The Recovering Choir Director

And for all of us who dare call ourselves Catholics, really.

Tim Drake at the National Catholic Register’s Pope 2008 blog reports:

In light of Rudy Giuliani receiving the Eucharist during the Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Archdiocese of New York released the following comment from Cardinal Edward Egan this morning. I received the statement from Joe Zwilling, director of communications for the archdiocese.

The Catholic Church clearly teaches that abortion is a grave offense against the will of God. Throughout my years as Archbishop of New York, I have repeated this teaching in sermons, articles, addresses, and interviews without hesitation or compromise of any kind. Thus it was that I had an understanding with Mr. Rudolph Giuliani, when I became Archbishop of New York and he was serving as Mayor of New York, that he was not to receive the Eucharist because of his well-known support of abortion. I deeply regret that Mr. Giuliani received the Eucharist during the Papal visit here in New York, and I will be seeking a meeting with him to insist that he abide by our understanding.

Mr. Giuliani, along with the rest of us, would do well to heed the words of St. Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians below, the Vulgate translation of which is used verbatim in the Communion chant for the feast of Corpus Christi in the 1962 Missal (this chant does not appear in the 1974 Graduale Romanum).

• A link to the GIF file for the chant notation.
• A low-fi MP3 recording:
  
• The Scripture reference and translation:

  1 Corinthians 11:26-27

  26For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come.

  27Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord.

• The Catholic Catechism on the topic of worthy reception of the Eucharist:

  CCC 1385

  ¶1385 To respond to this invitation we must prepare ourselves for so great and so holy a moment. St. Paul urges us to examine our conscience: "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself." Anyone conscious of a grave sin must receive the sacrament of Reconciliation before coming to communion.