Kerry’s Defiance the Best Thing to Happen to Catholic Church in North America?

PITTSBURGH, May 11, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Democratic Presidential candidate, John Kerry has instigated the biggest storm of controversy in the US Catholic Church since news of the priestly sexual abuse scandal in the spring of 2002.

Kerry and his supporters continue to throw gasoline on the fire by his continued public reception of communion, most recently on Mother’s day at St. Scholastica Catholic Church in suburban Pittsburgh. Mother’s day is one regularly chosen by pro-life activists for an array of activities. Many Catholic pro-life commentators have pointed out that this is a critical juncture for the American episcopate and the Catholic Church as a whole. In Catholic doctrine, the reception of communion, believed by Catholics to be the actual body and blood of Jesus, is a public sign of unity of belief.

Kerry’s defiance of his Church is making Catholic Eucharistic practices newsworthy in the secular media and forcing both bishops and politicians to make decisions. On May 10, New Jersey Senate Majority Leader Bernard Kenny (D-Hoboken), announced that he would be leaving the practice of Catholicism. After a meeting with the pastor of his Newark diocese parish, the senator announced that he would, “look for other options to express my faith and will probably join another Christian church.”

Newark Bishop John Myers wrote in his monthly pastoral letter that for a Catholic, faith is always expressed within the larger context of the ecclesial institution. In his letter he teaches that the faith of Catholics and the Catholic Faith cannot be separated. Quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church, bishop Myers writes, “Whoever says ‘I believe’ says ‘I pledge myself to what We believe.’”

Some have made the criticism that the attention is unevenly pointed at politicians over the abortion issue while ignoring other hot-button Catholic issues such as divorce and homosexual “marriage”. Rev. Larry Wieseler, the pastor of St. Mary's parish of the Crookston diocese in Minnesota. has asked two homosexual parishioners who publicly claim to be married, not to receive or distribute communion at Mass or sing in the choir. The two men, who met at a Catholic retreat, have vowed to find another church.

The next Synod of Bishops in Rome, scheduled for October 2005, will focus on issues surrounding the reception of the Eucharist. A 75-page outline has been prepared by the Vatican providing topics for discussion. The document says that the Catholic Church does not have the power to give Communion to those “teaching error” or to “persons living an immoral life.” “Communion can be received only in union with the whole church, after overcoming any separation because of religion or morality,” it said.

The US bishops will be meeting in Denver to discuss the problem at the same time Kerry plans a campaign stop there and there is speculation as to whether Archbishop Chaput, considered a conservative, will refuse him communion. An article in the Denver Post claims that this confluence will be a “defining moment” in the presidential campaign.

After the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) announced that the Canadian episcopate would be taking no action to curb public political dissenters in Canada, Canadian pro-life Catholics have reacted with no discernable surprise.

Natalie Hudson, executive director of Toronto Right to Life said, “The controversy is forcing the bishops in the whole Church to show what they are made of. This controversy is going to be very good for the Church in the long run; it is going to lance a boil that has festered since the (Second Vatican) Council. Bishops have avoided any firm expression of condemnation on many key issues. Now they are being forced to come out and say, ‘this is wrong’ without compromise, or back away from the faith altogether. There won’t be any more wiggle room after this.”

Hudson went on to say that Kerry is even more pernicious than Clinton was. “He has an agenda that is religious as much as it is political; he is trying to de-sacralize his Catholic faith and claim that being pro-abortion is a legitimate expression of it. He is attempting to make his abortionism and his Catholicism one,” she said.

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