Posted on 06/26/2006 1:55:29 PM PDT by NYer
WASHINGTON, June 26, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - At the installation Mass of the new Archbishop of Washington, Donald W. Wuerl, Thursday, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the representative of Pope Benedict XVI, was seen giving Holy Communion to pro-abortion Senator and former Presidential candidate John Kerry. The incident was reported by the Catholic News Service (CNS), the official news service of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
CNS states: "During the Mass, Kerry, who supports keeping abortion legal, received Communion in the hand from Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States and Pope Benedict XVI's representative to the U.S. bishops."
LifeSiteNews.com formally requested a clarification from the office of the Apostolic Nuncio. No reply was sent from Archbishop Sambi's office though LifeSiteNews.com was informed that the nuncio received the request for clarification.
LifeSiteNews.com also spoke with the Communications Assistant of the Archdiocese of Washington about the matter. Mark Adkinson indicated that the incident was likely not intentional by indicating that Archbishop Sambi was administering Holy Communion on the side where the dignitaries were seated.
CNS also reported that Archbishop Wuerl shook hands with Senators Kerry and Ted Kennedy as he processed into the church. "During his entrance procession, the archbishop shook hands with Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy and John Kerry of Massachusetts, seated side by side in the third row along the center aisle," reported CNS.
However, Adkinson also downplayed the significance of the greetings telling LifeSiteNews.com that the Archbishop shook hands with "hundreds of people" as he processed into the church.
The issue of allowing pro-abortion politicians to receive Holy Communion has loomed large in the Catholic Church in the United States with a committee on the matter having been chaired by former Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick concluding only last week. While it was finally decided that bishops should decide for themselves on the matter, the church's canon law and the man who now serves as Pope Benedict XVI have indicated that such politicians "must" be denied communion.
Ooops!
OK, so he didn't actually plan to give Kerry communion. But neither did it matter much to anybody present--or steps would have been taken to make sure it didn't happen. Bottom line: Same old, same old.
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread,
and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, "This is My Body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me."
In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My Blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me."
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until He comes.
Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the Body and Blood of the Lord.
A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.
For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the Body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.
CNS also reported that Archbishop Wuerl shook hands with Senators Kerry and Ted Kennedy as he processed into the church. "During his entrance procession, the archbishop shook hands with Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy and John Kerry of Massachusetts
The Archbishop will be OK. Being pro-abortion is not contagious.
the church's canon law and the man who now serves as Pope Benedict XVI have indicated that such politicians "must" be denied communion.
Well, that certainly clears it up.
Gale: Shut up! Old Man in bank: Okay then. Gale: Everybody down on the ground! Evelle: Y'all can just forget that part about freezin' now. Old Man in bank: Well, which is it young feller? You want I should freeze or get down on the ground? Mean to say, if'n I freeze, I can't rightly drop. And if'n I drop, I'ma gonna be in motion. You see...
http://biblebelievers.com/tetlow/queenofall01.html
Queen of All Queen of Rome, Queen of Islam, Queen of All: The Marian Apparitions plan to unite all religions Under the Roman Catholic Church Mary...Millions of Catholics travel to shrines to pray before her image. But what is not commonly known is that Muslims also hold her in high regard, and even among Hindus and Buddhists there is worship of goddesses that bear a striking resemblance to the Catholic Mary.
From an article on this subject from last year (Pittsburgh Catholic, 9-29-05):
"The case of withholding Communion from politicians is even more difficult because different bishops may make different pastoral decisions for their dioceses. In an article published last month, Pittsburgh Bishop Donald Wuerl suggested that bishops defer making individual decisions until the conference as a whole reaches consensus."
Kerry, a divorcée, who never received an annulment and was married in the backyard of Teresa's Nantucket home by a federal judge is no longer a practicing catholic and is probably excommunicated.
NOTE FINAL PARAGRAPH
A rant, the Centurion, and frequent Communion
CATEGORY: SESSIUNCULUM, NAPLAM — Fr. John Zuhlsdorf @ 3:55 pm
Have you ever kept a ratty old pair of jeans, or maybe a threadbare robe, maybe a pair of shoes that should have long gone to the dump simply because they are familiar? "New and far more useful dish rags and sponges are in that packet under the sink. Take a new one out and throw the old one away… yeech!"
For three whole decades people have been using the lame-duck ICEL version in most places where English is spoken. There will be changes in the translation to parts both regular and rare, familiar and occasional. When the changes are made, some people who haven’t had a chance to understand what the prayers really say in the Latin original are going to freak out, thinking that they are being robbed of something precious, something familiar.
When you are a beggar in rags, or simply aren’t thinking, a familiar rag seems pretty important.
However, Holy Church clothes our liturgy, and us, in gorgeous words, magnificent verbal garments. The Latin is overwhelming. When the new translation is given to us, at last, don’t be tempted to cling to the rag.
But, some people want us to beg for more rags.
When you come to understand that the rag isn’t maybe as good as what you ought to have, indeed that you have all these years been robbed of what you were supposed to have, you might be less inclined to hesitate accepting, nay rather demanding, your rightful patrimony, and tossing aside the rag for the rag it is.
So, we should strive to learn what we have now and what we ought to have had all along. The Fathers can help us.
You probably don’t know much about Chromatius of Aquileia (+c.407). He became bishop after the death of Valerian and he carried on a epistolary exchange with Rufinus and Sts. Ambrose and Jerome. As a matter of fact, he tried to make peace between Jerome and Rufinus… yah right.
He wrote quite a few exegetical treastises, especially on the Gosepl of Matthew, to which we now turn our attention.
In his tr. in Mathaeum 39 (CCL 9A ) reflects on the Centurion and his declaration of faith in Jesus’ power to heal his servant.
Whence that Centurian, even though he saw our Lord and Savior as a man according to the flesh, nevertheless recognized that He was God by the sight of his mind and of his faith. So, it goes: Speak but a with a word and my servant will be healed, for he believed that He was present in all places by the power of His divine nature and it was enough that he would want to say a word to be able to cure all things, knowing He was the one of whom it was written: He sent his word and healed them. And again: He didn’t cure them with a poultice but, O Lord, it was Your word which heals all things. For he believed he was Him to whom the angels and archangels and all the powers of heaven were subjected in the obedience of servitude. Whence also it was for him that he said: I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but speak but with a word and my servant will be healed, is understood to mean that his house is this world, defiled with the sacrileges of the gentiles and the superstitions of idols, which is attested to as unworthy for God.
Most of the Fathers make use of the Centurion as a symbol of the Gentiles, taking a hint from the Lord Himself about how God’s favor is also to be extended to them and not only to the Jews. In the above, did you catch a foretaste of the great hymn of St. Thomas Aquinas (+1274)? Can one of you say what verse I am thinking of?
Flipping a few centuries forward we find also a note or two from the interesting 13th century commentator Durandus (+1296 - Guillelmus Duranti senior, dictus Speculator) in his Ratione divinorum officiorum. Durandus explained many of the words and gestures of the priest during Holy Mass, giving them very interesting allegorical interpretations which have continued to influence our thought about Mass even today. Here is Durandus (4, 42, 30). He is explaning the gestures and words of Mass (as it was in the 13th century, mind you). He uses the examples of the two officials of the New Testament, the Tax Collector Zacchaeus and the Centurion, to speak about those who desire to receive Communion daily or only occasionally.
There follows: "However so often as you will have done these things" etc. This clause, because it concerns the consecration both of the Body and of the Blood, must be said after the chalice is set down. Truly we must use great discernment in the perception of the Body and Blood of Christ. We must be very careful lest this matter be shelved, and danger of death is incurred, as the Lord strongly declares: Unless you will have eaten the Flesh of the Son of man and will have drunk His Blood, you will not have life in you. But if someone takes (Communion) unworthily, as the Apostles puts it: he eats and drinks for himself judgment, namely of damnation. And thus according to the same Apostle: Let a man test himself and thus eat of that bread and drink of that chalice, etc.
So, someone will say that one must receive Communion daily, but another will say the contrary. Therefore let each person do that which he will have piously believed must be done, for they didn’t conflict with each other, nor did one of them place himself above the other: as an example, Zacchaeus and the Centurion, when the one was happy to receive Christ in his home and the other said: Lord, I am not worthy that you enter under my roof. This is what Augustine says: Some communicate daily of the Body and Blood of the Lord, and others receive only on certain days, for one has in this a free custom.
We should remember that frequent reception of Holy Communion is a very modern development. However, perhaps not so many people always take stock of what reception of Holy Communion is all about. They do not exercise any "discernment" of what they do. Week after week they may even go to church on Sunday… well… maybe when there aren’t other things more interesting… and go forward for Communion as if they are going to get their parking ticket validated. For those who are in the state of grace and who are truly participating with "active receptivity" nothing could be more advantageous than frequent Holy Communion. And for those who aren’t… well….
We should have healthy awe-filled respect for the Blessed Sacrament and our reception of Holy Communion should never be taken for grant or made into a thing of little importance by the fact of our neglect. Let the words of the Centurion be our constant reminder of the fearful act of receiving Communion.
Earlier today, I posted a thread on the Installment of Wuerl, including a link to the full video of the actual ceremony. Had you watched it, you would never have made this comment. It's not too late. The link is still active and worth watching.
And that's the bottom line. Anyone who watched the Installment Mass, which was moved to the Basilica due to the high attendance, will appreciate the impossibility of any prelate from monitoring those in attendance. Hence, the onus is then upon the communicant to respect the gospel and not present himself for communion.
I said the fact that Kerry was given communion meant that nobody thought it worthwhile to worry about the matter. To me, that means . . . more of the same--i.e, lip service to a culture of life and fawning deference to the partisans of death. So what exactly about the installation ceremony was supposed to make me think differently?
maybe Kerry told them he wouldn't go to Communion, then he changed his mind.
Gimme a break! The abortion-lovers/communion problem was the BIG ITEM in the politics of the last DC archbishop. Kerry was Problem #1 in the whole controversy. The guy BRAGS about taking communion while supporting baby-killing 100% And nobody--no priest, no lowly acolyte even--could possibly have been asked to keep an eye on this man? Horse####!
What a punk Kerry is. He knows darned well he's not supposed to take the sacrament. Yet, there he is. What an unmitigated a**hole.
Wow. I always suspected she was a Catholic.
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