Madam, Breda O'Brien's article (Saturday, April 26th) entirely missed the point behind the outpouring of disappointment and anger at the recent papal encyclical on the Eucharist.
It certainly wasn't all confined to the anti-John Paul brigade! First there was the timing of the encyclical. As the homily "Thinking Anew", (also in Saturday's paper) said, "Easter is a time to open doors, to listen to the argument and view of the other side." Sadly there was little evidence of any such thinking in the Pope's encyclical.
In a world where more and more people, particularly in the western hemisphere, are turning away from organised religion, it beggars belief that at this point in time the Pope felt that the Easter message going out from the Vatican should be not so much a celebratory one, but a negative one, condemning the practice of Christians sharing in the receipt of communion in each others' churches. In a world still reverberating from the seemingly endless revelations of clerical child abuse and hierarchical cover-ups it was this negativity more than anything else which triggered people's anger.
As Breda O'Brien rightly says, the encyclical was a passionate declaration of faith by the Pope in the Eucharist and I would have no reason to doubt the sincerity of the Pope's views on the matter. From my own observations of the inattentiveness of some of the people who attend weekly Saturday/Sunday Mass, however, this is certainly not a faith sincerely shared by all of those who receive communion. In many cases I would suggest that communion is regularly taken by some as much out of habit as anything else. Certainly there is little evidence of anything remotely comparable to the reverence with which the Pope approaches the subject of communion when people sit talking through the consecration and continue with their conversations on returning to their seats after receiving communion.
I would suggest, although I have no evidence to support this claim, that Roman Catholics who take the trouble to receive communion in another Christian church are likely to do so with a great deal more reverence than some of the Catholics who take communion in their own churches. Of course there are "more than cosmetic differences between the churches on the question of communion", as Breda O'Brien says, but in recognising and accepting this fact it is difficult to see what terrible sin is being committed in people of different Christian beliefs coming together in a joint celebration of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in Communion. I may be totally wrong, but I cannot see the compassionate Jesus of the Gospels endorsing the narrow views contained in John Paul's latest encyclical. - Yours, etc.,
GERARD BURNS, Richhill, Co Armagh