Priest suspended for receiving Lutheran Communion
Catholic News Service from The Record, 6/12/03, page 13
A German Catholic priest was suspended for receiving Communion during a May 31 high-profile Lutheran service held during the ecumenical Kirchentag. Father Manfred Kroll had his priestly functions suspended and was relieved from his duties as pastor of a parish in Bavaria and as diocesan spiritual adviser to the lay youth organization Catholic Young Community.
The decision was made after a meeting between Father Kroll and Bishop Walter Mixa of Eichstatt, who said afterward that Father Kroll had taken part in a "prohibited service" and had disobeyed the recent papal encyclical on the issue.
In a June 4 statement, the diocese said that Father Kroll would be given "an opportunity to rethink his understanding of his priestly role."
Bavarian radio said the Catholic parish has more Protestant than Catholic members and that it was usual for members of both churches to visit the other.
Father Kroll also delivered the sermon at the Berlin service, in which all Christians were invited to take Communion. The service was organized by the self-styled reform groups "We Are Church" and "Church From Below" during the first ecumenical Kirchentag, or church assembly.
On May 29, Austrian Father Gotthold Hasenhuettl celebrated Catholic Mass, inviting all Christians to receive Communion. No action had yet been taken against him. That Mass was dropped as part of the official Kirchentag after Catholic objections. Church teaching permits Christians of other denominations to receive the Eucharist in very limited and exceptional circumstances, such as grave necessity. In his April encyclical, "Ecclesia de Eucharistia," Pope John Paul II said regular eucharistic sharing with other Christians is a hope to be prayed for and a goal to work toward, but it is not a step on the way toward Christian unity.
