Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn, writing at the paper’s On Faith blog, offers this compelling discussion about the politics of Holy Communion.

An excerpt: “I took Holy Communion at Tim Russert’s funeral mass. I am not a Catholic….Often, in Catholic churches, when Communion is offered, the bulletin will include instructions from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops “for our fellow Christians” who are not Catholics: “Members of those churches with whom we are not yet fully united are ordinarily not admitted to Holy Communion.” Sometimes priests will invite non-Catholics to come up and receive a blessing. There were no guidelines in the program at Tim’s funeral mass. If there had been, I would not have taken Communion.

The entire post is here, along with a hundreds of comments.