Posted on 03/28/2014 6:43:56 AM PDT by Arthur McGowan
It is said by many, including Cardinal Wuerl, that Communion should not be used as a political weapon.
Absolutely true. And the reception of Communion is being used as a political weapon—by pro-abortion politicians. As long as they are permitted to receive Communion, the bishop (e.g., Cardinal Wuerl) endorses their claim to be “ardent Catholics” whose promotion of abortion is NO SIN.
(Excerpt) Read more at all.org ...
The vast majority of bishops in the U.S. insist that people who promote abortion must be given Communion. That puts all these bishops solidly on record: the Church's teaching that abortion is evil MUST BE UNDERMINED.
How did the U.S. find itself with a bench of bishops almost unanimously committed to the proposition that abortion is a social good?
How many days in a row are you going to post this?
Until the scandal comes to an end.
Have you sent the good Cardinal a copy of this? Isn’t it in the Bible somewhere that if you have a beef with another that you go to them with it?
FR really needs more posts on this subject... NOT.
I don’t object to postings on consecutive days because I might have missed the first one, and I rarely browse more than two or three pages deep into the various posts. I have more of a problem with six postings of the same story within half an hour, and the mods seem very inconsistent in closing duplicate threads.
After awhile you can't blame the sinner any more but the church is allowing the sin to occur out in the open in the church. A little leaven leavens the whole lump.
Nothing disgusts me more than seeing people on TV with ashes on their forehead on a Wed that just got through voting for abortion and gay marriage. We are advertising that it's all just a joke. Jesus went through the Temple overturning tables and whipping people because they made it a den of thieves. Well they're back!
‘Glad to finally see this article for first time. Father Vincent Fitzpatrick makes the very best arguments I’ve heard on the subject. Please read whole article.
“…that Communion should not be used as a political weapon.”
The fact is there frequently just are political consequences for one’s views and practices. But that fact hardly nullifies any adherence to truth and to proper responses to sin and scandal. Jesus’ actions in pointing out the sin of the ruling Jews caused a huge shift in the political influence of the Jewish scribes and Pharisees.
This is proven when we see that they and the Roman government got so irate with Jesus for threatening their political positions that they crucified Him. Clergy must follow Christ, not try to manipulate politics by denying politicians corrective measures for the good of theirs and the multitude of observers’ souls.
That’s in the case of a private beef—because it’s wrong to reveal anyone’s private sins to the public without just cause.
But all the bishops who are committing the mortal sin of refusing to obey Canon 915 are doing so publicly. There is no obligation to correct their sin in private.
Thank you for pointing that out. Any political consequences from obedience to Canon 915 are accidental.
Cardinal Wuerl and Cardinal O'Malley have both made remarks indicating that political consequences are practically all that matters.
Cardinal O'Malley told a reporter several years ago that it is all-important that the bishops not be seen as picking on one political party.
World-class b---s--- artists, all of them.
But when high ranking Catholic politicians ie Ted Kennedy wants to keep cheating on his wife, he is given an annulment. Instantly not guilty of adultery anymore.
He was allowed to recieve communion is still a Catholic as are Pelosi and many others like him who favor the of killing unborn children.
Enabling practices IMO.
Thanks.
What the article boils down to is that refusing to obey Canon 915 is mortal sin—and all but about a dozen bishops in America are stubbornly continuing to commit this mortal sin.
Throughout the history of the Church, it seems, bishops have a tendency to view the wearing of some red or purple fabric to place them above the civil law, moral law, divine law, and canon law.
We certainly saw this in the case of sexual abuse. Two-thirds of American bishops violated the civil law, the moral law, and canon law in those cases. Nothing got their attention until it cost them a few billion dollars.
When pro-life people were getting arrested in the doors of abortion clinics, the police were carrying them away for the express purpose of re-opening the abortion clinics. NO American bishop—NOT A SINGLE ONE—ever instructed the police that they were collaborating directly and formally in abortions by removing people who were preventing abortions.
In 1968, the year of Humanae Vitae, only ONE bishop in the U.S. suspended priests who had announced their rejection of the Church’s teaching—Patrick O’Boyle of Washington. (Cardinal Sheehan of Baltimore did the same, but quickly backtracked.) The process by which the courageous, principled O’Boyle would be succeeded by a string of ever-more-degenerate weasels was already laid bare.
The crimes of the American bishops, as a body, are as serious as those of any episcopate in history that has stood with an oppressive government against the Church. As tens of millions of babies have been murdered, the solicitude of American bishops for the tender feelings of thousands of pro-abortion politicians has been unremitting.
The details of any annulment are private. Therefore, no matter how high the probability that a given annulment was granted because of corruption, there really can’t be any use to discussion of it. (Although, when Joe Kennedy’s annulment was the issue, the Archdiocese of Boston did not hesitate to LIE, claiming that WHETHER Kennedy had received an annulment was a confidential matter. In its very nature, an annulment is a public fact. As it turned out, the Vatican ruled against the annulment.)
Of course, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, and all other pro-abortion politicians should be denied Communion. All bishops, priests, deacons, EMCs, who knowingly give them Communion, or argue that they should be given Communion, are walking around habitually in the state of mortal sin. The reason for this is simple: All such persons are arguing that giving grave scandal, and committing sacrilege, are not sinful.
It must be emphasized that Denial of Communion, which is what Canon 915 mandates, is not a penalty. That is, it is not a "corrective measure" that a bishop or priest MAY use. Rather, it is a sacramental discipline which is OBLIGATORY. NOT denying Communion in these cases is a MORTAL SIN.
The underlying problem is that the vast majority of American bishops do not recognize the concept of an OBLIGATION.
This was seen in the case of the pro-life rescue movement. It was seen in their defiance of civil law and the moral law in the case of sexual abuse. It was seen in their defiance of Pope Paul VI in the case of contraception.
Somehow, someday, we must have bishops who recognize that the civil law, the moral law, and canon law actually apply to THEM.
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