Archbishop defends PM over communion wafer flap

MONCTON, N.B.—The Roman Catholic archbishop who administered holy communion to the prime minister last week said he believes Stephen Harper meant no disrespect when he consumed a communion wafer during former governor general Romeo LeBlanc’s funeral.
Archbishop Andre Richard, head of the Moncton archdiocese, said today it’s considered “sacrilegious” for non-believers to take part in the rite, but only if it is meant out of disrespect.

“In the context, it’s obvious that no disrespect was meant, I’m quite sure,” he said in a telephone interview.
Richard said a protocol officer told him before the ceremony that anyone who wanted to take part in communion would signal their willingness to do so.
“I think it’s sort of an unfortunate incident,” he added.
“I’m sure he [Harper] didn’t mean any desecration or nothing of the sort. Somehow, the gesture was misunderstood.
“I think he should have been briefed by the protocol of what has to be done in a Catholic ceremony.”
Video of the funeral service in Memramcook, N.B. shows Harper—a Protestant—reaching out to take the host, but the footage does not show him swallowing it afterwards.
Msgr. Brian Henneberry, vicar general in the Diocese of Saint John in New Brunswick, has said it was unclear what happened to the wafer, and that it would be scandalous if the prime minister put it in his pocket.
But a spokesman for the prime minister and at least one witness has come forward to say Harper did eat the wafer immediately after he received it.