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- Canon 844 is a canon contained within the 1983 Code of Canon Law (1983 CIC) of the Catholic Church, which defines the licit administration and reception of certain sacraments of the Catholic Church in normative and in particular exceptional circumstances, known in Catholic canonical theory as communicatio in sacris (worship in common). Thomas Condon wrote, in The Sanctifying Function of the Diocesan Bishop Especially in Relationship with Pastors, that this canon "empowers the bishop to regulate sacramental sharing for Catholics who might need to approach a non-Catholic minister; [...] the canon enjoins the bishop to prevent a spirit of indifferentism from emerging because of sacramental sharing."Condon wrote that Frederick R. McManus "noted that 'the intent of the canon is clear, namely to define the outer limits of permissible sharing of sacraments, aside from any question of validity or invalidity'." The Second Vatican Council's decree on ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio (UR), states that "worship in common (communicatio in sacris) is not to be considered as a means to be used indiscriminately for the restoration of Christian unity." In that context, John Beal et al.'s New commentary on the Code of Canon Law notes that this canon does not address the specific question of "the seriousness of the need" on occasions of worship in common such as a marriage or funeral or similar ecumenical activities, though individual Catholic theologians, such as Kevin Considine, have interpreted Canon 844 as allowing for intercommunion in these cases. (en)
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