Sigh. We're in Re-Run Season Again (Updated)

I'm actually not talking about summer tv programming (though that is a good subject for another day).  I'm speaking about the seeming one-issue obsession of some church leaders.  This article on  NCR, Villanova conference elevates calls for Biden to be denied Communion | National Catholic Reporter (ncronline.org), discusses "Taking Measure of the 'Biden Effect': American Catholics and the President," a virtual conference hosted by the Charles Widger School of Law at Villanova University.

Update:  Check out the article today by Michael Sean Winters, Confusion and canons at Villanova University law school conference | National Catholic Reporter (ncronline.org) on the subject of the Villanova Conference. I have included some excerpts at the end of this post.

From the original article by Christopher White:

"What do President Joe Biden and ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick share in common? According to the organizer of a recent conference on Biden's Catholicism, the two men have been "abandoned" by the church's pastors for not having been barred from Communion."

"The Vatican's McCarrick report, which chronicled his decades of abuse of minors and seminarians and was released last fall, illustrates "what happens when the church fails to be church by preferring instead to be, as a practical matter, to be a bureaucracy," said Villanova University professor of law Patrick McKinley Brennan on April 23."

"What McCarrick needed was callously denied," he said, going on to argue by comparison that Biden's support for legal abortion demands that "the church's pastors ... show the truth" and deny the president Communion."

"Brennan was followed by Francis Maier, a longtime speechwriter and assistant to retired Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput, who is among those who have argued that Biden be denied Communion to avoid causing "scandal."

"...Maier went on to cite a series of interviews he had recently done with bishops around the country. "None was encouraged by Joe Biden's election, not one," he said. "They had conflicting opinions about Donald Trump, but all were uneasy about Biden," adding that they believed the president's "long-term impact on church-related matters was strongly negative."

"By presenting himself as a faithful Catholic, Maier said Biden helps "normalize the administration's policies and actions that directly attack key Catholic beliefs on abortion, sex, family and marriage. This has the effect of marginalizing bishops as doctrinaire, out of touch and seemingly aligned against the message of mercy preached by Pope Francis." (bold print mine)  Gosh, do you think their own actions and speech could have had that effect?

Whatever one thinks of Biden and the state of his soul, to me it was offensive to lump him in with McCarrick.  

"Despite a predominantly unified front among most conference speakers in their approach to Biden, University of Notre Dame historian John McGreevy offered a markedly different message."

"I don't think bishops should deny Communion to Joe Biden because of his position on abortion, I don't think American Catholic bishops need to be more firm as to how they deal with President Biden, and I don't think it's terribly problematic, as a historian, for bishops to disagree in public," McGreevy said."

"As the conference concluded and panelists considered how American Catholics might more effectively engage in the public square, McGreevy said that while there was general consensus among most of the panelists, there is a long historical tradition of different types of engagement and the majority one put forth during the conference "is not the only Catholic viewpoint."

"I would just caution us against assuming that our interpretation of what the church needs is the only Catholic view," he concluded."

One fault I would find with the NCR article by Christopher White is that presumably the conference did cover other subjects than whether Biden should be denied Communion. In the interest of accurate and complete reporting those areas should have been mentioned in the article.

Update from the article by MSW:

"...The canon law of the Catholic Church is modeled on Roman law. In the United States — and most Anglophone countries — we grow up in a common law tradition. If you confuse the one with the other, you get this doctrinaire, and Jansenistic, understanding of the Catholic faith...Common law advances by precedent. Canon law does not. Canon law presumes that its precepts must always be applied with the virtue of prudence to particular situations, all of which are unique in some way. The precepts of common law do not function that way: Either you were driving above the speed limit, or you were not driving above the speed limit.

"...In 2004, when Sen. John Kerry was running for president, the issue of applying Canon 915 was raised. Kerry, like Biden, supports keeping abortion legal. Writing at America, Fr. John Beal wrote a fine essay that explains this different understanding of law that animated the authors of the church's canon law. It turns out, that when this canon was proposed, some objected that it would be too hard to apply, that the strict interpretation of the canon would "make a scarecrow of the law." The drafting commission declined to take their bait. Beal writes: "...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."