Does Ecumenism Demand Open Communion?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-01-26T15:57:02+00:00","dateModified":"2016-01-26T15:57:02+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad"},"description":"The optimistic ecumenist suggests that the Catholic practice of barring Protestants from receiving communion is an obstacle on the path to unity. A","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2016\/01\/does-ecumenism-demand-open-communion.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2016\/01\/does-ecumenism-demand-open-communion.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2016\/01\/does-ecumenism-demand-open-communion.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Does Ecumenism Demand Open Communion?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/","name":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad","name":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g","caption":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/dwightlongenecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/author\/frdwight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/557"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"host\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/149\/2016\/01\/host.jpg\")
<\/a>The optimistic ecumenist suggests that the Catholic practice of barring Protestants from receiving communion is an obstacle on the path to unity.<\/p>\n