A new book arrives, unsolicited.
I have a mailbox for snail mail at the parish office. I don't make it into the office too often, but once a month or so I stop in and bring home whatever is in there. It's usually a hodge-podge of junk mail, parish bulletins, forms and similar paperwork from the archdiocese, and the occasional gifts or notes from parishioners (today, I had several Valentine's Day candy items waiting for me).
Also waiting for me was the book Deny Holy Communion? The author is Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, who presumably already is known to readers of NewGathering.
The book was mailed to me from an outfit called Catholic Action for Faith and Family. Of course, "Catholic Action" is a pretty well-known Catholic movement from before my time. I assume the group which mailed me the book is seeking to situate itself within that tradition, although I don't think it specifically says so on its website. Its website comes across as conservative (in the Catholic sense); I suppose Cardinal Burke's name on the cover of the book would have been a tip-off.
Accompanying the book was a letter, addressed to Deacon James Pauwels, from Catholic Action for Faith and Family's president, Thomas J. McKenna. Here is a portion of the letter:
...Now is the time for clergy and laity to come closer together to restore the sacred trust the Church once possessed the world over. To win hearts and minds for Christ the Church needs unity and better message clarity, sooner rather than later.
Studies suggest that moral norms once taken for granted have been blurred and even forgotten. Catholics vote like their non-Christian neighbors. Many do not know the Church's teaching on doctrinal and moral issues. Those who do know often do not understand. Compounding matters, high profile figures profess to be Catholic but publicly promote disobedience to Christ's teaching. Many faithful are left confused and look for advice they can trust.
To help you in your ministerial discernment, Catholic Action is gifting you the enclosed book, Deny Holy Communion? It is by the renowned canonist Cardinal Raymond Burke. With our utmost esteem for our Catholic clergy, we are offering a courtesy copy to every bishop, priest, and deacon in our country. ...
In Deny Holy Communion? Cardinal Burke lays out the Church's well-grounded reasoning - canonical, theological, and pastoral - for the denial of Holy Communion to obstinate, public sinners...
So the book has been mailed out to every member of the Catholic clergy in the United States.
Will I read it? You bet. It's only 64 pages long. And I'm genuinely interested to read a canonical commentary on this fraught issue.
Until I've read the book, I can't comment on its contents. But I will share a couple of thoughts on Catholic Action's campaign. To some extent, I sympathize and agree with what is in the letter. We Christians are supposed to be united (in Christ). And I'm among those who are put off by Catholic politicians who promote pro-abortion policies.
But if unity is important to us Catholics - and it should be - then it seems to follow that the political tribalism which characterizes our current civic moment is something against which the church should stand in counter-witness, rather than seek to emulate. I try to be open-minded, but it's not easy to expect that a 64-page argument that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are awful sinners is going to provide the necessary counter-witness.
Sad that this attempt to further politicize and weaponize communion is being sent to every deacon and priest. If they follow Burke, the only possibility for “unity” will be that they succeed in driving the remaining progressive Catholics from the pews. A smaller church - “unified ”- but definitely not “purer”.
ReplyDeleteCan’t help but wonder where the $$ came from to finance this dubious enterprise.
This group, and Burke of course, and other Uber- right wing Catholic groups are pushing a political agenda. First, they are trying again to undermine Francis, who has said that abortion is NOT the only issue, and that he does not deny communion to anybody. Secondly, they are gearing up to manipulate priests and deacons to push their congregations into supporting only anti-abortion politicians in the 2024 elections - to use the church in a blatantly manipulative way to further their political goals.
This maneuver made me recall two other articles I read this week
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2023/02/21/fbi-memo-catholic-latin-mass-244775
https://www.ncronline.org/news/group-promoting-author-gk-chesterton-faces-turmoil-over-right-wing-connections
This organization is behind the times. Action has shifted to the states. The process has begun here in Ohio to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would preserve abortion rights here in Ohio.
ReplyDeleteWhat does Cardinal Burke have to say about Catholics who vote for such an amendment? Catholic politicians who support such an amendment? I gather that most of the text of this book has been in print for some time. Is any of it still relevant?
Since the language of the amendment has not been approved, I don't know whether or not I will vote for it. Obviously, I think of it as a practical political decision. I suspect Cardinal Burke would disagree.
This legislation is meant to override a law by the State Legislature that :
The law signed by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine in April 2019 prohibits most abortions after the first detectable “fetal heartbeat.” Cardiac activity can be detected as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they’re pregnant. The law had been blocked through a legal challenge, briefly went into effect when the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was overturned, and then was again put on hold in court.
Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Christian Jenkins issued the preliminary injunction from the bench after a daylong hearing where courthouse guards screened spectators and one abortion provider testified to wearing a Kevlar vest over fears for her safety.
In impassioned remarks announcing his decision, Jenkins knocked the state’s arguments that the Ohio Constitution doesn’t ever mention abortion and so doesn’t protect the right to one. He said a right doesn’t have to be named to be protected.
“This court has no difficulty holding that the Ohio Constitution confers a fundamental right on all of Ohioans to privacy, procreation, bodily integrity and freedom of choice in health care decision-making that encompasses the right to abortion,” he said.
He said the state failed to prove that the ban on most abortions after detection of fetal cardiac activity is narrowly tailored enough not to infringe on those rights. Rather, Jenkins said, the law is written “to almost completely eliminate the rights of Ohio women. It is not narrowly tailored, not even close.”
I suspect the Ohio bishops will be against the amendment. What will be their advice to voters? It is one thing for the clergy to read about distant politicians, another to deal with politicians and voters in their own neighborhood. The last could lose them a lot of collection money from both sides of the aisle.
Whatever. I quit going to Communion to save them the trouble. Let them have their moral norms, which are always about sex and gender, and never over union busting, wage gouging, or how legislators vote on social programs.
ReplyDeleteMy husband received that mailing too. He sort of read it, and laid it aside. Both of us said, how are we even going to know if a pro-choice politician presents him or herself for Communion in our parish? We're not. Case in point, a few years back, when Mike Johanns was our governor, he actually did come to our parish one Sunday (apparently he was visiting relatives?) No one recognized him. I'm guessing that would be pretty typical, unless the person makes a point of calling attention to themselves. No one has said that it is the job of deacons or EMHCs to be Communion police. K noted that the publication did not have an imprimatur. It seems to have been published by Catholic Answers.
ReplyDeleteThe Scripture passage about receiving the Body of Christ unworthily says the person doing it brings condemnation on themselves. Someone else doesn't have to do it for them.
If they're trying to force us to vote Republican in 2024, they can't do it. I voted for Evan McMullen in 2016 and I can do it again or vote third party. I wish a sane third party candidate would declare.
DeleteWill this be the next instruction?
Deletehttps://www.ncronline.org/news/denver-area-catholic-women-say-priest-denied-them-communion-over-rainbow-masks
Sorry, but if those women were looking for a fight, they got one. I don't think people need to be deliberately provocative or distracting during Mass, which they certainly were. We wouldn't like it if people wore a red MAGA hat in church.
DeleteThat said, I don't agree with what the priest did, either. Time and place matters, this was neither, for any of the parties.
DeleteThe women who were passed over in the communion line because they were wearing rainbow masks were not being "denied communion" in the same sense as, say, a pro-choice politician publicly declared by his or her bishop to be prohibited from receiving communion. It is ludicrous to imply that because canon law says communion can be denied to ones "obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin," anything goes at communion time. To expand on Katherine's example, what if someone presents for communion carrying a MAGA placard and wearing a MAGA hat, or for that matter, carrying a giant "Build Back Better" placard with pictures of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Anyone passed over for communion for inappropriate behavior in the communion line is perfectly eligible to receive communion if they start behaving themselves in church.
DeleteThe NCR story says: "It is difficult to see how one could classify the wearing of masks on this one occasion as 'obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin,' " said Block, who is writing a book on conscience, social sin and moral agency. "If in their consciences these mask-wearing women believed they were being faithful to their relationship with God, how can anyone argue otherwise? How did the priest know their intentions? There is no prohibition against wearing rainbow attire at Mass."
This is just silly. What do these people believe about the Eucharist if they think such behavior is appropriate?
David, thanks for that analysis. As far as I know, even Pussy Riot never attempted to wear their balaclavas in the Communion line.
Delete"If in their consciences these mask-wearing women believed they were being faithful to their relationship with God, how can anyone argue otherwise? How did the priest know their intentions? There is no prohibition against wearing rainbow attire at Mass."
DeleteThis strikes me as faulty analysis. It's not the masks themselves that are the obstinately sinful "matter", but rather whatever beliefs the masks signify. (What precisely do they signify?)
Even if the women wearing the masks have clear consciences - they sincerely believe that whatever belief the masks signify is the right and true belief - it's still quite possible that whatever that belief is, places them outside of communion with the church. If that is the case, then I guess the minister of communion is right not to offer them communion, although I'm dismayed that anyone would wish to put a minister of communion in such a socially awkward position.
If there was such a thing as an emblem that announces, "I think Catholics are wrong about divorce and remarriage; I actively encourage people to get divorced and remarried", and that emblem was worn on clothing, then I guess a minister of communion would be right not to offer them communion, either.
This sort of thing happens in hospital ministry from time to time:
"Hey, you just offered that person in the next bed communion. Can I have communion, too?"
"Are you Catholic?"
"No, I'm Baptist".
"Then I'm sorry but I can't offer you communion".
Curious if Catholic clergy are allowed to offer a prayer or blessing to non-Catholics after declining to give them Communion. In my mother in law's nursing home, the priest had a list of Catholics to visit and did not interact with anyone else. It was kind of sad, as Ma tried to strike up a conversation with the priest a couple times by telling him her father had been Catholic and her son converted, she wanted to show him the rosary bracelet I got her, but he wasn't up for chit chat. Protestant clergy seemed better at schmoozing with and praying with anyone who asked. But maybe depends on the person and temperament.
DeleteI would think a deacon or priest would always be free to offer someone who isn't Catholic a blessing, and pray with them.
Delete"I would think a deacon or priest would always be free to offer someone who isn't Catholic a blessing, and pray with them."
DeleteOf course.
I don't know what that priest at your Mom's nursing home was thinking. Maybe he's one of those ministers who finds other people an imposition and strives to avoid them.
We heard from a friend of Raber's that it was the alcoholics and pedophiles who were sent on Communion duty to hospitals and nursing homes. Maybe whoever was assigned Ma's nursing home just wasn't a people person.
DeleteMa was always interested in our conversion (vs my mom who banned us from discussing it). She also liked to have her bases covered with as many denominations as possible. Pretty sure she hit up rabbis and imams for prayers if they showed up.
Well, I’m the notorious Catholic apostate here, so….
ReplyDeleteTheir masks may not have been appropriate but I’d be willing to bet that plenty of people have received communion wearing MAGA gear. But somehow the moral evils of MAGA are just fine with church officials. As far as I’m concerned, supporting MAGA is a worse sin by far than supporting gay pride. Which isn’t a sin. But the RCC only sees two mortal sins that warrant denial of communion- being publicly pro- choice in our religiously pluralistic country (which has separation of church and state as a fundamental value), and supporting gay rights.
Jim: How did the priest know their intentions? There is no prohibition against wearing rainbow attire at Mass."….It's not the masks themselves that are the obstinately sinful "matter", but rather whatever beliefs the masks signify. (What precisely do they signify?)
That is why communion should not be denied to someone wearing a mask. The priest/deacon/ Eucharistic minister does NOT know what the mask signifies.
The priest has made a judgement based on a mask that the women are in a state of mortal sin. He doesn’t KNOW this.
How about all those people who use birth control (95% of Catholics according to the data)? Should he deny communion to couples who don’t have “ enough” children, on the assumption that they use contraception, clearly persisting in it for the decades of their marriage, and that is a mortal sin? How about the local employers who are known to do their best to deny health benefits, paid maternity leave etc to their women employees? A very anti-life policy.
It is just as wrong and inappropriate for a priest to deny communion to a woman wearing a mask that symbolizes a person’s opinion as it is for the women to choose that venue for their silent protest. It’s worse, actually because the priest or deacon or Eucharistic minister is playing God - making a judgment without full knowledge of the state of the person’s soul and conscience.
Even the Pope refuses to judge people who come to him for communion. He never denies communion to anyone because he knows that he is not God and cannot judge the state of another person’s soul.
"The priest has made a judgement based on a mask that the women are in a state of mortal sin." Actually we don't know that. He made a judgement that they were behaving inappropriately in church. Which doesn't mean that they were in mortal sin. I happen to think that he made the wrong call by shooing them out of the Communion line. He called more attention to something he didn't want to give attention to than if he had simply let it pass. But they obviously wanted attention. Kind of like the kid who doesn't really care if the attention is good or bad.
DeleteIs “ behaving inappropriately “ now a mortal sin?
DeleteAccording to the teachings, people who are aware that they are in a state of mortal sin should not go to communion. Now apparently priests can make that judgment based on someone’s attire. Will teenage girls who wear mini- skirted sundresses with low necks and spaghetti straps now be denied communion because their clothes are deemed inappropriate? How about the boys wearing loose, baggy shorts, revealing their underwear ( or worse) when they bend over? Etc. The list of what might be deemed inappropriate could get quite long.
Agree that the priest compounded the problem by not simply letting it pass. But if anything deemed “ inappropriate” becomes a reason to deny communion to people, then there will be a whole lot of people who are turned away.
"That is why communion should not be denied to someone wearing a mask. The priest/deacon/ Eucharistic minister does NOT know what the mask signifies."
DeleteYes, it's a very fair point. After all, something as ambiguous as an emblem or a rainbow could mean different things to different people. If it means "gay pride", then - who could object to that? If it means, "God looks with favor and blessings upon gay marriage", then - it means something quite apart from what those who teach with authority have taught.
And of course, it's entirely possible that what the wearers meant to convey by wearing the masks is significantly different than what the minister of communion understood. And neither party "owns" the "correct" interpretation.
"The priest has made a judgement based on a mask that the women are in a state of mortal sin"
DeleteIs that what he said? That isn't what I would expect; I would expect that his judgment was that these women don't believe what the church believes on a matter of faith or morals. Believing something other than what the church believes isn't a mortal sin, but it places these women outside of full communion with the church.
Believing something other than what the church believes isn't a mortal sin, but it places these women outside of full communion with the church.
DeleteCome on, Jim. Let’s be real. If someone could actually compile a list of every single thing that the church teaches (hopefully condensed to a few hundred line items) and not the 1000+ page catechism), I doubt that there would be a single person, including the priests and bishops, who would agree with every single one of them. So p, for all practical purposes, every baptized Catholic would be “out of communion” with the church.
Maybe there should be announcements made in the bulletin that anyone who doesn’t believe that using contraception is evil, as the church teaches, should go to communion because that puts them “ out of communion “ with the church.
However, the church also teaches primacy of conscience. I’m quite sure that the two women have fully informed their consciences about what the church teaches about homosexuality and marriage, and know why it teaches what it does, and that they still disagree. According to the church’s own teachings, they not only may follow their consciences on this, they must not be prevented from following their consciences.
1782 Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. "He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters….. 1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.
Correction - Should NOT go to communion if they don’t believe the church’s teaching that contraception is evil
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
Delete"According to the church’s own teachings, they not only may follow their consciences on this, they must not be prevented from following their consciences.
Delete1782 Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. "He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters….. 1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed."
If they believe what the church believes, then why are they wearing masks that (seemingly) proclaim the opposite?
It...doesn't seem entirely thought through.
They're engaging in a sacramental act which proclaims, "I believe what the church believes".
At the same time, they're wearing an article of clothing which proclaims, "I don't believe what the church believes".
Shouldn't they iron out that difficulty before presenting themselves for communion?
Believing something other than what the church believes isn't a mortal sin, but it places these women outside of full communion with the church.
DeleteIgnatius tells the giver of the Spiritual Exercises, that he is not to accuse the person who is making the exercises of having heretical views. Rather he is to try to educate the person by continuing to reformulate the person's views in an orthodox manner, "You really mean...." Ignatius expects the giver not to give up on this sort of correction.
Of course, Ignatius lived in the days of the inquisition and was hauled before it several times. All that stuff about discernment seemed very Protestant to many. Each time people backed off and Ignatius essentially demanded a trial and acquittal. Ignatius was a good political. He left behind him a series of acquittals rather than a series of unproven accusations. And may have saved his life.
I agree with Anne that most people including most clergy have probably expressed opinions that are heretical without knowing it. Merton with all his poetry had a terrible time with the censors. He had to go through two sets of them, one in the diocese of New York where the publisher resided, and another by his own order before his Abbot and Cardinal Spellman signed off. Good to know that there is nothing heretical in Seeds of Contemplation!
What is included in what the Church teaches varies a lot.
DeleteBefore Vatican II and for a while afterward priests had to swear an oath against modernism and a whole bunch of evils defined by one of the Pius popes. Many priests swore the oath without believing in it. I suspect that many converts who say they "believe in all the Catholic Church teaches don't really belief in some or many of those things."
The only really necessary things are to paraphrase Augustine (I think) " is love God and your neighbor" and then you can do whatever you want.
I know and love Scripture, the Liturgy, and the variety of spiritualities that have flourished within Catholicism. They contain my standards for living. I have little interest in systematic theology, catechesis, and the contents of most homilies most weekends. That's all clerical stuff, pretty dull and boring and largely irrelevant to life.
The problem is that many former Catholics are taking all that clerical stuff seriously and deciding they cannot be Catholics against all the evidence that there are many good Catholics who live rich Catholic lives without getting hung up on the things that the clergy are hung up about.
Jim - Shouldn't they iron out that difficulty before presenting themselves for communion?
DeleteJim, if ironing out the difficulty means agreeing with the teaching when their conscience tells them something else, then No, they should be able to go to communion. If every Catholic there who uses contraception because their conscience does not agree with the church that contraception is evil, a mortal sin, isn’t supposed to go to communion until “ironing out this difficulty” - which cannot be ironed out by definition if they are following their conscience - then the communion line would probably include only children and the very old.
When I was getting married, I studied the church’s teaching on contraception in depth. I thoroughly informed my conscience. I traced the church’s teachings back all the way to Augustine and his misguided ideas about sex. That’s also when I first realized how self- referential the catechism is - most of the footnotes refer to earlier church documents, not to scripture or contemporary moral theology. Essentially they claim it’s “ true” because this is what this document claimed in 456, or whenever.
The more I learned, tracing the teachings back, the more upset I got. That was the first time I dropped out - it was months before I returned because it was the first time I truly realized how distorted some of the church’s teachings about women, marriage, sex and contraception really were AND I realized for the first time how much harm they have done throughout history. In studying the activities and meetings of the Birth Control Commission, the testimonies from married people and from various experts, and learning about the extensive manipulation the conservatives in Rome did to try to force the outcome they wanted (and the vote was still overwhelmingly to change the teaching in spite of their best efforts), and the pressure on Paul VI to ignore the recommendations of the Commission, it finally hit me that corruption in the church in the 20th century was just as present as it had been in earlier eras. It wasn’t ancient history as I had naively believed. I also learned that even though Paul VI caved to the conservatives p, he had a spokesman point out that the ban on contraception was not an “ infallible” teaching. (There are no infallible teachings anyway because neither the Pope mor thé “ ordinary magisterium” is God. Only God is infallible. This shouldn’t have to be pointed out) So I followed my extremely well- informed conscience and, thanking God for the science that resulted in a genuinely almost totally reliable method of birth control, filled my prescription for the pill.
God gave every one of us minds and consciences and expects us to use both. It’s a sin not to. These women very probably believe that the harm done to gay people by the church is a sin. Their informed consciences most likely prompted their silent protest. One woman has a Doctorate in Scripture and a Master’s in Theology and taught at a Catholic university. I’m guessing her conscience is far better informed than that of the parish priest. Apparently sin to the her and the other two women was the firing of the teacher when they learned she is in a same sex relationship. The school has a legal right to do that, but is it morally right?
Jack The problem is that many former Catholics are taking all that clerical stuff seriously and deciding they cannot be Catholics against all the evidence that there are many good Catholics who live rich Catholic lives without getting hung up on the things that the clergy are hung up about.
DeleteI pretty much agreed with this approach for years as a cafeteria Catholic. But the more I pondered the harm that some teachings cause, the harm to good people who are Catholic, the more my conscience prodded me to decide that I could no longer cooperate in inflicting this harm, even though only as a passive participant. The true church - the good people of the church - do an enormous amount of good in the world, through their personal interactions loving their neighbor - family, friends and community- , and through their more remote personal and financial support of social justice and global charitable work
I still struggle with it. So I support Catholic Relief Services, the Jesuit Refugee Service, Catholic Charities ( sometimes), St. Ann’s, which has for decades been truly pro- life by providing the extensive tangible support needed ( money, housing, child- care, financial support for education to enable the women to get decent jobs and be able to move into their own apartments) by women facing a problematic pregnancy to help them not choose abortion, and the special scholarships at Loyola Marymount that were set up to help poor students, mostly minorities, attend the university without accruing tens of thousands in student loan debt. But I refuse to support parishes and bishops because the parishes are often the locus of the harm done to people because of the teachings (as happened in Denver) and because parishes are taxed by thé chanceries to support their activities. So since I won’t put money in a Catholic parish collection, I felt guilty staying, so the Episcopalians now get my church support donations.
Many bishops, priests, and laity seem to be very concerned that many Catholics are not coming to Mass, perhaps because they have misunderstandings about the Eucharist.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me all this concern about the clothes that people wear, the beliefs and values that they might have, or their behaviors that may make them ineligible to receive communion is unlikely to motivate anyone to come back to Mass and receive the Eucharist. Maybe they will find something wrong about me!
On the other hand, all these concerns are very likely to motivate many people to stay away Mass permanently, and some people to decide they no longer want to go to church. These concerns do not paint a very attractive picture of the bishops, clergy and lay people.
Exactly right, Jack. The church officials seem to be going out of their way to find ways to make people decide that church is not a place that is right for them.
DeleteI read an article from an evangelical Protestant site bemoaning the mostly ignored phenomenon of the dramatic loss of baby boom and Gen X members from their congregations. I have long been aware of this in the RCC, just based on my personal circle of once-Catholic friends and family, but apparently it’s pretty widespread. The older people have put up with a lot of nonsense from their churches for decades and many have finally “had it.”
https://www.readingremy.com/blog/why-are-boomers-leaving-the-church
Yes, the current local priest works "what you must believe if you are a Catholic who wants Holy Communion" into every homily. He can be quite strident. Difference between him and the old geezers we used to have who simply urged faith in the teachings of the Church and and prayers for guidance from the Holy Spirit. It's a difference in tone and attire more than in doctrine, a desire to draw.lines in the sand vs being willing to work with people where they are. I personally don't think that rule-reading is leadership, but the Chapel Cap Crowd loves it.
DeleteThe phrase that comes to mind is "...sucking all the oxygen out of the room." Do they really want to let these types of issues breathe all the oxygen in the church?
Delete*tone and attitude. Though there is a difference in attire ...
Delete"It seems to me all this concern about the clothes that people wear, the beliefs and values that they might have, or their behaviors that may make them ineligible to receive communion is unlikely to motivate anyone to come back to Mass and receive the Eucharist. Maybe they will find something wrong about me!"
DeleteIt strikes me as a Reformation approach: we are Catholics; they are Protestants; here are the things that make us right and them wrong.
One might wonder where Vatican II fits into that schema.
I don't want to wade too far into this, but it seems to me that anything that distracts people from Communion ought to be viewed as grounds for dismissal from the line, whether it's a rainbow mask, kneeling in a stress position, wearing one of the more ostentatious veils, or generally pulling attention away from the Eucharist.
ReplyDeleteThat said, a priest who makes an issue of it in the line risks calling more attention to it.
Just thinking about this as a teacher occasionally called on to deal with freshmen whose classroom behavior was disruptive. As a young teacher, I would just toss them out, no warning. This certainly scared some students into better behavior, but it also elicited sympathy for the miscreants.
As I gained more experience, I was more likely to issue a settle-down warning and then briskly outline expectations and consequences to offenders after class.
In dealing with the issue of a young teen girl the priest obviously considered to be immodestly dressed, Jimmy Akin explains what canon law says about on-the-spot decisions to refuse communion in such a way that I am forced to conclude that in the case we are discussing, the priest made the wrong decision. However, my sympathies are with him rather than the woman sporting the rainbow mask. I think she was indeed behaving inappropriately, but canon law appears to place strict limits on a priest's options under such circumstances.
ReplyDeleteLet's remember that the woman wearing the mask was doing it out of sympathy for a teacher who was fired when discovered to be gay. The teacher, not the woman wearing the mask to show "solidarity," is the real victim in the whole affair, and yet the woman wearing the mask is the focus of the news story, and the priest is the villain.
I would approve of myriad ways to protest the firing by Catholic officials of a teacher revealed to be gay. In the past the church treated gay people abominably and in many ways still does. Catholics who share this view have, in my opinion, every right to protest. However, they should keep their protests out of the communion line. The rainbow-mask-lady is not a martyr and the priest who denied her communion is not a villain. The whole story isn't particularly newsworthy.
I don't wear bumper sticker t-shirts. If I were to wear one, it would probably have something to do with climate change or demilitarization. But to wear it to church might be counterproductive. It might be better to protest not in church but by blocking fossil fuel infrastructure. Then one might ask why Stan isn't seen in church anymore. Because he's in the hoosegow. I guess the causes I care most about aren't about identity politics and sexuality. These topics seem to serve the purpose of camoflaging the basic problems of class-based domination, economic inequality.
ReplyDeleteDavid, presuming the canon law article is correct in its analysis, I agree with your conclusions except for one phrase:
ReplyDeletethe priest who denied her communion is not a villain.
In the cases of both women, the priests are villains, because they abused their power in denying the sacrament. They are obviously in need of correction. Laity should not be afraid to apply correction even if neither of the women are martyrs, or victims. Indeed, their behaviors are at least tacky, very self-absorbed, boarding on the being insensitive to the congregations. We should not let their poor behavior gloss over the priest’s abuse of power.
What should they women do? They should lawyer up getting themselves both canon and civil lawyers. A canon lawyer to accompany them through the canon law process. A civil law to look at the priest's vulnerability for issues like defamation of character, and gender discrimination.
Canon law works differently than civil law. The women should ask for a meeting with the priests. The object of such a meeting is reconciliation. For the priests and the women to come to a shared understanding of what happened in canon law terms, for the priests to admit (in writing?) that they had made mistakes, to make (public?) apologies, to agree to not to repeat their behavior, and to make some form of reparation.
The aim of such a procedure is not as in English law processes to find the priests guilty but rather to effect reconciliation and better behavior on the part of everyone.
I think progressive laity should have involved themselves in both cases. Perhaps they should be the ones to employ the lawyers to facilitate a reconciliation rather than an adversarial process, and to act as kind of a jury of fellow lay peers to deal with the tacky, self-absorbed behavior of the laity involved. The written agreements and public statements could include an awareness on the part of the laity how they contributed to the priest's mistakes, e.g., being more careful in the future as to how they might dress more appropriately. The final documents might include new dress codes for the parishes.
Contrary to popular belief we are a church of canon law, not one of unlimited authority by pastors and bishops to do what they want. We now have in this country many laity who are trained in canon law.
ReplyDeleteWhen the former bishop of Cleveland closed a whole bunch of parishes, they took their cases to Rome through the use of canon lawyers.
They got good advice from a person who was very familiar with the way cases are processed in Rome. He told each parish to prepare its own case with its own canon lawyer, and NOT to coordinate efforts as we might do in a class action lawsuit. What impressed the Congregation for Priests who reversed the bishop's decision was the particularly of each case. The bishop had obviously failed to deal with each parish with due process. Basically, they said to the bishop reopen those parishes and begin to deal with them on an individual basis, i.e., do your job as bishop.
Jack, that's very interesting.
DeleteFWIW, the Chicago Archdiocese has been going through a major round of parish consolidations. The archdiocese has been having every parish in the diocese work with neighboring parishes to discern their gifts, their weaknesses, what makes them unique, what they share in common, and so on. The exigencies for the process, which is called Renew My Church, are well-known: too many parishes and schools are financially unsustainable (and COVID has exacerbated the problem), and there are not enough priests and pastors.
Our parish went through an abbreviated version of the process with four neighboring parishes late last year. All five of these parishes will remain open and free-standing. But that hasn't been the case across the archdiocese: our auxiliary bishop said recently that the number of parishes in the archdiocese has been reduced from 360 to 220 - nearly a 40% reduction.
In light of your comment, the Renew My Church process seems intentionally structured to avoid repeating the mistakes made in Cleveland: make sure each parish participates and that their particular characteristics are named, documented and taken into account. To be sure, the parishes don't decide their own fates (no parish would voluntarily seek to end its existence).
We have a process similar to Renew My Church here. Similar things are happening with groupings of parishes. We are in a group of five, so far all are staying open. I think they are trying to deal with it as compassionately as possible. It's just that things have changed over the years.
DeleteThe Cleveland Diocese under Bishop Pilla did have a process called "Vibrant Parish Life" where the parishes did self-study in preparation for clustering, merging, etc. Pilla resigned early before anything was done.
DeleteBishop Lennon who had been administrator of Boston after Cardinal Law had closed many parishes there without much process. When he came to Cleveland, he did his own thing basically ignoring the process. Rome's decision against him may have been a signal to American bishops to not ignore process, especially when you are closing many parishes. Many were surprised at Rome's decision, especially since his friend Law was in Rome at that time still active as the head of Saint Mary Major Basilica.
In general Rome gives most bishops great flexibility just as most bishops give most pastors great flexibility but there is a structure called canon law which sets up the ideals (norms) that should be followed. If anyone ignores that structure, they can be brought to accountability.
DeleteWhen Voice of the Faithful was active in Cleveland we had a meeting at a parish which had a pastor who had a canon law degree. In his conversations with us after the meeting he actually outlined the strategy he would use to bring about accountability.
Since most dioceses have so many parishes, canon law envisions that deans for each deanery will keep watch over what goes on with pastors in the parishes in their deanery. In most dioceses in this country that system is really not functioning. It may be present in name as in our diocese, but it has no teeth. Our diocese like many dioceses has a Vicar for Priests who deals with any difficulties that priests may be having. He is far too remote from the parishes. A lot of other diocesan officials also have some authority to deal with some parish issues. Bottom line a diffuse authority structure where canon law sees a clear one that could deal more easily with a lot of things like priests with alcohol problems or health problems. The canon lawyer told us that clearly there was nothing in place in our diocese to do that.
See Book II, Chapter VII Vicar Forane. Canons 553, 554, 555
One could see the deanery system of canon law as a relic of earlier synodality where the dean was seen as a first among equals at a regional area of the diocese. Canon law envisions him as acting in a more collegial fashion marshalling resources to help a pastor rather than simply complaining to the bishop to solve the problem.
I have a great deal of respect for canon law. If used properly it could help curb clerical abuses and bring wisdom to church governance. Most bishops and priests however want to be their own bosses without dealing with others as is demanded the synodality structures inherent in canon law.
Speaking of weird stuff in the Communion line: This guy was knocking around my hometown for awhile and showed up at the funeral Mass of a family friend. No connection with the deceased, just showing up to exhibit what I might charitably call his Holy Foolery. The priest gave him Communion, no problem. But I found it a bit jarring. https://wreg.com/news/man-dressed-like-jesus-travels-the-world-spreading-gods-word/
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