BERLIN - A Roman Catholic priest based in Germany was suspended Thursday for leading a high-profile open communion service at a Lutheran church in May in defiance of a papal admonition.
The bishop of Trier barred Gotthold Hasenhuettl, a professor emeritus of theology at the University of Saarbruecken in western Germany, from celebrating the Eucharist and withdrew his church teaching permit.
On May 29, around 2,000 people crowded into Berlin's Gethsemane Church as Hasenhuettl distributed communion wafers among the worshippers — Roman Catholics and Lutherans alike. He celebrated a Roman Catholic Eucharist, but the service was advertised as an "open communion."
"I have come to the conclusion that, for the sake of the church's credibility, I cannot accept a priest practicing an open communion that was specifically forbidden in this form by the pope in his latest encyclical," Bishop Reinhard Marx said in a statement. "I still hope that Hasenhuettl will relent and make it clear that he recognizes and follows church rules."
Pope John Paul II in April issued a reminder that services in Protestant churches cannot substitute for Sunday Mass.
In an encyclical, he branded "unthinkable" the practice of substituting obligatory Sunday Mass with celebrations of prayer with other Christians or participation in their liturgical services.
Catholics, "while respecting the religious convictions of these separated brethren, must refrain from receiving the communion distributed in their celebrations," he said.
Roman Catholics maintain that they receive the blood and body of Christ in communion, but many other Christians view communion as a symbolic re-creation of the Last Supper.
Marx's diocese cited an opinion from an expert on church law that, while Hasenhuettl had offered communion to all who came "without differentiation," the rules specify that non-Catholics can receive it "only in individual cases under certain conditions."
Hasenhuettl on Thursday urged Marx to reconsider his suspension, describing it in a letter as "an unjust restriction of the execution of my office as a priest." He added that he would take his case to the Vatican if Marx refuses.
Last month, another Roman Catholic priest was suspended for receiving communion at a Lutheran service held days later at the same church.