Jim Davey was raised Catholic in Rhode Island and has attended Mass throughout his 74 years. But 20 of those years stand out as the time he and his wife denied themselves the sacrament of Communion because after having two children, they were using birth control.

Davey says he and his wife, Connie, wanted to receive Communion, but were advised not to. In accordance with Catholic doctrine, using birth control was a sin.

The Daveys were living in Virginia then, from the 1960s to the 1980s. Jim would return to Rhode Island later and win election as a Republican state representative –– and it was during a visit to Rhode Island, he says, that a priest in a confessional absolved his wife of the sin and told her she was free to receive Communion again.

The Daveys now live in North Carolina, but Jim Davey says the debate around Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin’s recently publicized request that Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy not receive Communion has struck a chord.

Davey is not alone. Some Catholics wrestling with whether they should receive Communion say many in church at any given Mass may not meet the church’s standards for who is eligible to receive the sacrament.

Ed Hughes, of North Kingstown, vividly recalls a priest at his father’s funeral in a Cranston church proclaiming “that he would not give communion to anybody that was divorced.” That included Hughes, who has not received the sacrament sinceMore than eight years later, he says “almost everybody” probably could be denied if priests followed the letter of the law.

“We’re all sinners,” said Hughes. “When you break it down, I guess the only ones who would be able to go to Communion are the ones who went to confession on Saturday.”

PRIESTS AND theologians interviewed for this article seem to agree that the decision of whether to receive Communion rests largely with parishioners, whom they say should examine their own consciences.

At St. Joan of Arc Church in Cumberland on Sunday, a visiting priest told churchgoers that the dialogue between the bishop and the congressman is a teaching moment –– and he said the bishop has a responsibility to protect the sacrament.

“And I said it challenges all of us to reflect on the proper disposition to receive Holy Communion,” the Rev. Robert Lacombe, who is from St. Bartholomew’s Church in Providence, said Monday.

Lacombe said he has heard many say in recent weeks that Communion is a right given to everyone, but it is not.

“None of us have a right to receive it,” he said. “It is a gift given to the church … and it is a privilege rather than a right.”

WHEN CATHOLICS celebrate the Eucharist, the church teaches that the host is transformed into the body of Jesus Christ.

Particularly since the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s, Catholics have been invited to participate fully in the celebration, according to the Rev. Raymond Collins, a retired theology professor from the Catholic University of America in Washington who has written several books on morality and ethics, and now lives in Saunderstown.

The church says any baptized person not prohibited by church law — for example, excommunicated –– must be admitted to Holy Communion, says Collins. But, he said, there are reasons the church suggests someone not receive Communion, as discussed in a 2006 paper by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, D.C.

Those obstinately persevering in “manifest grave sin” — such as major violation of one of the Ten Commandments — should not receive Communion, Collins said. “Obstinately persevering” would mean the person has not repented. And for it to be manifest, Collins said, the sin must be publicly known.

At the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Sister Mary Ann Walsh, director of media relations, said church teaching on when one should receive Communion is clear –– “if you’re basically in the state of grace. If you feel you’re not in the state of grace, then don’t go to communion until you’re in the state of grace.”

Walsh said priests should not deny Communion to someone: “You don’t want to battle at the altar rail. The presumption is that the person has presented themselves honestly.”

LIKE MANY Catholics, Jim Davey says he sees both sides of the debate between the bishop and Kennedy. The years he and his wife did not receive Communion, they were active in the church, raising Catholic children. He recalls watching what seemed like everyone around them go up to receive the sacrament.

“All these folks,” he would think then. “We can’t be the only ones.”

The church teaches that Catholics who have committed a mortal sin must go to confession before receiving Communion. Davey and his wife did just that.

Back home in Rhode Island on vacation, Connie Davey went to confession in the church where she was baptized, received her First Communion and was confirmed. Sacred Heart in Warwick was also the church where they had married.

To this day, Davey still doesn’t know exactly what transpired in the confessional, but his wife, who now suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, told him later that she confessed she used birth control, and the priest absolved her of the sin. He told her she was free to receive Communion, Davey says.

Then Davey decided to go to confession, back in Virginia. Davey got right to the crux of the matter, telling the priest he understood the church had changed its position on birth control. “And all I remember is him looking me straight in the eye and saying, ‘Wrong!’ ”

The priest did not absolve Davey, but told him instead that he should continue not receiving Communion.

At that point, Davey says, “I went priest shopping.”

At a neighboring parish, he found a priest who said if he promised to investigate a new type of birth control in use in Canada that might meet church standards, he would give him absolution. “And I promised that I would investigate, and I did, and that was before the days of the Internet and it wasn’t as easy,” he says. “… I investigated and said, ‘I’m clean. I’m back.’ ”

Receiving that first Communion after 20 years –– “I’ll tell you what,” Davey says, “It felt good.”

And he has received it ever since, he says. “Never looked back.”

BACKGROUND Communion

WHO SHOULD RECEIVE: Those who are baptized Catholic and share in the church’s faith are encouraged to “strive to receive Holy Communion regularly, gratefully and worthily,” according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, D.C.

WHO SHOULD NOT RECEIVE: The bishop’s conference says those who have committed mortal sins are “seriously obliged to refrain” from taking Communion. Examples offered: murder, including abortion and euthanasia; sex outside the bonds of a “valid marriage” recognized by church law; failing to worship God by missing Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation without a serious reason, such as sickness or the absence of a priest; producing, marketing or indulging in pornography.

kbramson@projo.com