By C C Pecknold, Catholic Herald - Yet the exception to this rule here is powerful: “except for some open cause.” St. Thomas very explicitly teaches that the Eucharist must be denied to public sinners. He writes, “Holy Communion ought not to be given to open sinners when they ask for it.” He teaches that the Eucharist was “instituted as a means of salvation,” yet when pastors allow public sinners to receive the Eucharist unworthily, they allow the sinner to drink judgment upon themselves, not salvation. So to allow public sinners to receive the Eucharist is not being non-judgmental, but is, in fact, knowingly heaping burning coals of judgment upon a soul.