Am I a Catholic or a Protestant - wrt Communion?

[IfYouCantSeeMyMirrors]

I was brought up very firmly as a Catholic - without outright bigotry, but always knowing that Protestants were completely wrong in all their life choices! (To this day, I can identify a 'Protestant' biscuit from a 'Catholic' one, for example....)
I now live in a small town hundreds of miles away, where the Catholic church is pretty much non-existent, but the Protestant/Anglican church is a lovely, thriving community, which embraces the whole community too. Many Catholics that I know of attend certain services at this Anglican church, and I have started to as well.
But I wonder - can I take communion there? I know the rules vary - but my question is really quite specific. I understand that you can only take communion at an Anglican church if you have been confirmed. As a confirmed catholic, I am eligible in that sense (or so a friend's vicar tells me). However, I am no longer eligible to take communion in the Catholic church itself (haven't been to confession for 20 years, for example; use contraception; married in a registry office). So if I can't take it in the Catholic church, do I still have a 'pass' to take it in an Anglican church? I suspect not.
Obviously, all this is just a matter of rules, rather than proper religion. But I'd like to know where I stand...and would be interested to hear from anyone else who has crossed over to the 'other side'.

Most Anglican Churches are very open and welcoming to members of other denominations, and this includes receiving Holy Communion. My invitation is usually something like 'all who love the Lord Jesus and are used to receiving Holy Communion, are welcome to receive today'. I don't ask questions or make judgements. If you want reassurance then ask the priest in charge of the church you are attending.

Nope! If you can take communion in your church you can take it in an Anglican one (strictly speaking if it is "in communion with the C of E", but no-one asks). RC is in communion with C of E, just not the other way round. So all RC who have made first communion can take communion. Its often best if small children don't - as that might be seen as odd, although it is okay (legally) as Australian Anglican children take communion.

Quite a few members of the PCC of my old Anglican church are Catholics.

It is seen as a personal issue between you and God, whether you take communion or not. Adrian Plass wrote a funny short story about worrying about it, when he wasn't taking it because his shoes had a hole in.

This isn't answering your question at all, but I must know - what are Protestant biscuits and what are Catholic biscuits?!

I was brought up as a catholic but never learnt this!

As for not being able to take communion in a Catholic Church because of using contraceptive etc - I'm not sure if this is true. You probably would need to go to confession before taking it again after 20 years, but I'm not sure being married in a registry office or using contraception mean you can't receive it.....I think it would depend on your priest and also whether you want to be part of a church that teaches against these things. But I am in no way an expert having opted out of my catholic many years ago.

A pal of mine recently emailed the pope as her PP had refused communion on the grounds that she was divorced and shacked up with her fancy piece. He wrote back and said she could.

I also need to know about biscuits. In my head rich tea are protestant biscuits but I have no idea where I've got that idea from.

I think ginger nuts are Catholic

I can be of no useful assistance either, other than to say I am a Catholic and have taken Communion at Anglican churches before at baptisms etc. However, that doesn't mean I was right to do so - I have a feeling older Catholics would have strongly disapproved (although what don't they disapprove of?) never mind what Anglicans would have thought.

Disappointingly, my childhood religious education entirely omitted the identification of a Protestant or Catholic biscuit and I too am burning with curiosity - please tell us.

After watching The Wire I do know that Jameson's is catholic whiskey and Bushmills is Protestant whiskey!

But I still need to know about the biscuits!

Can you tell us more about the biscuits?

CofE are fine about RC receiving communion in their churches. But your PP is likely to disapprove if he notices.

In an RC church, it's RC recipients only.

And as absolution only 'works' if you have a firm purpose of amendment, but contraception only works if done diligently, then it's not really compatible with frequent confession.

I remember, at a funeral, RC, the priest seemed very shocked that I did not take Communion.

I didn't because I am not Catholic, but I am very much Christian, but I didn't want to muck the ritual up somehow. The priest had already said he would give a blessing to those who did not take Communion, and many requested a blessing, but he almost 'second guessed' me and was visibly shocked. It was a moment that sent shivers down my spine...

I think technically CofE are happy to give communion to anyone who is baptised into a Trinitarian faith, and who would take communion within their own church. So it's sort of a grey area - you would be able to take communion in an RC church if you were to go to confession, but you can't/won't as you are using contraception and plan to keep on doing it.

So... you theoretically could receive RC communion - since you haven't been excommunicated - even if you currently don't.

So, I'd say you're fine, even by the technical rules.

In real life, nobody in the CofE church is going to mind in the slightest if you are a rather lapsed RC.

Rushing off, but will read all this through properly later. Malted milk are definitely Protestant and ginger creams are Catholic. Ginger snaps, however, are Protestant. Custard creams are a bit of a grey area. Those pink wafers are utterly ungodly.

Custard Creams are Anglican and you are quite right that the pink wafers are the work of the devil.

Digestives are Calvinistic but if they have choc chips in they are probably Swedish Lutheran. It's the Garibaldis that have always confused me.

If you're high church Anglo-catholic, then the biscuit is perhaps a florentine?

Malted milk sounds more like the puritanical denominations - the stricter of which probably ban biscuits.

I think Garibaldis are RC

I have a friend in a similar position to you- currently can't take communion in RC church as she's remarried after divorce.
She also sometimes comes to local Anglican (CofE) church. Vicar knows her situation, and is entirely happy for her to take communion. So far she hasn't.

It is against Catholic Canon law for a non-Catholic to go to communion in a RC church, unless there are extreme circumstances (war is one, I seem to remember, and you can't get to a Protestant church, or unless you are travelling and can't either).

Protestants don't believe in transubstantiation; Catholics do. So the RC church doesn't believe you can take a consecrated host unless you believe it is truly Jesus present. (Not biologically, obviously.)

Ah, you see, it's very easy the other way round - if I was a lapsed Protestant, going to a Catholic church, I know that I couldn't take communion. But the other way round??

I think the whole issue taps into my wish to put myself in one camp or the other. I have not, in 20 years, gone regularly to a Catholic church. But every time I enter the Anglican church locally, regardless of the effusive welcome, I feel that I am doing something wrong, and that the service is somehow 'watered down' - missing the 'magic' or somehow the potency. Rationally, I feel this to be rubbish. I think I might be thinking that if I could resolve the issue of communion, I could nail my colours firmly to one mast or the other...

Garibaldis are RC without a doubt. I would put plain and milk chocolate digestives (McVities) in the Protestant camp, but dark chocolate digestives Catholic. Supermarket-own-brand digestives are Protestant regardless of topping. Bourbons, now? High Anglican.

So is it the luxuriousness or otherwise of the biscuit that determines its religious affiliation? So workaday biscuits are Protestant but more exciting ones are Catholic? So would Fox's Crunch Creams and those delicious rectangular ones with the chocolate that goes over the edges be Catholic?

What about Hob Nobs - would they be Protestant?

What about party rings? Are they in the ungodly pink wafer category too?

I may be over thinking this all now, but it does suddenly make a lot of sense!

Party rings are charismatic.

Anglican churches are the via media, the middle way between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism but in practice it is a very broad middle so a high Anglican church may well have a significant number of people who believe in transubstantiation and are more Roman than the Romans.

We get a fair number of RCs in my church as we do traditional worship rather than a worship band so visitors do sometimes get confused. The women priests are a clue that we are C of E.

Hob nobs are probably protestant but I'm claiming the lovely chocolate over the edges ones as Anglican as we do have canon law but you mostly can't see it for the community stuff all around it. Maybe Anglicans are milk chocolate yumminess given that we are reformed and catholic and RCs are dark?

Now what do we do when we go to a church which is serving the wrong kind of biscuits?

Do I need to mention this as a matter of urgency?

I thought Anglicanism was Protestantism?

I feel that Party Rings are a bit happy-clappy myself - a bit 'send the children out during the sermon' and wave your hands in the air during the hymns. Those Lindt biscuits are probably something extreme like Russian Orthodox.

I had no idea so many other RCs attended Anglican services as a matter of course. They have obviously reconciled something that I have not.

The simple answer to this is to get ordained as by the time you get over to the coffee and tea all the biscuits have been eaten. Not that I'm bitter that when the great and the good from the diocese turn up they find a luxury tin of biscuits but week in week out I don't even get sight of a custard cream.................

Or it could be seen as an ecumenical matter.

The difference between a Protestant and Catholic biscuit. I'm from NI and that sounds like the sort of thing we'd get here. I've heard people have earnest discussions on whether a particular bank, decor choice, or garden might be classed as Protestant or Catholic, so why not a biscuit?

Fwiw, I would think a Protestant biscuit would be something dry like a Rich Tea, and that no pleasure should be had in eating it. A Catholic biscuit would probably not be a biscuit at all, but would be a twelve inch tall Gateau de St Honore.

ARF at treacle! Also from NI and in total agreement with you!

I know I'm a rubbish catholic, but I have never been told that I can't receive communion if I'm on contraception?! Apart from how anyone would know, I go to a very busy cathedral for mass and I simply do not believe that everyone there were using natural methods (the childrens liturgy are bit busy enough for that!).

Is this really true?!