COMMUNION REFUSED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20490, 15 February 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

COMMUNION REFUSED.

BY TICKET ONLY."

STOPPED AT THE CHANCEL.

DEFENCE BY THE VICAR.

Holy Communion was refused to a man and his wife who attended a midniglit service at St. John the Baptist Church, Holland Road, Kensington, .England, on Christmas Eve. .The couple had attended the earlier part of the service, and when the vicar took up his position at the altar rails to administer the Sacrament thoy went forward as ordinary celebrants. As they reached the chancel a sidesman stepped forward and whispered that they would be unablft to communicato, as they were without tickets. They left the chuich amazed. » : . " I have the perfect right to protect my parishioners," the Rev. John Lester B. Pinchard, the vicar, said to an interviewer " Some time ago people not fit to receive Communion got into the church, much to the consternation of other cclo* brants. It is my duty to preserve the Sacrament from any irreverence or desecration. and I took steps to prevent such things occurring again. Notices weie placed in the church magazine, announcing that in future tickets would be necessary, and it is my usual practice to make am announcement from the pulpit to that effect. " I am sorry anyone should have been turned away, but I cannot take the risk of having my people distressed. I have

every right -to make-what conditions I like, and the practice .of issuing cards -is carried out.in .many other -churches. - " I think the complainants might have : .-spoken. -about • it-,- -for—l - had -walked down the aisle, distributing cards and speaking to as many as possible. When I entered the pulpit I announced that the middle aisle was reserved for those who had , received the tickets necessary for them to-make their Communion."

Mr. J. W. Radcliffe, of Leigh-on-Sea, who complained of being unable to partake of the Sacrament, in writing to the Daily Express, said:—" We were visitors to the church, as we were spending our .Christmas in London, and words cannot express the feeling of isolation experienced by my wife and by myself after participating in the service when we were turned back at the chancel by a sidesman because wo were without tickets, an unheard-of thing in our experience. " We think this refusal a contravention of canon law, and we are wondering how many others have been refused' the Sacrament on similar grounds. lam a sufferer from asthmafical bronchitis, and it is always distressing for mo io take Communion in the early morning. Hence my desire to partake of the Sacrament at the midnight service on Christmas Eve.

BRIDE MET BY COFFIN. INCIDENT AT CHURCH DOOR. A cofiin was carried prist a novrtymarried couple in England as they walked out of Tausley Parish Church recently. Miss Lily Bagshaw, the bride, had arrived half an-hour late, owing to an error in tho time fixed for the motor-car to take her- to the church; Tho rector had arranged for a funeral service at three o'clock, and it was only a minute before that hour that the wedding service onded. As the party walked out" of the' church tho hearse drove up and the coffin was carried ' through ■ the gates past them ■