One day before he meets at the Vatican with Pope Benedict XVI, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper remains embroiled in a controversy over his reception of Communion at a funeral Mass last week in New Brunswick.

Harper, who belongs to an evangelical church, accepted a consecrated host from Archbishop André Richard of Moncton, Brunswick, at the funeral Mass in New Brunswick for former Canadian Governor General Romeo LeBlanc.

Initial concern over Harper’s actions focused on the fact that in a video of the Mass posted on YouTube, Harper can be seen accepting the Eucharist but does not appear to consume it. Subsequently, though, a spokesman for Harper said he did consume it and a Canadian senator who was standing nearby at the Mass confirmed he had seen Harper do so.

But questions persist as why Communion was offered to the non-Catholic Harper. The latest media reports indicate it was an honest error on the Canadian prime minister’s fault, with blame being assigned to the celebrating priests for not making it clear that reception of Communion is reserved to Catholics except in circumstances of “grave necessity” and to Harper’s protocol officials for not briefing him properly about the matter beforehand.

However, the incident also betrayed an apparent misunderstanding by the homilist at the Mass, regarding the circumstances under which a non-Catholic can licitly receive Communion.

The New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal reported:

But Rev. Arthur Bourgeois, who delivered the homily, did not have a problem with the prime minister accepting the host.

“Usually, to partake in holy communion in the Catholic Church, you have to be a member of it, but if you’re not, exceptionally sometimes at major occasions (it is different),” Bourgeois said.

“If you are up there and giving holy communion you are not going to stop and asked everyone if they are Catholic or if they are not Catholic.

“You say the Lord provides.”

In this post, prominent canonist Ed Peters indicates canon law does not support these comments by Father Bourgeois:

Canon 844 specifies the conditions under which a Catholic minister may licitly administer Communion to baptized non-Catholics and none of its five sections, including the most relevant Section 4, seem satisfied in this case. I see, for example, no “grave necessity” for Harper to have taken holy Communion in the first place, it is doubtful that he approached on his own accord, and there is no evidence whatsoever that Harper “manifest[ed] Catholic faith in respect to [this] sacrament.” Any one of these points, not to mention others, stand in the way of Harper licitly receiving the Eucharist.

For Catholic Americans, the incident calls to mind a similar controversy that ensued after President Bill Clinton received Communion at a Mass in South Africa. But unlike in the case of Harper, Clinton apparently was aware that he shouldn’t receive Communion but chose to do so so anyway, according to reports published at the time, and was untroubled and declined to apologize when his actions came to light. In fact, his press secretary, Mike McCurry, said the Catholic authorities who subsequently criticized Clinton’s actions were the ones who had made a mistake, claiming that the South African bishops’ conference had authorized Clinton’s actions.

McCurry said Clinton “was happy to receive the invitation to participate and was glad that he did,” The New York Times reported in this article.

The late Cardinal John O’Connor of New York was among those who publicly criticized Clinton’s reception of Communion, and he said in a sermon that the South African priest who gave Clinton Communion even though he knew Clinton was not Catholic had acted improperly. Reported the Times:

“The action taken by the priest in South Africa, however well-intentioned, was legally and doctrinally wrong in the eyes of the church law and church doctrine,” John Cardinal O’Connor, the Archbishop of New York, said in a Palm Sunday sermon.

Explaining that he was trying to address confusion among Catholics caused by the news of the incident, the cardinal said: “Some undoubtedly believe that if one has enough prestige or money, anything goes.” The church, he said, should not contribute to such perceptions.

The South African bishops’ conference and a Vatican representative also stated the president should not have received Communion, according to this news release about the incident from the Catholic League:

On April 5, the South African Catholic Bishops’ Conference issued a press release explaining what happened. The statement said that “the staff of the U.S. president asked, prior to the Mass, whether the president and Mrs. Clinton could receive holy Communion if they wished to do so.” The priest mistakenly agreed. There has been no word from the White House why this president, who graduated from Georgetown University, would want his staff to make such a request.

“The local bishop had not been asked, as required by Church practice,” the release said, “whether in his opinion it would have been appropriate under the circumstances to administer holy Communion to the presidential couple.” The final comment said, “It is doubtful that the priest applied his mind to the conditions that needed to be fulfilled, as stated in the 1993 norms published by the Holy See and repeated by the SACBC Ecumenical Directory.”

A Vatican spokesman, Bishop Geraldo Agnelo, said of President Clinton, “Since this person is not a Catholic, he cannot be admitted to Eucharistic Communion.”