Question:  Dear Greg,

            Is it OK for Christians to partake in the Holy Eucharist during the Holy Mass of the Roman Catholic Church?  I understand that during the Mass, Catholics believe that the priest literally “transforms” bread or wafers into the body of Christ.  They teach that your sins will only be forgiven if you partake in this rite.  Is it OK for you to partake of it understanding that they are mistaken and you just want to show your Christian love or brotherhood?  Am I right also to think that the Roman Catholic Church is an apostate church?

            Hanzel

Answer:  Dear Hanzel,

            The most recent Catholic church, as well as one Lutheran denomination and an Eastern Orthodox service I attended advised me that I was free to take communion/Eucharist with them “if I believed as they do.”

            I do not believe exactly as they do (and certainly not on this topic), and therefore was not welcomed, as a fellow Christian, to take communion.  This dispute about the nature of the elements of communion was not resolved during the Reformation, and was one of the reasons for the Reformation.  My beliefs (and those of PTM) rest in the broad Protestant tradition where:

1.      the elements of the bread and wine/grape juice are symbolic of the body of Christ—as well as in

2.      the Priesthood of all believers, that no human can judge me to be in or out of the body of Christ—in addition to

3.      the universal, catholic nature of the body of Christ, that no one denomination or church has a monopoly on God’s work on earth (that is, there is no such thing as “one true church”).

            The official Catholic teaching about the Eucharist is summed up in the word “transubstantiation”—the doctrine that the physical bread and wine actually changes into the substance of Christ’s body and blood.  I do not believe that, and I do not believe that such a belief is the dividing line between those who belong to God and those who do not.  Lutherans speak of “consubstantiation”, the teaching that the bread and wine are not transformed into the body and blood of Christ, but that the flesh and blood of Christ are present “in, with and under” the physical composition of the molecular structure of the bread and wine.  I do not believe that either—and I do not believe that such a belief is the dividing line between those who belong to God and those who do not.

            I do not have any problem taking communion with someone who believes in transubstantiation or consubstantiation—but I have encountered some that do have problems sharing the table of the Lord with me.  I do not see any biblical rationale for any denomination or church refusing communion on that basis.

            In Christ,

            Greg Albrecht