indiscriminately

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Aug 24, 2005

Cardinal Kasper plays hostess with the consecrated host. The New York Times approves.

TAIZÉ, France, Brother Roger Schutz pursued many ecumenical dreams in his long life, but in death one of them came true: At a Eucharistic service celebrated Tuesday by a Roman Catholic cardinal for Brother Roger, a Swiss Protestant, communion wafers were given to the faithful indiscriminately, regardless of denomination.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Vatican's council for the unity of Christians, who celebrated the Mass, said in a homily, "Yes, the springtime of ecumenism has flowered on the hill of Taizé." Beyond religious divisions, Brother Roger also abhorred the division between rich and poor. "Every form of injustice or neglect made him very sad," Cardinal Kasper said.

So what, boys and girls, do we learn from that stunt? That the Eucharistic discipline of the Church is unjust? Discriminatory? Out-moded? Or that, if you're a bishop, you're free to use the Body of Christ as an emblem of hospitality when it suits your sense of the occasion, regardless of what the recipient happens to believe about the object plunked into his hand?