Over on his blog, Glen Pearson offers a characteristically thoughtful, cross-partisan defence of the Prime Minister's behaviour at Romeo LeBlanc's funeral - and takes the church to task for embarrassing him:
Stephen Harper was present at a loving and respectful funeral for a truly great Canadian – a Liberal, I might add. He showed up in respect and carried himself accordingly. He prayed, sang, and welcomed Romeo LeBlanc’s legacy. But although he held the highest office in the country, he was also there as a guest of the church. There is no scandal here, only the need for the church to provide him an explanation as to why the welcome extended to him was treated in such a manner. In true respect, they should have kept this out of the media and reasoned together with another person of faith.
It's not often one feels sorry for Stephen Harper - his headaches are usually of his own making - but in this instance I'm inclined to.
It's not that taking the wafer, and then not eating it, isn't offensive from a Catholic perspective. But it's obvious the PM was hung out to dry here - by a poor briefing on protocol from his own staff, and perhaps by his hosts.
My experience at Catholic churches - more at weddings than at funerals, thankfully - is that when there's a multi-faith crowd, the priest tends to offer a brief explanation before communion. Non-Catholics are invited up to receive a blessing, if they wish; if so, they cross their arms when they reach the front of the queue. That would seem to have been the most logical thing for Harper to do, since he evidently wished to participate in some way but was uncomfortable taking communion.
If that explanation was indeed given and Harper ignored it, then he really does deserve to be called out. But otherwise, it's all the worse that Catholic leaders are now publicly chastising him.
