In the event of places being over-subscribed, the school takes a variety of factors into account including observance of Sunday Mass, whether the candidate has received his first Holy Communion and the extent to which the applicant fulfils the Church's requirements regarding baptism.

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Obama was greeted by several parishioners with handshakes and smiles as the church members were returning to their seats from Holy Communion, which the first family also joined.

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During all that time he failed to bring a single officer to the Christian rite of Holy Communion.

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Without the annulments, Catholics who remarry are not allowed to receive Holy Communion, which many describe as a painful exclusion from the church's chief sacrament.

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The Freiburg University academic said he wanted to continue praying and receiving Holy Communion and a lengthy legal case between Prof Zapp and the church will reach the Leipzig Federal Administrative Court on Wednesday.

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The parents of a boy with Down's syndrome have criticised the Roman Catholic Church for not allowing him to take his first Holy Communion.

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And growing up in Glasgow as a young Catholic, you could have this experience of holy communion and confirmation and being an altar boy, the sacraments and the duties of Catholicism, but yet there wasn't a novel in which that world was reflected.

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As a young man, he studied medicine at the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital in Florence, but was dismissed for drinking wine before taking communion on Holy Thursday.

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