Francis Cardinal Arinze, speaking from Vatican City, stopped short of saying that John Kerry should be denied the right to receive Communion, but stated clearly that a Catholic politician who supports abortion rights “is not fit” to receive the Eucharist. Several prominent American bishops have made the same point.
Kerry has a long and unreserved record in support of abortion rights. He voted against the law to ban partial-birth abortions. In March of this year, he was one of 38 senators who voted against the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, the law which makes the death or injury to a “child in utero” a federal crime when it is committed in the course of another federal crime. (The law was passed in spite of Kerry’s vote, by a 61 to 38 margin.)
The murder of Laci Peterson generated support for the new law. When she washed ashore on the California coastline, the authorities had no problem recognizing two victims. There were two bodies, Laci Peterson and her unborn son Conner. Because of the new law, Scott Peterson now faces a charge for double-homicide. Even liberal Democrat Senator Diane Feinstein, a long-time supporter of abortion rights, was on board, stating, “Laci knew that Conner was her son, and I know it too. Two people, Laci and Conner, would be here with us today if they had not been murdered. There were two victims in this crime, not one.”
Case closed. Feinstein is stating the obvious. Except for one thing. Feinstein would have supported Laci Peterson’s legal right to abort her child just days before she was killed. That was the fly in the ointment for John Kerry and the other 37 senators who voted against the law, even though the law specifically exempted abortion. They understood the implications, that the Unborn Victims Act recognizes the humanity of the unborn child. Indeed, Kerry explained his vote in just those terms, expressing concern that the law might somehow undermine Roe v. Wade. None of the anguished sighs from him about being “personally opposed but” and about how we “must wait for a democratic consensus against abortion to form.” Abortion rights took priority.
It is this unapologetic support for abortion that could create the collision course between Kerry and the bishops. Archbishop Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis and Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Neb. have stated publicly that they would turn Kerry away from Holy Communion. Many observers were convinced that Kerry’s own archbishop, Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, would take the same stance. Last summer, reports the Boston Globe, “on the day before his installation as archbishop of Boston, he issued a statement declaring: ‘A Catholic politician who holds a public, pro-choice position should not be receiving Communion and should on their own volition refrain from doing so. The Church presumes that each person is receiving in good faith.'” In January of this year, in an interview with the website LifeSite News, O’Malley added, “These politicians should know that if they’re not voting correctly on these life issues that they shouldn’t dare come to Communion.”
Those sound like uncompromising words. They weren’t. O’Malley went on to state that he would not deny Kerry the sacrament. Fr. Christopher J. Coyne, a spokesman for O’Malley, told the press that the Archdiocese of Boston will not “get embroiled in a national political campaign” and that the “Archbishop has made no public statement regarding Mr. Kerry or his Catholicism, and he does not plan on doing so.” Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, who heads a committee on relationships between the hierarchy and Catholic politicians, also made clear that he would give Communion to Kerry, as has Fr. John Ardis, the director of the Paulist Center on Beacon Hill, where Kerry sometimes attends Mass.
Why this seeming wishy-washiness on the part of Archbishop O’Malley and the others? They have an explanation. See what you think of it. O’Malley takes the position that his responsibility is to inform the individual who intends to receive Communion of his obligation to be in the state of grace, but that from that point on “it is not our policy to deny Communion. It is up to the individual.” O’Malley’s spokesmen elaborated on this point. He explained that Catholics should know that they are supposed to be “properly disposed” for the reception of Communion, that “they are not in a state of serious sin, and have not separated themselves from the Church by a public action.”
Fr. Ardis of the Paulist Center added, “I was trained that you do not deny people the Eucharist. We can’t judge the heart or the conscience of the individual who is coming to receive.” Father William J. Bryon, the former pastor of the Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown, where Kerry goes to Mass when in Washington, agrees: “Am I going to make a judgment about everybody that comes before me? I’m in no position to do that. That person is a responsible person who is judging his or her own worthiness.”
Fair enough — up to a point. I can remember having discussions with fellow-parishioners about divorced and remarried Catholics who received Communion regularly in one of my old parishes. They wondered why our pastor permitted it. My point at the time was that the pastor might know more than we do; or might simply be aware that there is much that he does not know; that, for example, it may be that the divorced couple went to Confession the day before and resolved the matter. There are scenarios where that would be possible. The same could be said about unmarried couples living together, known prostitutes and drug dealers, as well as “pro-choice” politicians. They all could have gone to Confession before we see them at the Communion rail.
Improbable, you say? And what about the resolution to sin no more? Kerry continues to make speeches in favor of abortion rights. But what if a pastor or archbishop insists that there is no way for him to determine whether the person standing before him in the Communion line is in the state of grace at that moment? It is true: There may be moments — in between sins — when the worst of sinners are in the state of grace. None of us has any way of judging the interior disposition of another person’s conscience. This is why it could be unfair to charge that Archbishop O’Malley and Cardinal McCarrick are guilty of succumbing to political pressure and the need to be seen as “reasonable” by people of power and influence in the media. Perhaps it is not that they are less courageous and willing to take the heat than Bishop Bruskewitz and Archbishop Burke.
And yet, I can’t help but wonder what O’Malley and McCarrick would say if they were being interviewed by Tim Russert about the career of Francis Rummel, Archbishop of New Orleans back in the 1950s. The columnist Mark Shields recently dug up a New York Times editorial about Rummel’s decision to excommunicate Louisiana’s powerhouse Democratic political boss, a white supremacist who publicly opposed the plan to desegregate diocesan schools in the state. Said the Times, “Men of all faiths must admire the unwavering courage of the most Reverend Joseph Francis Rummel. We salute the Catholic Archbishop. He has set an example founded on religious principles and responsive to the social conscience of our time.”
What would McCarrick and O’Malley say about a pastor who gave Communion to known mob bosses? What would they say about German priests who gave Communion to Nazi officials at the height of the Holocaust? I don’t know how O’Malley and McCarrick would answer any of these questions. But if they were to take the stance that Communion should have been denied to any of these evildoers, they have some explaining to do about why are they willing to give every possible benefit of the doubt to pro-abortion politicians such as John Kerry and Ted Kennedy? How would they draw these lines? The Church’s position is that the Eucharist should be denied to “manifest, persistent and obstinate sinners.” Ted Kennedy and John Kerry would take it as a compliment if someone were to label their commitment to protecting abortion rights in this country as “clear, resolute and indefatigable.” That is, “manifest, persistent and obstinate.”
James Fitzpatrick's new novel, The Dead Sea Conspiracy: Teilhard de Chardin and the New American Church, is available from our online store. You can email Mr. Fitzpatrick at fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net.
(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)
