Catholic Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado offers communion. Sheridan says Catholics who vote for pro-abortion or pro-gay-marriage candidates should not receive communion.
Posted on 05/25/2004 8:55:50 AM PDT by NYer
Catholic Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado offers communion. Sheridan says Catholics who vote for pro-abortion or pro-gay-marriage candidates should not receive communion.
It began as a lone cry in the wilderness: In January, a relatively unknown Roman Catholic prelate ordered his priests to refuse Communion to Catholic politicians who supported a woman's right to abortion.
The prelate, Raymond Burke, newly appointed as archbishop of St. Louis, had imposed that sanction the year before as a bishop in Wisconsin without attracting much notice. But his January directive would be different. This, after all, was a presidential election year, when the presumptive Democratic nominee was Sen. John Kerry, a Catholic who supports abortion rights - and only the third Catholic ever to seek the presidency on a major-party ticket.
Five months later, 14 American prelates have drawn lines in the sand, including Kerry's own archbishop, Sean O'Malley of Boston, who said Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should voluntarily refrain from seeking the sacrament. But O'Malley made the distinction that he would not turn anyone away from the Communion rail.
"Saying that pro-abortion politicians should be denied Communion ... is a new and, really, a very unusual development," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of America, a Catholic magazine. "It's not happening in Europe. It's not happening in Italy. Even the pope gave Communion to Tony Blair, who's a pro-choice Episcopalian, at a private Mass last year."
Although the 14 bishops represent only a fraction of the nation's 195 diocesan leaders, experts on the Catholic Church suggest their new assertiveness reflects an effort to reclaim moral authority for the U.S. church after damaging sex-abuse revelations - with implications not only for Catholic officeholders, but also for a church already deeply divided over orthodoxy and authority.
In the most dramatic example to date, Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs has gone so far as to warn rank-and-file Catholics that they jeopardize their souls by voting for politicians who support abortion rights. Sheridan insists that such voters refrain from taking Communion until they have "recanted their positions" and confessed their sins.
"This is historic and it's very gratifying," said Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, the nation's largest anti-abortion group. "In my 30 years in the pro-life movement, I've never seen so many bishops tell ... Catholic politicians not to present themselves for Communion."
But many other Catholics are indignant, saying it is unseemly to use the sacrament at the heart of the Catholic faith as a cudgel - particularly because the prohibition applies only to those opposing the church's position on abortion, while dissenters on the death penalty, economic justice or the war in Iraq face no such consequences.
"There is a very thin line between having your views known and imposing your views on people," said former Queens Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, a practicing Catholic who was rebuked by church officials for supporting abortion rights as a vice presidential candidate in 1984, but who said that she was never denied the sacrament. "We've seen that line crossed in the Middle East and I don't want to see it crossed in my country.
"When the church says, 'Don't present yourself for Communion' or 'Don't vote for that pro-choice politician,' I resent it, and I think a lot of Catholics do."
Ferraro added that if bishops were going to sanction politicians who support abortion rights, they also should penalize those among their peers who shielded child rapists.
Even some Catholic politicians who hew to church teaching have taken offense.
"I'm a rabid pro-lifer," said Suffolk Legis. Paul Tonna (R-West Hills). "But what they're doing is sacramental blackmail. ... What they're saying is that anyone who votes for Kerry can't receive Communion."
But Burke, a canon lawyer, disputes having a partisan agenda. He has argued that as a shepherd of the faith, he was obliged to take action, first to warn Catholic legislators that their positions are harmful to their own souls - "a grave sin," under church law - and second to prevent "scandal," that is, the weakening of others' faith by their example.
Though it is unclear how many bishops agree with that interpretation - at least a half-dozen have publicly differed - there is already a backlash among the rank and file: A prominent donor in Sheridan's diocese in Colorado Springs who compared his stance to McCarthyism called on Catholics to pull financial pledges to that diocese. And 48 Democratic members of Congress who are Catholics signed a May 10 letter to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick in Washington, D.C., saying the church risks bringing "great harm" on itself if bishops withhold Communion from lawmakers who are voting to uphold the nation's laws.
McCarrick heads a committee of bishops charged with writing a new policy on the responsibilities of Catholics in public life, expected to be completed after the elections. It is believed that most bishops are waiting for that document before they speak to the issue.
When contacted for comment, for instance, none of the three New York-area prelates would discuss it.
But many conservatives are cheering the bishops who have spoken out against dissenters.
"At long last, some bishops have discovered their spines," said the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of First Things, a Manhattan-based journal about religion and public life. "I think the general viewpoint ... is that they are belatedly required to make clear to someone who persistently and publicly and defiantly rejects the church's teachings ... that this course of action impairs their relationship to the church."
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
Several U.S. bishops have recently voiced their opposition and ersatz reasoning why no one should be denied the Eucharist according to Code of Canon Law n. 915.
Those in the pews are perplexed. Which bishop is correct? Why would some bishops teach that the laws are binding and other bishops teach that they are not? [i]
Quizzically, people are asking ten questions:
Ten questions regarding the denial of the Eucharist [must read: media spin Vs reality re denial]
Ping!
"Saying that pro-abortion politicians should be denied Communion ... is a new and, really, a very unusual development," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of America, a Catholic magazine. "It's not happening in Europe. It's not happening in Italy. Even the pope gave Communion to Tony Blair, who's a pro-choice Episcopalian, at a private Mass last year."
Non-Catholics may not know that the media have lists of pet dissident Catholics in their rolodexes, whom they call whenever an issue like this arises. One of them is Reese, a Jesuit heretic who presides over one of the most influential dissident Catholic publications in America.
Non-Catholics may think that they don't have a dog in this fight, but that's not true. A ton of votes are at stake, as is the culture in which we live. The SCOTUS's finding of a bogus constitutional abortion "right" has ruined and distorted our entire judicial system. If not for these influential dissident Catholics and the cover they provide, much of what has gone wrong in our country over the past 40 years might not have happened.
"Even the pope gave Communion to Tony Blair, who's a pro-choice Episcopalian, at a private Mass last year."
Is that true?
If you flaunt your opinion in public, you deserve a public rebuke.
True?
A_R
There was a scathing short EDITORIAL in the Denver Post today regarding this issue. I am cancelling the paper - this is the last straw. The last paragraph states:
"By extending his directive to his flock, Bishop Sheridan pushed the issue farther than any other US bishop. It was disappointing, to say the least. Will Chaput join Sheridan on the fringe? Stay tuned."
Honestly, I could just scream. On the FRINGE?!?!?
I find it hard to believe that it is...
Speaking of jeopardizing souls, a visiting priest (in from from China shortly after Kennedy was elected President) told our congregation -- during a Sunday sermon -- that anyone that didn't vote for Kennedy should go to confession.
The Pope willingly gave communion to a non-Catholic? I don't believe it.
I doubt that it's true. Certainly PJP II would not give communion to a non-Catholic knowingly. It's possible that he might give communion to a non-Catholic unwittingly if he came forward; that's always a possibility. But normally visitors to the Pope's private masses are instructed by Vatican aides beforehand.
I hadn't heard this before, so I can't definitively refute it on the spot. But I know that the Pope has explicitly confirmed the traditional teaching that communion is only for those who are in union with the Catholic Church and its basic teachings, and that the Vatican has condemned such actions as the giving of communion to bill clinton authorized by an African bishop several years ago.
I did a Google Search on the Tony Blair communion story. What I turned up is that America ran a story claiming that Blair was offered communion by the Pope. Evidently someone responded to this story and said that the Pope gave Blair not communion but a blessing--which would be the usual thing when someone isn't entitled to receive communion. Unfortunately the link to this reply no longer works. Here's what I turned up.
What it proves, basically, is that America is a very useful source for dissidence and confusion, the weapons that liberals like to use against Church teachings. Note that the source is an unnamed "Jesuit liturgist" in Rome. An Anglican clergyman in Rome is also cited, but he has been told by the interviewers that Blair received communion. He doesn't know it from his own knowledge. Recall that "America" is a dissident Jesuit magazine. There are still some wonderful faithful Jesuits left in the order, but they are a minority. I wouldn't put it past the dissidents among them to lie for the cause of liberal "reform."
"The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against other bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres (other priests). Churches and altars will be sacked. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord."
"The demon will be especially implacable against the souls consecrated to God. The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness. If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them."
Our Lady of Akita
Well, this is a poser, isn't it? Trouble is, a blessing is a LONG way from receiving communion in the Catholic faith. I, for one, doubt in the strongest possible terms that the pope gave Mr. Blair communion.
What are those bishops arguing, that if a person has not been interdicted and not excommunicated, that person must be given Communion?
All diocesan priests and deacons are ecclesiastically bound to obey the canonical notification (c.915). Canon 915 places the responsibility on the minister - 'ne admittantur' - who, in some canonists' opinion, could be punished according to canon 1389 §2, should he unlawfully administer the sacrament with the consequent danger of scandal for the rest of the faithful. In addition, canon 1339 prescribes the possibility of punishing any person who causes grave scandal by any violation of a divine or ecclesiastical law.
Cases considered in this canon 915 also include: 1] any interdict or excommunication ferendæ sententiæ (one inflicted by the superior); 2] the same penalties latæ sententiæ (inflicted by the perpetrator on himself...by his very act); 3] grave manifest sin, obstinately maintained, which could be the case of the estimated 500 Catholic pro abortion politicians in the U.S.
No, what they are saying is that it's time to put up or shut up. You can talk the talk but can you walk the walk?
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