What is their status in the eyes of the church? No different then that of a Hindu?
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (particularly para 838):
How much of this statement will survive Joe’s reign, I couldn’t say.
In addition the the Catechism (and especially if one wants to know which way Pope Benedict XVI may be headed)…it may be helpful to take a gander at DOMINUS IESUS …which is also covered here in simpler fashion …
Expect to hear much talk about the (IMHO) clumsy phrase “gravely deficient”. 
Tomndebb, paragraph states that “the plan of salvation also includes . . . the Muslims”; and yet in paragraph 846 it seems to contradict this statement with " . . . they could not be saved . . . would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it."
How does the Catholic Church reconcile these apparently conflicting statements?
This is saying if Yassir “knows” that the Catholic faith is necessary for salvation…but makes a conscious choice to refuse to enter (or remain) in it, then Yassir can not be saved.
Presumably if Yassir is a practicing Muslim, he doesn’t “know/believe” this…
On a related note, I was at Mass at a nearby church last Saturday night (I’m not Catholic; a FOAF was singing and I wanted to hear her) and reading through the Missal I noticed that non-Catholics were invited to partake in the Eucharist.
:eek:
The last time I’d seen the inside of a Catholic church prior to last Saturday was in the mid-80’s, and at that time the Missal clearly stated that non-Catholic Christians were asked to abstain. (IIRC, Jews were allowed to participate. Go figure.)
When did this change?
It has not changed. Either you misunderstood the missal, or there has been a serious error at the missal printing shop.
Non-Christians, such as Jews, are not invited to participate in the Eucharist. Nor are most non-Catholic Christians. Christians that are members of churches that accept the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and whose orders are valid - basically the Orthodox - may receive the Eucharist.
Maybe they decided to fudge a bit on the requirements, in the interests of evangelism, or ecumenicism, or “reaching out to the community”, or something.
http://www.usccb.org/liturgy/q&a/mass/communion.shtml
Maybe they got permission from the Bishop?
Are you sure it was a Roman Catholic church, HeyHomie?
The other possibility is that some churches have an informal tradition…where if a non Catholic approaches the priest in the Communion line, he can cross his arms in front of his chest (indicating that he’s not Catholic) and receive a blessing.
Non-Christians are allowed to come up and be blssed during th Eucharistic feast.
Actually, that gesture just indicates that the person will not be receiving Communion. It’s also used by children who have not yet received First Communion, and adult Catholics who for whatever reason choose not to participate.
Incidentally, the Church also holds that there is only one baptism. If a person is baptised as a Lutheran, or a Methodist, or any other Christian denomination, and switches to Catholicism, there will be a ceremony to welcome that new member, but the ceremony will not include baptism, since the person was already baptized.
The Bishop may not approve administering Eucharist to non-Christians under any circumstances.
Canon 844 provides that Chrisitan recipients of the Eucharist must "demonstrate the catholic faith in respect of these sacraments and [be] properly disposed. " It’s very unlikely the Bishop would offer a general invitation to receive this sacrament without a way of assuring himself of this.
I’m reading HeyHomie’s question as referring to non-Catholic Christians, not to non-Christians.
Thus, maybe they got permission from the Bishop to open the Eucharist to non-Catholic Christians, in the interests of evangelism, or ecumenicism, or “reaching out to the community”, or something.
Nope, I highly doubt that a Bishop would be able to grant permission to do so. Especially when you consider that not all Catholics may receive communion.
(Although if you WEREN’T Catholic, and you went up in line, with your hand out, they’d never know.)
I suspect a lot of local Parish Priests take what liberties they feel are appropriate. My sister was married in a Catholic Church. I’m Lutheran; knowing that my mother would want us all to commune together during the Mass, I asked the Priest if he would have a problem with Lutherans communing. His response - he didn’t have a problem with it if I didn’t.
No, it was in Springfield, not Rome.
Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week.
You’re correct…I was just applying the gesture to the case at hand, involving a non Catholic.
Well, you could have attended Mass at St. Peter’s in Rome, and visited Fort Stanwix, which is only a few blocks away.
In point of fact, Catholicism believes that there is only one Church, founded by Jesus in the commissioning of the Eleven, with St. Peter as their leader, and continued down to the present in the form of the outfit that has parishes conducting Mass in your hometown and which recently called its leaders together to elect a new replacement for St. Peter.
However, that conception applies to the visible Church, the one that has clearly delineated membership lines, and also to the invisible Church, which does not. Participating in the invisible Church is a matter of giving faithful assent to the doctrine of the faith, and one can be at varying distances from the center rather than on one side or the other of a clear inside/outside line.
Catholics participate in the fullness of the Deposit of Faith by virtue of being Catholics, who willingly assent to the teachings of the Church. But other Christians are at varying removes from this fullness and participate more or less in the saving graces of the faith. The Orthodox are deemed extremely close to the center; we Anglicans and the Lutherans at a slightly more distant remove; the other Protestants at varying further degrees of distance (a high-church Presbyterian being closer than a conservative Baptist, for example); Latter-day Saints and others yet further out; and so on.
[All the above, of course, is reported from the perspective of what Catholicism believes about itself and “other denominations” (a term they would not use).]
UPDATE:
I went back last weekend (4/23) to double check, and re-read the relevant portions of the Missal.
Apparently I was mistaken. I had only read the first paragraph, which gave the impression that other Christians were invited to participate. But the second paragraph made it clear that other Christians were invited to participate by sitting prayerfully in their pews. My bad.