Jimmy Akin

A reader writes:

My mother related an event to me that her friend witnessed.

During the distribution of Eucharist, a young girl about 14 approached to receive. She was wearing a typical teenage dress with spaghetti straps. As she approached the priest, he looked past her and waved her on. Her mother was behind her and said it’s okay, she’s old enough to receive. He didn’t answer, just waved her on again. She moved on without receiving. An older woman who saw what happened, took her shawl and wrapped it around the girls shoulders….the priest then went to where the girl was sitting and gave her communion once her shoulders were covered.

My question is…can he do that? I’m in agreement with dressing appropriately for church. But is it within the scope of the priest’s authority to deny someone Eucharist based on her outfit?

It is very difficult to establish a basis in the law for what the priest did in this case. First, let’s start with a general, hermeneutical canon:

Can. 18 Laws which
establish a penalty, restrict the free exercise of rights, or contain an
exception from the law are subject to strict interpretation.

Laws that would restrict the faithful’s right to receive Communion therefore must be interpreted strictly. If there is doubt as to the applicability of a law, the doubt must be read in favor of the free exercise of the right of the faithful.

Now let’s hop forward in the Code:

Can.  843 §1. Sacred ministers cannot deny the sacraments to those who seek them at appropriate times, are properly disposed, and are not prohibited by law from receiving them.

This canon is phrased negatively–that is, it says what sacred ministers cannot do. If a person meets the qualifications listed then a pastor cannot deny them the sacraments. Whether the canon is convertible such that a pastor can deny a person who seeks the sacraments at an inappropriate time, who is not properly disposed, or who is prohibited by law is not stated, but it seems clear that the minister can do so.

If the minister were to deny the girl Communion based on anything in this canon, it would have to be the on the grounds that the girl was not properly disposed, since her clothing has nothing to do with what time she is seeking to receive Communion and since there are no laws that expressly prohibit a person from receiving Communion based on the clothing they are wearing.

But there is a problem here. Actually, there are three.

First, the Code says further on:

Can.  912 Any baptized person not prohibited by law can and must be admitted to holy communion.

Whatever else it does, this canon lays additional stress on the gravity of reasons that a minister must have for denying Communion to one seeking it (at least during the context of a Mass). The fact that the earlier condition of proper disposition is omitted from this canon is at least suggestive that the minister should not be attempting to judge the dispositions of the communicant. He should not be trying to judge whether the person is displaying sufficient reverence, for example. He should only focus on whether the person is prohibited by law from receiving.

Thus he should be asking questions like, "Is this person baptized?", "Is this person a Catholic?", "Has this person been admitted to Holy Communion?", "Is this person under a penalty like excommunication?"–not "Does this person appear sufficiently reverent?", "Has this person fasted for an hour?", or even "Has this person been to confession?"

This is further undrescored by the following canon:

Can.  915 Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.

You’ll note that the condition needed to deny someone Communion in this canon on grounds of sin is not just that they are in mortal sin or have not been to confession since committing a mortal sin. It is that they are "obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin," which means a whole bunch of things–not only is the sin mortal (or at least grave), it must be publicly known, they must be continuing to do it (as opposed to having stopped it and just not gone to confession yet), and they must do so after some kind of warning (obstinately).

This indicates that, if a priest knows that a person does not have the proper disposition of being free of unconfessed mortal sins then he cannot deny the person Communion. For example, if he knows that the person recently committed secret sin X and that the person has not been absolved of it because just before Mass the person attempted confession to the priest in question and the priest denied him absolution because he wasn’t actually contrite then the priest still cannot refuse him Communion because the sin was secret (not publicly known and thus not manifest) and thus he is not "obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin."

The conjunction of canons 912 and 915 thus suggests that, in the case of the Eucharist, the question of whether a person is properly disposed is to be judged by the communicant and not by the minister. He can deny you Communion if you are prohibited by law from receiving it (e.g., if you are obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin) but it is not his job to judge whether you are sufficiently disposed. That determination is your job, not the ministers. (And, after all, do we really want extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion making that determination on our behalf?)

So that’s problem #1: There is a significant case to be made–particularly in light of the strict construction that canon 18 requires–that canon 912 modifies canon 843 in such a way that the minister is not to attempt to judge the proper disposition of a person seeking to receive holy Communion.

But then there’s problem #2: Even if it is within the minister’s purview to judge the proper disposition of a communicant, there are no canons dealing with proper vesture for receiving Communion. There are other laws establishing the proper dispositions for receiving Communion–you must be reverent, you must have fasted for an hour, you must not be conscious of unconfessed mortal sin, etc.–but nowhere does the law list what kind of clothing you are wearing as a requirement for proper disposition.

The absence of any laws dealing with this thus creates a case for saying that a particular kind of vesture is simply not required for proper disposition as the law understands it, and thus–per the struct construction required by canon 18–the minister would not be allowed to bar a person based on their type of vesture (unless, of course, the clothing they were wearing constituted obstinate perseverance in manifest grave sin; see below).

But even if this, too, is rejected, there’s still problem #3: What vesture is appropriate for receiving Communion is unambiguously culturally relative. In some cultures–like certain places in Africa–women do not wear tops at all, and the Church does not bar them from Communion on this ground. So one is going to have to judge whether the clothing is considered appropriate according to the local cultural norms, whether one approves of those norms or not (per canon 18’s strict construction).

If the local culture permits 14 year old girls to wear string-tied tops that reveal their shoulders–or strapless wedding dresses that do the same thing–then a minister will not be permitted to deny Holy Communion on that basis.

Now, if the local culture doesn’t allow something–for example, women going completely topless, or men going topless in church, or wearing a Nazi armband, or wearing a shirt that uses the F-word or the S-word or the N-word (things which might be nailable under the obstinate perseverance in manifest grave sin requirement)–then the minister (prescinding from problems #1 and #2) refuse Communion, but not if this is what people in the culture are permitted to wear.

Since teenage girls in our culture are commonly permitted to wear string-tied tops that expose their shoulders, it is going to be very difficult to use canon 843–given the three problems here named and the strict construction that must be put on the matter–to deny a girl Communion in our culture on the ground that she is wearing such a shirt.

A minister may not like it–and he may be right to not like it–but it is not easy to find a basis in the law for denying the girl in this case Communion on grounds of strictly constructed improper disposition.

The only other ground I could see is the one in canon 915 regarding obstinate perseverance in manifest grave sin, but this is not going to work, either. A teenage girl wearing a dress that reveals her shoulders–or her bellybutton–is simply not gravely sinning by the mere fact of doing so. She may be dressing immodestly, but she is not committing a sin that will send her to hell (if done with adequate knowledge and consent) simply because she shows her shoulders (or bellybutton) in public.

Further, if she were obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin then the priest shouldn’t have given her Communion simply because someone put a shawl over her shoulders. He should have told her to go to confession.

I thus find it very difficult to find an adequate basis in the law for what the priest did in restricting the girl’s exercise of her right to receive Holy Communion.

That is not to say that the Holy See would not be within its rights to develop a dress code for receiving Communion. It might be well advised to do so–or at least to require the national bishops’ conferences to develop their own national dress codes, but this far it has not done so, and one cannot bar people from Communion based on what one wishes the law said.

Canon 18 won’t let you.