By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- With representatives of 12 Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant churches present, members of the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist examined Catholic guidelines on sharing Communion with members of other churches.

One participant suggested a joint Catholic-Orthodox synod to address eucharistic sharing among those churches.

Questions about sharing the Eucharist were raised frequently during the first week of the Oct. 2-23 synod but received special attention Oct. 8 and 10.

The Vatican's chief ecumenist, the theologian of the pontifical household, the president of the Council of European Bishops' Conferences and two Eastern Catholic bishops from Ukraine focused their speeches on the question, according to published summaries and a Vatican briefing.

Cardinal Georges M. Cottier, papal theologian, said that in most circumstances the Catholic Church forbids sharing the Eucharist with non-Catholics because "eucharistic communion is not a point of departure, but rather expresses and brings to perfection" an already-existing unity.

That unity, he said, must be seen in agreement about the faith handed down from the apostles, a common understanding of the sacraments and unity with the college of bishops under the pope.

The cardinal said that because the church's position can appear "unjustly rigid to our Protestant brothers and sisters," it must be explained better.

"It is a fraternal obligation for the church to affirm that it does not have the right to dispose at its pleasure of a gift received from the Lord," he said.

Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, said, "There can be no doubt that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the life and mission of the church, but this also is true for the Orthodox churches."

The Divine Liturgy celebrated by the Eastern Catholic and the Orthodox churches is identical, he said.

Catholics and Orthodox recognize the validity of the other's Eucharist, priestly ordination and apostolic succession, Cardinal Husar said, so naturally people ask why it is not possible for Catholics and Orthodox to "concelebrate" the Eucharist.

The fact that neither the Catholic nor the Orthodox churches permit a regular sharing of the Eucharist, he said, could lead people to ask if the Eucharist really is the "source and summit" of the life of those churches.

Cardinal Husar asked Pope Benedict XVI to consider calling a "truly ecumenical" synod of bishops, with the full participation of the Orthodox churches, to discuss the question.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said the Catholic Church's position on eucharistic sharing must be seen in light of its teaching that the purpose of the Eucharist is to strengthen and unite believers in the one body of Christ.

The cardinal said one "weak point" of the synod's working document was that while it recognized that unity in faith usually counseled against allowing non-Catholics to receive Communion, it did not mention the Second Vatican Council and recent papal teaching that "sharing in the means of grace" sometimes counseled in favor of eucharistic sharing.

Pope John Paul II, in his encyclicals on Christian unity and on the Eucharist, wrote that it was "a source of joy" to know there were situations in which Catholic priests could offer the Eucharist and the sacraments of penance and anointing of the sick to other Christians, he said.

The pope saw the possibility for sacramental sharing not as "pure concession or exception," but as a possibility based on the recognition that proper pastoral actions correspond to individual cases and needs, not to generalized rules, Cardinal Kasper said.

"Where the possibility of scandal is remote," he said, the local bishop is called to use his wisdom and judgment to respond positively to the case of an individual who has a serious reason for seeking the sacrament from a Catholic priest, requests it spontaneously and demonstrates that he or she shares a Catholic understanding of the sacrament.

Swiss Bishop Amedee Grab of Chur, president of the European bishops' council, said that in the church's official dialogue with other Christians, there appears to be "increasing convergence" about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the sacrificial nature of the Lord's Supper and the need for an ordained minister to preside over the liturgy.

Bishop Grab urged the bishops not to overlook the possibilities for eucharistic sharing foreseen in Vatican documents, particularly when dealing with people who, "without belonging to the Catholic Church, share the heartfelt prayer of Jesus for unity."

Retired Ukrainian Bishop Sofron S. Mudry of Ivano-Frankovsk told the synod that the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches "expressly forbids the concelebration of the Divine Liturgy with non-Catholic priests and vice versa."

While Bishop Mudry said he agrees that full unity in faith is necessary for eucharistic sharing, the meaning of "non-Catholic" could be questioned in situations where the faith obviously is shared.

Baptism, he said, incorporates into the one body of Christ those who accept the Gospel message and "the Eucharist increases and brings to completion that incorporation," he said.

"In that way," he said, "the Eucharist not only expresses the unity of the church, it produces it.

"Consequently, by allowing non-Catholic Orthodox to participate in Communion, we would make real the unity among us," he said.

Bishop Mudry said he realizes that many times, on an official level, it does not seem that the Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches are that close to each other, but closeness "is felt increasingly in our daily pastoral work" among a mixed Catholic-Orthodox population.

Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops