Archbishop Emeritus Chaput who never made it to Cardinal seems to be willing to take on our first African American Cardinal on the issue of denying communion to Biden by accusing him of creating scandal.
MR. BIDEN AND THE MATTER OF SCANDAL
I guess Cardinal Gregory who had to wait a long time for his cardinal's hat was a bit too uppity in preempting the bishops committee assigned to evaluate how the bishops ought to deal with Biden. But then again Gregory led the bishops as their president in creating the Dallas charter. (Rocco has often said that Gregory just shakes his head as to how his fellow bishops don't seem to get things).
Our culture warrior, politicized bishops are the great scandal, in many ways equal or worst than that of the sexual abuse scandal.
ADDENDUM. While Chaput likes to appeal to Ratzinger on this issue, he neglected to say that Benedict XVI said that no one except the Pope has the right to criticize a cardinal. That issue arose when the present Cardinal of Vienna criticized the Vatican Secretary of State for having swept under the rug the sexual abuse of seminarians by his predecessor. The Cardinal was summoned to Rome by Benedict and forced to apologize to the Secretary of State. Benedict made it clear that only he could publicly criticize a cardinal. Of course Chaput carefully did not name Cardinal Gregory.
Yes, I read this as a call to deny Communion to any politician who has taken a pro-choice stance. AB Chaput claims this is not political action on the part of the Church, merely upholding the Church's teaching on abortion so that those giving Communion to known pro-choicers are not scandalously seeming to give tacit approval to their views.
ReplyDeleteI follow that line of reasoning, but certainly AB Chaput must be aware that others will make political hay of a situation in which Biden is denied Communion.
This is murkier: "[When communion is denied to elected officials] this decision, properly speaking, is not a sanction or a penalty. Nor is the minister of Holy Communion passing judgment on the person’s subjective guilt, but rather is reacting to the person’s public unworthiness to receive Holy Communion due to an objective situation of sin."
He seems to be making a distinction between "subjective guilt" and an "objective situation of sin" as the basis for denial of Communion. I don't understand this distinction.
Moreover, if no one is giving this individual Communion, then a judgment and penalty has certain been made by the minister of the Eucharist, and the individual in question has been effectively excommunicated.
This is so hard to understand that I honestly don't know how Catholics dare to receive at all.
Catholics dare to receive at all by ignoring this kind of bs.
DeleteHonestly this stuff absolutely sets my hair on fire. I don't believe in using the Eucharist as a carrot or a club. And whatever happened to freedom of conscience, or was Dignitatis Humanae just one of those heretical VII documents?
ReplyDeleteI'm not surprised that this article was published in First Things, which has shifted far right since the turn of the century. I used to get it as a Christmas gift from my dad, until I told him that I would prefer him to give the money to his favorite charity. He doesn't subscribe to it anymore, either. Ironically I am still getting it in the mail, free, I guess. Once in a great while there'll be something worthwhile, but for the most part it is partisan screed.
This is of a piece with the USCCB putting together a "working group" to figure out how they might deal with Biden when he diverges from Catholic teaching. Funny how they never thought that was necessary with Trump for four years. Of course they would say he's not Catholic, so no need to try and browbeat him. Hint to them and Chaput, Biden isn't confusing the faithful, there is no one who doesn't know by now what the church's teaching on the sexual issues is. They just don't believe it is the only thing that should inform their vote.
And by their single issue monomania they have given a pass to Trump's ignoring the rest of Christian teaching.
Denying someone the right to present themselves for Communion is de facto excommunication. Which as I understand is a penalty that can only be applied by the pope or the bishop of the person's diocese. Which Chaput isn't.
DeleteNow I'll shut up and let someone else gripe.
In justice I don't think racism applies to Chaput, since he is Native American himself. But sore loser does.
ReplyDeleteBeing a member of a minority does not mean you can't be racist. There are many Hispanics and Black Americans who are racist about each other.
DeleteThis is not just about Chaput. Its about Dolan and others whom I am sure want Chaput to put Gregory in his place, and resent that Gregory has the independence to provide leadership rather than go along with the cultural warriors. Gregory did it in his usual soft way but he clearly told them he was not going along with them.
I guess a lot of us are guilty of violating the Panzerpope's rule.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if AB Chaput's views are b.s. as Katherine says or not. They do strike me as very legalistic but not very pastoral.
ReplyDeleteSome people here have talked about the value of pastoral "accompaniment." I don't know what that looks like exactly, but I presume it means making an effort to welcome those not fit to receive and working with them until they get their heads/hearts right. AB Chaput seems less concerned with helping a sinner than in making a case for why he should be denied Communion.
I'd be interested to know how Biden and other pro-choice Catholic politicians might satisfy AB Chaput's concerns about receiving Communion. He seems to assume that Biden has not talked with his priest about this (or that tell priest has not remonstrated hard enough with him). Should Biden et al be excluded from communion until they make a public statement rejecting their earlier views?
If so, what if Biden and other Catholic Democrats said, "Abortion is a sin. I condemn it. But what I believe to be sins are not always crimes in secular society. I think the best way to discourage abortions is be to improve assistance for pregnant women and children of single mothers."
Would that be enough? What's the remedy?
I'm not saying that Chaput's views are bs. I agree with him that abortion is wrong and is a sin. I'm saying that the way he wants to enforce his views is bs. He wants Biden to agree that abortion should be criminalized under civil law, and to use civil law to enforce this teaching. And he wants to use the Eucharist as a cudgel to make civil leaders toe the line. Which ignores the fact that the majority of Americans do not want to criminalize it, and that it wouldn't end abortion.
DeleteWhat you said, "...what if Biden and other Catholic Democrats said, "Abortion is a sin. I condemn it. But what I believe to be sins are not always crimes in secular society. I think the best way to discourage abortions is be to improve assistance for pregnant women and children of single mothers" makes sense to me. Poverty isn't the only driver of abortion, but it's a big one. And if poor moral formation is another driver, the church leaders can't expect civil law to fix that for them.
I understood that you meant that b.s. referred to Chaput's guidelines for communion denial, not Church teaching about abortion. Again, I don't know if it's b.s. because AB Chaput takes a very narrow and limited approach to the matter. He offers justification for denial of Communion but no remedy for the person who is barred from the line. I find that jarring for someone who has dedicated his life to saving souls.
DeleteWhen the current administration designated innocent people as
ReplyDeletedrug dealers and rapists and broke up their families at the border and cheerfully created orphans with living parents, bishops like Chaput dutifully signed two-page memos of polite admonition.
Most of the people being persecuted were of Chaput's faith. They would have come under each bishops' universal care.But they didn't. He didn't do a thing for the least our brethren,so why should I care what he writes now? The article is no better than a dust rag.
If I may, let me make an observation, because I think it is of a piece with what Chaput is raising. I have heard exactly zero expressions of excitement or even interest from any Catholics I know, lay or clergy, in Biden becoming just the second Catholic president in the history of the United States. While President Kennedy's election was before my time, I am given to understand that the level of excitement was much higher when he was elected. To be sure, that was a different era - the sense of tribal identity among Catholics presumably ran much stronger then. But I also think that Kennedy wore his Catholicism in a way that came across as considerably more authentic than the way Biden does. That is not to say that Biden is utterly hypocritical in the way he practices his faith. I assume his faith and his piety is genuine. But it includes a gigantic blind spot when it comes to abortion. (In truth, I think it is considerably than a blind spot.) It constitutes a blot on his public Catholic witness. It suggests to the observer that he is not "all in".
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty clear that the bishops are not united on Biden and the issue of abortion. Maybe subbing out the problem to a working group is a way to delegate the divisiveness out of the conference as a whole - maybe that is one reason they created the group.
Btw, I don't know any reason for supposing that Chaput is racist. I didn't see anything in the First Things article that would support that designation. Surely one can hold views that diverge from those of a Black colleague for reasons other than racial animosity.
About Kennedy wearing his Catholicism in a more authentic way than Biden, here is an excerpt from a speech he gave in 1960:
Delete"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute — where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote — where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference — and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish — where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source — where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials — and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all."
"...I do not speak for my Church on public matters — and the Church does not speak for me. Whatever issue may come before me as President — on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling, or any other subject — I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise."
I was in the 7th grade when Kennedy died, so I remember quite well. Of course like any kid my memories were filtered through the adults in my life. From my staunchly Republican parents, who couldn't stand Kennedy, my staunchly Democratic grandmother (who was invited to Kennedy's inaugural ball, though she didn't go) to the very partisan nuns at school who thought he was the Second Coming. I got pretty cynical about politicians and religion pretty early.
Of course the abortion controversy hadn't come up yet, so we don't know where Kennedy's position would have been 40 plus years after Roe v Wade. It wouldn't have been "stare decisis" in his time.
Kennedy was known to have had some extramarital affairs. Jackie Kennedy said at one point something to the effect that she didn't know why people were so worried about him being Catholic since he was such a poor one. Ouch. As far as we know Biden has been faithful to Jill during their marriage. He seems to be a personally observant Catholic, even if he isn't a public one to the satisfaction of Abp. Chaput and the USCCB.
FWIW I haven't seen evidence that Chaput is racist either. I have other objections to some of his public positions, or rather the selectivity that he and some of his brother bishops have demonstrated.
There is no excitement about Biden's being a Catholic because far fewer Catholics are Democrats than in 1960.
DeleteCatholicism is no longer connected with movements that stood up against war, Jim Crow, and unfair labor practices.
Those who lean left now tend to see Catholicism as anti-woman and anti-human rights. Many of them are themselves ex-Catholics. It is a liability to be a Catholic in the Democratic Party, just as it is a liability to be a Democrat in the Catholic Church.
Condemnation of politicians who are not sufficiently anti-abortion from the bishops looks like a challenge to secular power: Biden might be the president of the United States, but we can cut him off from God, so think what we can do to you.
Fair or not, it inevitably leads to comparisons with the Pope silencing Galileo, heretics getting burned up, the self-righteousness of the Crusades, and on and on.
AB Chaput can say whatever he wants to, but his approach is divisive and doesn't resonate with a lot of Catholics, much less those outside the Church.
Katherine - thanks for those personal impressions and memories - very interesting!
DeleteFWIW, my dad, who is pretty conservative, voted for Kennedy. My dad is Irish Catholic, and I am sure that had something to do with it. (Even though our last name is Flemish, my dad's mom was of 100% Irish lineage). My dad is more "all in" for Notre Dame football than for the GOP.
I think there were aspects of the Kennedy "mystique" that would have worked for my dad: Irish Catholics achieving financial success and social acceptance in a world that was more prejudiced against them than would be the case now; the war hero backstory; Kennedy's muscular patriotism and anti-Communism; the athletic energy and can-do spirit which the Kennedys projected. Certainly, all that is more cultural than theological. But the Kennedys' Catholicism also was part of that portrait.
I've never heard that observation from Jackie before - that is pretty funny!
I don't think Kennedy's extramarital dalliances were widely known in 1960?
Jim, I think you are right that most people in the '60s didn't know about Kennedy's affairs. But it seems that his wife did.
DeleteIt sounds like your dad came at the Kennedy mystique from a different angle than mine did. My dad as a rancher/farmer thought of him as an eastern seaboard pretty boy who never did a day's work in his life. Which was a little unjust considering JFK's military service. The funny part is that the grandma who got invited to the inaugural ball was Dad's mom.
Katherine, was your grandma active in local politics? Or what was it that earned her an invitation?
DeleteI think that Kennedy speech is somewhat difficult to untangle. I understand the context: he had to reassure a Protestant clerisy which, sincerely or cynically, professed to worry that a Catholic president would act as a lieutenant of the bishops. I agree with some of the statements from that speech and disagree with some of them. I agree with the overall thrust that the president is not constrained by the religious authorities of whatever creed he professes. But if a president is a disciple of Jesus, then Christianity should be informing him somehow, in some way. The moral code of Christianity can't be bracketed out completely from governing; if it can, then none of us have any warrant to complain about children being separated from their parents at the border, or the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Just speaking for myself, I also don't agree that government funds shouldn't be made available to religious institutions. For example: one of my children, who was a Catholic school student, received developmental physical therapy services from the local public school district. There are people who object to public school resources being extended to children in private schools. But making those resources to children whose schools couldn't otherwise afford them on their own, strikes me as being consonant with Catholic social teaching. I also think it is a good thing that Catholic Charities is able to administer contracts on behalf of government agencies - even though there are many people who oppose that, too.
Jim, my grandma was only active in politics as a concerned citizen, not really as a partisan. She was a poll worker for elections. The real reason she was invited to the inaugural event was that she was godmother to one of Nebraska's senators at the time, Don McGinley. We kids tried to talk her into going. but she said, "It was just a nice gesture. No one actually expects me to go!" But I think she was kind of proud of it.
DeleteAbout government funds to religious schools, I don't think anyone is opposed to *all* aid or sharing of resources. Our Catholic schools here share in special education programs, and speech and hearing pathology teachers from the public system. There are sports and physical education things which are shared, to the benefit of both systems. In some states, textbooks for non religious subjects, such as math, are available to all schools, free of charge. Where it gets to be a sticky wicket are voucher and tax credit programs which are perceived, rightly or wrongly, as zero sum.
I don't think there is much opposition to organizations such as Catholic Charities partnering with government agencies. but they have to expect that the same non-discrimination policies will apply, and that is a sticky wicket with regard to adoptions. Which is another culture warrior thing with the bishops.
Oops! Don McGinley wasn't a senator. He was in the House of Representatives, and was later lieutenant governor under Governor Bob Kerrey.
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Delete"But I also think that Kennedy wore his Catholicism in a way that came across as considerably more authentic than the way Biden does"
ReplyDeleteJim, my impression is just the opposite. When Obama, Biden, and Clinton were monitoring the take down of Ben Lauden, Biden had his rosary. I cannot imagine Kennedy praying the rosary.
I see Kennedy as being a cultural Irish Catholic. I never saw his faith as being very personal. Biden has needed his faith to get himself through life.
I don't see either Kennedy or Biden as being social justice Catholics.
I include being against abortion and the death penalty, being for workers rights, for universal health care, and for support of the poor as all equally a part of Catholic social teaching. And of course few if any Republicans or Democrats completely support Catholic social teaching.
The reality is that few Catholics are really motivated by the full spectrum of Catholic social teaching. Some Catholics, on the right and the left, are seen as being Catholic if they support some aspect of Catholic social teaching very strongly.
While clergy should (but often don't) proclaim the full spectrum of Catholic social teaching, I don't think that Catholic lay people should be held to practicing the full spectrum of Catholic social teaching in their personal, professional and civic lives. That is almost impossible for anyone to do. We laity each have to make choices about what things we will try to change and what we will tolerate.
I think that as long as Catholic laity go to church fairly regularly and believe in the Creed they should be regarded as faithful Catholics. If they lie, cheat, steal and otherwise sin those are matters for the confessional. We long ago abolished the practice of public penance for personal sin.
I think this whole issue of withholding communion (that is instituting a new form of public penance) for failure to practice social justice in our professional and civic lives is a very bad idea. It is clericalism pure and simple.
We laity should be against clergy involvement in business and politics. They should keep to expounding the Gospel and social teaching, leaving it to us laity to figure out what they means in our personal, business and civic lives.
"I don't see either Kennedy or Biden as being social justice Catholics."
DeleteI think both were formed in the Baltimore Catechism era. I don't know to what extent that book covered Catholic social teaching, but my observation of Catholics from those generations is that what "stuck" with them into adult life is more personal piety than social awareness.
I give Kennedy credit for confronting Jim Crow and supporting racial equality. I'm given to understand that he was ahead of many Catholics in that regard, including some pastors.
I think Biden has some fine Catholic social teaching instincts, especially those things that would fall under the heading of The Common Good. I tend to think of Biden as a descendant of the New Deal.
" I don't think that Catholic lay people should be held to practicing the full spectrum of Catholic social teaching in their personal, professional and civic lives. That is almost impossible for anyone to do. We laity each have to make choices about what things we will try to change and what we will tolerate."
Yes, I agree. Presidents must confront whatever issues and problems are important during their presidency. For Biden, surely the pandemic will be the biggest issue during his first months in office. As we're discussing elsewhere, Catholic social teaching has input on how the virus should be combatted. Biden can choose to listen to that input, or not. Ultimately, his administration will need to decide, at the national level, what is possible and realistic for getting the vaccines distributed - even if those decisions don't conform to the ideal of Catholic social teaching in every respect.
"I think this whole issue of withholding communion (that is instituting a new form of public penance) for failure to practice social justice in our professional and civic lives is a very bad idea."
In Biden's case, his track record on abortion is considerably worse than a "failure to practice social justice". He has, for many years now, actively worked in contravention of social justice - has actively worked to prevent social justice from being achieved. He has promised to continue to do so as president. In Chaput's judgment (which is not dispositive, as Chaput is not Biden's shepherd), that constitutes formal cooperation with evil. It's sinful, and requires the Catholic remedies for sinfulness.
Is Chaput being political? Yes and no. No in the sense that that, in my view (but ymmv), that First Things article is written as a bishop, not a political commentator. Yes (in my opinion) in the realm of church politics: I think Chaput is firing a shot across the bow of the USCCB and its working group (and maybe even Francis and the Holy See), that Chaput (and presumably other bishops) are not going to settle for an easy peace on this matter.
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DeleteJim says 'Yes (in my opinion) in the realm of church politics: I think Chaput is firing a shot across the bow of the USCCB and its working group (and maybe even Francis and the Holy See), that Chaput (and presumably other bishops) are not going to settle for an easy peace on this matter."
DeleteI agree this is church politics which is why I see it in personal terms of relationships among bishops, i.e. racism and sour grapes, not in theological or political terms.
Chaput decided to support those bishops who want to press Gomez into a confrontation. He does this by leading them in the direction of confronting the first African-American cardinal in a way that I doubt the bishops would do about any white bishop on any issue. The bishops have not confronted the Bishop of Wilmington for these many years that he has given communion to Biden.
Chaput and many bishops are basically hoping that Francis will go away and his successor will be more to their liking. I think they are playing a dangerous game. Francis has warned them repeatedly to unify. He is a very patient man; I think he hopes that Gregory will unify them and work productively with Biden on many issues as I am sure Rome wants to do.
To get back to your original point about being proud of Catholic politicians
I think that if a Catholic politician presents himself as church going we should be proud of them regardless of whether they are Democrats or Republicans. That was behind Notre Dame giving its award simultaneously to a Catholic VP and a Catholic Speaker of the House.
Questioning weather or not a politician is Catholic, as one bishop did recently of Biden, is political since in fact the only way to get out of the Catholic faith is to formerly renounce it. Excommunication simply says you cannot receive the sacraments it does not say you are no longer Catholic.
Questioning the morals of a Catholic politician is again political. In fact no one but God can judge another human being.
Why are Catholics no longer proud of being Catholic? Perhaps it is because the Creed and the sacraments no longer bind us together. Politics has become the identifier that now matters.
"Chaput decided to support those bishops who want to press Gomez into a confrontation. He does this by leading them in the direction of confronting the first African-American cardinal in a way that I doubt the bishops would do about any white bishop on any issue."
DeleteI can't speak to the racial disparity. But I do recall that it was now-Cardinal Gregory, who at the time was the bishop of a small diocese but also was president of the USCCB, who flew to Rome to get some time with John Paul II back at the turn of the century to alert him that the burgeoning abuse scandal in Boston and elsewhere was more than a small brush fire; it was a conflagration. Possibly, that earned him some enmity among the "establishment".
"...this whole issue of withholding communion (that is instituting a new form of public penance) for failure to practice social justice in our professional and civic lives is a very bad idea. It is clericalism pure and simple." Agree with that 100%.
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