Communion and The Developmentally Disabled

Regarding Communion and the developmentally disabled, there is no consensus on whether Christians who are developmentally disabled or mentally retarded should be allowed to partake of the Eucharist. Some Christians maintain that a rational understanding is necessary to receive the sacrament and that such persons should therefore not be permitted to partake. Others believe that the disabled should not be excluded from the sacraments. Different Christian denominations have different philosophies and regulations in this regard.

Read more about Communion And The Developmentally Disabled:  History, Roman Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, Protestantism

Famous quotes containing the words communion and/or disabled:

    O my Brothers! love your Country. Our Country is our home, the home which God has given us, placing therein a numerous family which we love and are loved by, and with which we have a more intimate and quicker communion of feeling and thought than with others; a family which by its concentration upon a given spot, and by the homogeneous nature of its elements, is destined for a special kind of activity.
    Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872)

    That myth—that image of the madonna-mother—has disabled us from knowing that, just as men are more than fathers, women are more than mothers. It has kept us from hearing their voices when they try to tell us their aspirations . . . kept us from believing that they share with men the desire for achievement, mastery, competence—the desire to do something for themselves.
    Lillian Breslow Rubin (20th century)