Wrong for remarried Catholics to receive Communion

Dear Editor, Reporter Greg Daly quoted me in his September 23 article (‘Irish Bishops urged to adopt divorce-Communion policy’) about giving Holy Communion to divorced and remarried Catholics. His incomplete reference gives the impression that I approve of this practice. I emphatically do not. 

It is wrong for someone who is living in a state of sin, i.e., an adulterous relationship, to come up to receive Holy Communion. Only when that person has ended committing adulterous acts can he come up for Holy Communion after first having been absolved in confession.

Yours etc., 

Fr Gerald Murray,

New York, NY.

Editor’s reply: The Irish Catholic did not intend to give the inadvertent impression that Fr Murray approves of Communion being given to Catholics who have civilly divorced and remarried. 

In quoting Fr Murray, it was the intention of The Irish Catholic to report only his analysis of the nature of Pope Francis’ decision to support the Argentine bishops’ planned pastoral path for divorced-and-remarried Catholics and not Fr Murray’s views on its wisdom.