Communion for Non-Catholics and Kabbalah for Non-Jews....With Integrity
I love the fact that Sally Quinn chose to break with her regular practice, and take communion at Tim Russert’s funeral. I love it, because as she describes it, it was an expression of love and respect for her departed friend on his own terms, not her own terms. That kind of empathy is always powerful, but in the realm of religion, it is sacred. Of course, all that is easy for me to say, because I am not Catholic.
The fact that taking communion worked for her and impresses me does not mean that it might not be upsetting to Catholics who attach a whole range of spiritual and doctrinal meaning to communion that we do not. Ms. Quinn’s apparent tone-deafness to that fact should not be overlooked. But charging her with “narcissism “, as the Catholic League did, is outrageous. Sadly it also typifies the responses of all religious watchdog groups, be they Catholic, Christian, Jewish, Muslim or Hindu. They never miss the opportunity to read a well-intentioned ritual misstep, as purposefully provocative or shamefully disrespectful.
It seems to me that the rub here, lies in surfacing a tension within the Catholic community itself, and that Ms. Quinn was an innocent bystander who got caught in the cross fire. As communion was explained to her by Mr. Russert, it was a ritual in which she could participate with integrity, so she did. Even the transubstantiation part worked to the extent that it brought her closer, though admittedly to Tim and not Jesus.
What sparked the anger here was that an individual Catholic, Tim Russert, explained communion his own way – one that does not fit with the doctrinal requirement of some other Catholics. Since they can no longer blame him, they took out their frustrations on her. By participating in the ritual, while acknowledging that she did not fully support its theological underpinnings, Ms. Quinn opened up the complex relationship between a ritual whose purpose is to constitute a particular community and the inevitable variety of motivations and understandings that are brought to that ritual by the individuals who participate in it.


