Posted on 03/24/2014 6:24:52 AM PDT by Arthur McGowan
Here is the text of Canon 915: “Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
Several American bishops have made statements to the effect that a bishop must exercise “discretion” regarding whether to “impose the penalty” of denial of Communion. Among them: Chaput, Dolan, O’Malley, and Wuerl.
All bishops who refuse to “impose the penalty” are participating in a lie. Namely, that denial of Communion is a penalty.
Denial of Communion is NOT a penalty.
So? What is the import of this fact?
It means that denial of Communion is not an option that MAY be chosen. It is MANDATED by Canon 915. No bishop, priest, or other minister of Communion is free to disobey Canon 915, for the simple reason that the action Canon 915 forbids is ALWAYS gravely sinful.
It needs to be emphasized that Canon 915 is NOT a canon that may be “applied” or “not applied.” Canon 915 can only be obeyed or disobeyed. And disobeying Canon 915 is always gravely sinful.
Canon 915 exists precisely because giving Communion to a person “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin” is always gravely sinful. Doing so is always to give grave scandal, and to participate knowingly in a sacrilegious act.
Let that sink in. Always gravely sinful.
In terms perhaps more familiar to the laity: To give Communion knowingly and deliberately to ANYONE delineated in Canon 915 is ALWAYS a mortal sin.
Cardinal Donald Wuerl has been the most outspoken of those bishops who refuse to obey Canon 915, but all of them are on record, as he is, as endorsing the commission of MORTAL SINS by their priests and other ministers of Communion. Cardinal Wuerl has even punished those who have obeyed Canon 915.
Of course, this is something he has no right to do, because no bishop has the authority to command anyone to commit a mortal sin!
“Bearing in mind the nature of the above-cited norm (cfr. n. 1), no ecclesiastical authority may dispense the minister of Holy Communion from this obligation in any case, nor may he emanate directives that contradict it.” Cardinal Wuerl and many other bishops have been doing PRECISELY what they are EXPRESSLY forbidden to do by this statement from the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts!
They have also emanated specious arguments. Here are some of Cardinal Wuerl’s preposterous, irrelevant statements, made in these or very similar words:
That’s not my style.
I follow a “pastoral approach” rather than a “canonical approach.
”We need to find out if the canon was written for the purpose of bringing politicians to heel.
I will not deny Communion to anyone who has not been formally excommunicated.
Now, that is a stunning statement, because the divorced-and-illicitly-remarried are not excommunicated. Yet, does anyone doubt that, were Cardinal Wuerl to direct all ministers of Communion in his jurisdiction to give Communion to the divorced-and-illicitly-remarried, the news would flash around the world, and Rome would take action within hours?
But Canon 915 mentions no particular SPECIES of sin! That is, the KIND of sin in which a would-be communicant is publicly involved is of no account!
In other words, Cardinal Wuerl’s long-standing determination to give pro-abortion people Communion is precisely as outrageous and scandalous as would be a directive to give Communion to the divorced-and-illicitly-remarried. Yet, there is no evidence that this massive scandal has attracted the attention of Rome.
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.
Abraham Lincoln is credited with the statements: You can fool all of the people some of the time. You can fool some of the people all of the time. Cardinal Wuerl and other bishops appear to be relying on the truth of these observations. It appears that it has been left up to the laity to demonstrate the truth of Lincoln’s further statement: But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
If this scandal is to end, Rome needs to hear a great deal more noise from the laity. As Pope Francis told the youth of Brazil: “Raise a ruckus.”
For further reading on Canon 915, please see the following links:
http://tinyurl.com/canon915 http://www.canonlaw.info/a_denialofeucharist.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_915
A native of Washington, DC, Fr. Vincent Fitzpatrick is a retired priest of the Diocese of Fargo.
It needs to be emphasized that Canon 915 is NOT a canon that may be “applied” or “not applied.” Canon 915 can only be obeyed or disobeyed. And disobeying Canon 915 is always gravely sinful. Canon 915 exists precisely because giving Communion to a person “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin” is always gravely sinful. Doing so is always to give grave scandal, and to participate knowingly in a sacrilegious act.
Let that sink in. Always gravely sinful.
In terms perhaps more familiar to the laity: To give Communion knowingly and deliberately to ANYONE delineated in Canon 915 is ALWAYS a mortal sin.
PFL
If there’s any justice the lack of public discipline for Catholics who publically facilitate and promote abortion will be looked back at as dwarfing the homosexualist priest scandal.
FReegards
bump
Respectfully, I disagree that this is the scandal that’s eating the heart out of the US Catholic Church. Having had a pastor who molested young boys in iur parish and knowing one of the victims, I have to say the church turning a blind eye to this for years is the biggest scandal.
iur=our
The failure of Catholic bishops to excommunicate pro abortion Catholic politicians since the 1970’s did as much harm to the Church as the failure to purge decadent homosexual priests that were molesting young boys.
There have been 57 million babies killed by abortion.
If you thought the answer was “pedophilia,”...
... that crisis was the ‘70’s manifestation of the same disease, a refusal to confront evil from within. Both crises amount to a desire to seek worldly ways of dealing evil. In the 1970s, the Church listened to secular psychological therapists, who said, “It’s just a sickness, which we can cure.”
Actually, it goes back to the 1960s, when the archbishop of Boston decided to suck up to the Kennedys and the Harvard "elites", rather than defending the Faith.
In 1950, “Catholic” doctor John Rock (pal of M. Sanger), was killing fertilized eggs—embryos—in the laboratory. Catholics clamored for his excommunication. Cardinal Cushing refused. We now know that Cushing was in the closet.
1 cor chapter 11
18 For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it.
19 For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.
20 When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s supper.
21 For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken.
22 What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? what shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.
23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:
24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, this cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.
27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.
29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.
I examine my self so i do not take communion because i would be doing it unworthily.
28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.
As i have made plain before, i do not know if everything that Paul has written is what God told him to write or not, could he have written a few things that came from his own mind?
The Church leaders need to make up their minds if they believe every thing the scripture says actually comes from God.
bump
The solution to this problem might be found in the laity.
All that is really needed is to create a website which amounts to an indictment of these failed Catholics by name, and a listing of their cardinal sins. If done properly, it could have a strong impact amongst the laity, and eventually stimulate the clergy to act.
To make it more to the point, it might even name the bishop in whose diocese they engage in their behavior yet continue with the pretense. Without directly calling out the bishop for endorsing their behavior, certain diocese will stand out as having “a nest of vipers” within.
To really drive the point home, the languages of the website should be selectable as either English or Italian.
Then you have a much bigger problem than taking communion unworthingly.
But that is gone. Pope Benedict sent emissaries to the seminaries to inspect them and make sure everything was as it should be.
Seminaries are now overflowing with straight young men who WANT to be priests.
Also always remember that it is not celibacy, but rather homosexuality that causes pedophilia.
Now can we get back to the subject of this thread?
You want to play God?
There is already a website called “The Canon 915 Project.” Check it out.
AW.
Amen.
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