Johnson at the Altar Rail

On occasion, President Johnson has attended Sunday morning worship services at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Washington, where, like most of the congregation, he goes to the altar rail to receive Holy Communion. But Lyndon Johnson is not an Episcopalian (although his wife and daughters are), and a confirmation rubric of the book of Common Prayer states that "none be admitted to the Holy Communion until such time as he be confirmed, or be ready and desirous to be confirmed." Rev. Albert du Bois, executive director of the stiffly Anglo-Catholic American Church Union, questions whether Johnson is entitled to Communion.

Writing in the monthly American Church News, Canon du Bois admits that the President "is undoubtedly receiving Communion at Episcopal altars in good faith and in sincerity." Nonetheless, he argues that priests who have admitted non-Episcopalians to Communion make it difficult for the clergy, "who wish to maintain the church's law and discipline but who do not wish to make an issue of this at their altar rails."

He suggests that the President ought to legalize things by presenting himself to a bishop for confirmation.

Theologically speaking, the Protestant Episcopal Church has always been a "closed Communion" faith, in contrast to the Disciples of Christ, to which Johnson belongs, and many other Protestant groups that welcome all baptized Christians to the altar. The Episcopal reasoning is that people should not receive the sacrament together if they do not agree on what it signifies. But observance of the confirmation rubric varies widely from church to church, and two Lambeth Conferences of Anglican Bishops (1920 and 1930) have stated that it does not "necessarily apply." Only about two-thirds of the nation's 3,587,000 Episcopalians have gone through the ceremony of confirmation, in which they testify to their belief before a bishop and receive the laying on of hands. Few priests would ever refuse Communion to a stranger,*although most churches will not allow uncon firmed members to assume lay offices.

In any case, Johnson is not likely to get turned away from many altar rails in Washington, traditionally an Episcopal diocese that favors open Communion. Bishop William Creighton says that "the President, of course, is welcome to receive Holy Communion in our churches."

*Unconfirmed children, at the now-popular family service, can approach the altar with their parents, cross their arms and receive the priest's blessing instead of the consecrated bread and wine.

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