Dog offered Holy Communion at Toronto parish: The Church of England Newspaper, July 30, 2010 p 2.

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.

A Toronto parish has taken the concept of using the Eucharist as a marketing and evangelism tool to new heights, providing Holy Communion to a dog as an act of welcome.

The decision to offer the wafer, but not the wine, to ‘Trapper’ a four year old Alsatian mix-breed has prompted outrage and mirth in the Canadian press, and an apology from the interim rector of St Peter’s Anglican Church in Toronto.

During a June Sunday Eucharist, the Rev. Marguerite Rea gave Trapper a wafer at the Communion rail after his master, Donald Keith, received the host.  A first time visitor to the fading downtown church, Mr. Keith told the Toronto Star “the minister welcomed me and said come up and take communion, and Trapper came up with me and the minister gave him communion as well.”

“I thought it was a nice way to welcome me into the church. I thought it was acceptable,” he said, adding that the priest’s actions appeared to have the approval of the congregation.

On parishioner, however, complained to Toronto Assistant Bishop Patrick Yu, about offering communion to an un-baptised dog.

“I wrote back to the parishioner that it is not the policy of the Anglican Church to give communion to animals,” Bishop Yu told the Star.  “I can see why people would be offended. It is a strange and shocking thing, and I have never heard of it happening before.”

Critics of Mrs. Rea’s actions in giving the Body of Christ to a dog note that the action reflects badly on the Church and upon her theological understanding of what she is doing as a priest at the altar.

“Communion is a symbol of the sacrifice of Jesus’ body; he died for all of us. But I don’t recall anything from the scripture about Jesus dying for the salvation of our pets,” Cheryl Chang of the Anglican Network in Canada told the National Post.

Bishop Yu stated he believed Mrs. Rea “was overcome by what I consider a misguided gesture of welcoming.”

Last Sunday Mrs. Rea told her congregation that offering the Eucharist to a dog was not intended as a provocative theological assertion that a dog could by receive the sacraments by faith and be incorporated in to the Body of Christ, but was merely a “simple church act of reaching out.”

“If I have hurt, upset or embarrassed anyone, I apologise,” she said.

However, dog-owner Donald Keith said the congregation backed their priest over her “open communion” policy for all comers, whether on two legs or four, and added that the parishioner who had complained to the bishop had since left the church.