Two articles on bishops, politicians and Communion:
Did I impose a canonical sanction on the Catholic politicians from the Diocese of La Crosse, who had departed from the church’s teaching on the inviolability of human life? I did not. I merely declared that public cooperation in a gravely sinful act, which has always excluded one from the worthy reception of the sacrament and is the cause of scandal, was present in the situation I was addressing. Here I note that the declaration regarding the exclusion from holy Communion came only after a personal communication of the church’s teaching and the request to speak with the Catholic politicians about the gravity of their position. Canon 915 does not require that the competent authority in the church actually judge the state of a person’s soul, which only God can do, but rather the objective contradiction between the faith the person professes and his or her persistent actions contrary to clear teaching, after pastoral admonition, especially in the light of the harm that such counter-witness causes.
It may be objected that by making it difficult to discipline erring members of the flock by refusing them Communion, this strict interpretation of Canon 915 makes “a scarecrow of the law.” This was, in fact, an objection raised during the code revision process about drafts of what eventually became Canon 915. The response of the commission responsible for revision, however, was not to lower the bar for refusing holy Communion but, if anything, to raise it. One of the functions of law in the church, as in every society, is to make it difficult for people, especially those in authority, to act on their visceral instincts, lest hasty action inadvertently harm a higher ecclesial value. By making it difficult for church authorities to refuse admission to holy Communion to politicians whose public records arguably cannot be squared with church teaching, a necessarily strict interpretation of Canon 915 serves as a brake on the temptation to politicize the Eucharist by allowing the sacrament that signifies and effects the union of love between Christ and the church to become a sacrament that signifies and brings about disunity. Zeal to protect the Eucharist from profanation by sinners can unwittingly lead to an even greater profanation by transforming the eucharistic celebration into a continuation of politics by liturgical means.
Read Previous Post