Boy denied first communion due to mental disability.

I don't think any 8-year old understands the point of the sacrament any more than that disabled child did. I went to catholic school for 13 years, and in second grade they just made all the kids learn to receive communion at some point in the middle of the year. We didn't have to understand it or take some sort of test, we just went through the motions and were told some things about it. I really think it's wrong to force children to do something religious like this when they don't even have the capacity to understand it, but I suppose it's not much difference between churches telling children how to think and parents telling children how to think; churches just do it on a larger scale.

Anyway, that said, I don't think he should have been refused communion, because I don't think the church cares if you understand when you're 8.