CHAPTER 1: ECUMENICAL PROGRESS AND STAGNATION 37 reciprocal participation in the Eucharist.89 The latter, the level of reciprocal participation, is what can be defined as intercommunion. It is an agreement between communions that their lay members can participate fully in the Eucharistic celebrations of both. It is the closest to full communion. In the case of general admission, one communion allows members of another communion to receive the Eucharist based on their membership of that specific communion. The most restrictive category is that of limited admission. It does allow for participation in some cases based on membership and/or other criteria, such as occasion, circumstances, etcetera. Both levels lack reciprocity and can be categorized as a one-sided invitation towards individual members of other communions for occasional or durable participation in the Eucharist. In my opinion, the term Eucharistic hospitality suits this situation best.90 The case of the German guidelines, as we will see, is a question of limited admission. Its preconditions are not so much based on a particular membership but on certain circumstances (a mixed marriage) and individual spiritual needs. The document does not include arrangements for reciprocity. In line with the considerations above, it is better to speak of Eucharistic hospitality than of intercommunion. Eucharistic hospitality as a pastoral question Several things should be considered concerning the document Mit Christus gehen. First of all, the document published by the German Bishops’ Conference is an orientation aid, even though it was initially presented as a pastoral guideline,91 intended to assist pastors in their pastoral care for marriages in which one partner is Roman Catholic and the other a non-Catholic Christian. As a consequence, it is a pastoral rather than a dogmatic or juridical document. The main question the document is concerned with is expressed by the bishops when they write: “We indicate how spouses in confession-uniting marriages (konfessionsverbindende Ehe), through pastoral counseling, can arrive at a moral 89 World Council of Churches, Louvain 1971: Study Reports and Documents, Faith and Order Paper 59 (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1971), 63–64. 90 For a more elaborated reflection on the terminology, see Giulia Casadei and Fokke Wouda, “Eucharistic Hospitality: Reconsidering the Terminology,” Perspectief, no. 34 (2016): 50–57, http://www.oecumene.nl/files/Books/Perspectief/34/index.html#50. 91 The only difference is that a proper guideline established by the German Bishop’s Conference would have had binding implications for the policy of individual bishops in their dioceses. The final Orientierungshilfe expresses the same principles (it is not clear if and to what extent the text has been rewritten in the meantime), but merely act as suggestions for bishops to contemplate.
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