[Episcopal News Service]
In the face of an increasing disregard by Dutch Roman Catholics and Protestants of rules against inter-communion, a group of Dutch theologians is urging Protestants to renounce their historic condemnation of the Catholic Eucharist in hopes that the action might spur a response from Roman Catholics.
Dutch Catholics are officially forbidden from taking Holy Communion in Protestant churches and the Vatican rules also forbid Protestants from receiving in Roman Catholic churches but the rules on both sides are routinely ignored.
One of the most celebrated instances of inter-communion was when Dutch Prince Maurits, a Protestant, married a Catholic in 1998 and during the televised service a number of Protestants -- including Queen Beatrix's mother Juliana -- took communion from a Catholic priest.
Although in practice the Protestant churches are relaxed about inter-communion, the theologians argue that a formal declaration would have great symbolic value -- especially since the Heidelberg Catechism of 1562, one of the best known Reformed confessions of faith, describes the Catholic Eucharist as 'idolatry to be condemned.'
In a lecture earlier this year, Roman Catholic Cardinal Adrianus Simonis of Utrecht referred to inter-communion as 'one of the greatest sources of pain' in ecumenical relations in the Netherlands. In a letter to the joint synod of the Protestant churches, the theologians said that the official recognition of the Catholic Eucharist would be an 'important ecumenical step forward.'
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