Refrain From Receiving Communion Distributed By Reformed Churches

At the last Bible Study Program meeting of June 24, 2011, I shared with the participants my experience in attending a wedding celebration of the Anglican Church, in which the presiding Anglican minister invited everyone present at the service - both Anglicans and non-Anglicans, believers and non-believers - to receive the communion. I explained in my sharing that Catholics are not allowed to receive communion distributed by the reformed churches because their ministers do not have the special grace of consecrating the Eucharist, which is conferred by the Sacrament of Holy Orders; and because their religious convictions have deviated from the Apostolic faith of the Church.

While re-visiting JPII's Ecclesia de Eucaristia this morning, I came across the following passages which I think provide further support to my position above:

"The Church is apostolic in the sense that she 'continues to be taught, sanctified and guided by the Apostles until Christ's return, through their successors in pastoral office: the college of Bishops assisted by priests, in union with the Successor of Peter, the Church's supreme pastor'. Succession to the Apostles in the pastoral mission necessarily entails the sacrament of Holy Orders...The assembly gathered together for the celebration of the Eucharist, if it is to be a truly Eucharistic assembly, absolutely requires the presence of an ordained priest as its president...

"The Ecclesial Communities separated from us lack that fullness of unity with us which should flow from Baptism, and we believe that especially because of the lack of the sacrament of Orders they have not preserved the genuine and total reality of the Eucharistic mystery...The Catholic faithful, therefore, while respecting the religious convictions of these separated brethren, must refrain from receiving the communion distributed in their celebrations, so as not to condone an ambiguity about the nature of the Eucharist and, consequently, to fail in their duty to bear clear witness to the truth."

(Ecclesia de Eucaristia, 28-30)