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Posted on 03/20/2012 10:46:49 PM PDT by Robert Drobot
"....Wuerl and his surrogates have rebuked a visiting priest from the archdiocese of Moscow for denying Communion to a self-described practicing lesbian at a funeral mass. That's not our "policy," gasped Wuerl's horrified surrogates.
But it is the policy of the Roman Catholic Church. If a person is not in communion with the teachings of the Church, said person should not receive Communion. Period. Canon law makes this explicitly clear. If you don't believe me, ask the head of the Vatican Supreme Court, Cardinal Raymond Burke. Though most of his colleagues seem to ignore his stance, he has said for years that canon law places a grave burden on priests to protect the sacraments from defiant sinners. According to Burke, canon law is not a whimsical option for hardline eccentric priests but a moral duty which "obliges the minister of Holy Communion to refuse the Sacrament" to those in "manifest grave sin. "
Wuerl rejects this authoritative interpretation of canon law. A while back he was asked if he would withhold Communion from the pro-abortion Nancy Pelosi. He said no. That style of "confrontation" makes him uncomfortable, he told a persistent reporter...."
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
"Wuerl can only earn the red of his rich robes through a willingness to endure the blood of Jesus Christ's martyrdom. And the truth is that protecting the Sacraments would cost him far less than death. Maybe Joe Biden wouldn't clap him on the back so heartily after that. Maybe he would get an angry letter or two from moneyed donors in the tank for the Dems. But who cares?
This latest episode isn't even a close call. If Cardinal Wuerl doesn't have the guts to deny Communion to an agitprop lesbian Buddhist, he should just close up shop and hand the keys to his chancery over to Obama."
” A sin which is not to death : It is hard to determine what Blessed Apostle Saint John here calls a sin which is not to death, and a sin which is unto death. The difference can not be the same as betwixt sins that are called venial and mortal: for he says, that if a man pray for his brother, who commits a sin that is not to death, life shall be given him: therefore such a one had before lost the life of grace, and been guilty of what is commonly called a mortal sin. And when he speaks of a sin that is unto death, and adds these words, for that I say not that any man ask, it cannot be supposed that Blessed Apostle Saint John would say this of every mortal sin, but only of some heinous sins, which are very seldom remitted, because such sinners very seldom repent. By a sin therefore which is unto death, interpreters commonly understand a wilfull apostasy from the faith, and from the known truth, when a sinner, hardened by his own ingratitude, becomes deaf to all admonitions, will do nothing for himself, but runs on to a final impenitence. Nor yet does Blessed Apostle Saint John say, that such a sin is never remitted, or cannot be remitted, but only has these words, for that I say not that any man ask the remission: that is, though we must pray for all sinners whatsoever, yet men can not pray for such sinners with such a confidence of obtaining always their petitions, as Blessed Apostle Saint John said before, ver. 14. Whatever exposition we follow on this verse, our faith teacheth us from the holy scriptures, that God desires not the death of any sinner, but that he be converted and live, Ezech. 33. 11. Though men's sins be as red as scarlet, they shall become as white as snow, Isa. 3. 18. It is the will of God that every one come to the knowledge of the truth, and be saved. There is no sin so great but which God is willing to forgive, and has left a power in his church to remit the most enormous sins: so that no sinner need despair of pardon, nor will any sinner perish, but by his own fault.
“”A sin unto death : Some understand this of final impenitence, or of dying in mortal sin; which is the only sin that never can be remitted. But, it is probable, he may also comprise under this name, the sin of apostasy from the faith, and some other such heinous sins as are seldom and hardly remitted: and therefore he gives little encouragement, to such as pray for these sinners, to expect what they ask.”
The notion that bishops aren't gatekeepers would come as a surprise to the Church's first ones. The apostles were told by Jesus Christ that the good shepherd watches the gate, lest his flock be eaten. "Do not give what is holy to dogs," Jesus warned them.
"The Church's position on whether a bishop should stop sacrilege and scandal is not determined by his "comfort" level, Cardinal Wuerl. It is determined by the clear requirements of canon law. Cardinal Burke has spoken; the case is closed. Either the bishops take control over their own sacraments or the Church's enemies will."
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Dr. Edward Peters on Neumayr’s column:
Little, (frankly, nothing) in Neumayr’s on-line editorial today for American Spectator will help Cdl Donald Wuerl do a better job for the Catholic Church in Washington DC.
That's because Cdl Wuerl "... the Girl" (ha, funny) is incapable of doing a better job. The only job being done effectively is by mouthpice Ed Peters, canonist, employed by the bishops to twist logic and excuse the inexcusable.
Your quote is interesting. I've only met Cardinal Wuerl once -- when he was Aux. Bishop of Seattle. He had come to dedicate our new church, and I was helping out in the kitchen preparing a banquet in his honor. He came in, late in the evening, to thank us for the meal and to collect his rain coat which was hanging on a hook outside the kitchen door. I was stunned at how immaculately he was dressed -- not a wrinkle in sight. The same with the kakhi raincoat. It looked like nobody had ever sat down while wearing it. And then there were those piercing blue eyes. Very impressive man in appearance.
Peters is not employed by the bishops.
He is also highly critical of Wuerl’s refusal to obey Canon 915, and has carefully dissected several misleading statements Wuerl has made.
Your opinion on his analysis of Fr. Guarnizo’s action will be worth listening to when you can demonstrate how Peters has misinterpreted Canon Law.
Peters is not employed by the bishops.
He is also highly critical of Wuerl’s refusal to obey Canon 915, and has carefully dissected several misleading statements Wuerl has made.
Your opinion on his analysis of Fr. Guarnizo’s action will be worth listening to when you can demonstrate how Peters has misinterpreted Canon Law.
Actually, I thought Peters’ analysis of this was fairly good and probably Fr Guarnizo should not have denied the woman Communion based on a few words in the sacristy, but should have told her he wanted to speak to her after the funeral was over. However, he had actually asked her at that time not to appear for Communion, but she went up anyway, so she put Fr Guarnizo in a no-win situation.
Where I think Wuerl went wrong was in his excessive punishment of Fr Guarnizo for what was, at worst, a misstep. Fr Guarnizo was put in a very difficult position, and the woman most definitely set him up so that no matter what he did, it was going to be wrong. Wuerl is not his bishop (he is in the neighboring diocese and was just filling in at the funeral) but he should have been concerned first about Fr Guarnizo. Wuerl should have found out the details of the situation before sending out a public letter of apology to the woman and essentially hanging Fr Guarnizo out to dry, and he should not have removed his facilities in that diocese. This is a severe public punishment and was completely wrong, especially given the level of outright heresy and defiance that Wuerl tolerates in his diocese (as Peters pointed out).
Perhaps the Cardinal thinks he is working for the better goal by allowing politicians to go on excommunicating themselves while not excommunicating them himself.
Perhaps sucking up to them by allowing them to extoll abortion in public office while playing that they are Catholics will pay off in the long run.
I don’t know, it is not for me to judge a Prince of the Church.
I believe his actions are dead wrong,but he is supposedly guided by a power much higher than I.
I just see things in black and white, and not in the color spectrum of the Cardinals leadership.
Black and white tells me that the good Father was right in what he did, and bad press doesn’t change what is right.
That style of "confrontation" makes him uncomfortable, he told a persistent reporter...."
Technically, Fr Guarnizo may have been right, but perhaps he didn’t handle it as well as he could have. As I said, it was a set up, and nothing he did would have been “right.”
Wuerl should never have criticized him this way. Give him the benefit of the doubt, have a meeting, be a “father to his priests,” which is what bishops are supposed to do. Figure out a policy, such as a way in which any priest could respond to a challenge like this, because believe me, this is not going to be the last time it will happen. They smell blood in the water.
Wuerl strikes me as somebody too busy adjusting his cufflinks so he can look good at the next White House do he gets invited to...He was always a big Dem, and deep in his heart, he’s an Episcopalian. A lot of them look really great, but all they believe in is the Easter Bunny and Barak Obama.
A picture is worth a thousand words. Well done !!!!
from Arthur McGowan:
"Your opinion on his [Peters] analysis of Fr. Guarnizo’s action will be worth listening to when you can demonstrate how Peters has misinterpreted Canon Law."
Dear Arthur McGowan, arguing and interpreting Canon Law is beyond my capacity, and well beyond my capability. If interested, someone else has done just that. It begins:
"In light of Fr. Guarnizo’s recent letter and Dr. Peters’ recent posts in response to that letter, I would like to continue discussion and reflection on the application of c. 915 vis-à-vis the Guarnizo-Johnson controversy. I continue to find myself disagreeing with Dr. Peters’ interpretation of c. 915 in this case. For the sake of argument, permit me to consider the situation in abstraction from Fr. Guarnizo’s own self-understanding of what he was doing when he refused communion to Ms. Johnson. I want to focus on c. 915 and in particular on its use of the word “manifest”.
"In one of Dr. Peters’ recent posts (“Canonical observations…”, March 15th) he cites a number of canons to show that, in light of its having the effect of restricting the rights of the faithful, we need to interpret c. 915 “as narrowly as reasonably possible”. He then goes on to cite a number of traditional commentators to the effect that before a minister refuses the sacraments to someone, he must have no reasonable doubts about whether the person is publically unworthy in the technical sense. Both these points are well taken. I will argue though, that when analyzing Guarnizo-Johnson case, Peters does interpret c. 915 in an unreasonably narrow fashion. I will also argue that a priest in Fr. Guarnizo’s shoes could reasonably have been free of doubts as to whether c. 915 applied to Ms. Johnson. Peters writes, “…the burden is, without question, on the minister of holy Communion to verify that all of the conditions listed in canon 915 are satisfied before he withholds holy Communion from a member of the faithful who approaches for it publicly.” In the Guarnizo-Johnson case, I don’t think this is an insuperable burden... "
For the full essay please go to: The New Theological Movement,
http://www.newtheologicalmovement.blogspot.it/2012/03/guest-letter-challenging-dr-peters-on.html
Fr. Guarnizo had to make a split-second decision, minutes after being emotionally and physically assaulted by a pair of menacing butch lesbians.
These two would not have engaged in this malevolent set-up if it were not universally known that Cardinal Wuerl considers Canon Law a dead letter in his diocese.
Cardinal Wuerl, if he is to maintain his intellectually-dishonest and morally-bankrupt stance on Canon 915, has to continue to persecute Fr. Guarnizo.
I am convinced that Ed Peters’s canonical analysis is completely accurate. My sympathies are entirely with Fr. Guarnizo.
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