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)
“But with some small portion of real genius and a warm imagination, an author surely may be permitted a little to expand his wings and to wander in the aerial fields of fancy, provided ... that he soar not to such dangerous heights, from whence unplumed he may fall to the ground disgraced, if not disabled from ever rising anymore.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)