Further Thoughts on Catholic Public Servants, Accountability, and Communion

In my earlier response to Father Radcliffe’s statement posted on this weblog, I quite deliberately did not take on the difficult, but perhaps unavoidable, question of whether and when the appropriate Church response to political cooperation with evil is to deny the Eucharist to those who exercise political power to faciliate that evil. My more limited purpose in that earlier posting here to the Mirror of Justice was to insist that passivity on the part of the Church about fundamental matters of immediate significance, such as the taking of unborn human life, is not a viable option. In that particular message, I intended only to challenge what I saw as Father Radcliffe’s endorsement of an “I’m-Okay-You’re-Okay” Church, in which everyone is a member of an inert family lounging around the house serenely untroubled by any words of action of the Church that might offend modern sensibilities. (As with any summary of a position, especially one extracted from a short homiletic polemic, this undoubtedly is a caricature of Father Radcliffe’s position, but I will say is the impression left not only with me but with other readers, as confirmed by my e-mail correspondece.)

In that earlier posting, I did not touch on, much less presume to advise what particular action should be taken or specific expression should be offered by the Church when those professing the name of the Church and presenting themselves for the Church’s sacraments nonetheless exercise political power to deny protection to unborn human life or otherwise transgress against fundamental natural laws. I merely wished to insist that silence or a pretense that all is well with the world cannot be the Church’s answer. Once we are agreed on that modest point – and those on this weblog appear to be in general consensus on this – the difficult question remains as to the appropriate response for each individual situation or category of situations that is both consistent with the Church’s pastoral role and faithful to its public witness.

So let me now turn to that question of appropriate action, or at least the propriety of the course of action being debated at the moment, which is withholding of the Eucharist from intransigent offenders. In doing so, I mean here to raise questions, while still refraining from offering any definitive answers (which are not ours to make anyway as the matter is reserved properly to the apostolic leaders of the Church).

The Eucharistic sacrament has multiple dimensions, as an extension by God’s grace of the real presence of Christ to his followers, as our faithful expression through partaking of our desire to be counted in the communion of saints, and as a symbol of unity within the Church. As philosophy Professor John O'Callaghan of Notre Dame reminded me by e-mail, “the question of reception of communion by anyone, politician or not, is a matter of Church discipline, not a matter of politics.” He observes that while the Church in “charitable concern for the faithful” ordinarily assumes good faith on the part of congregants and thus offers communion to all who come forward, “traditionally the Church holds out the possibility of denial of communion when because of the public character of both the reception of the Eucharist and the notoriety of the recipient, it would give grave scandal to the faithful.”

My colleague here at the University of St. Thomas and canon law expert Charles Reid further clarifies that, under canon law, material participation in the abortion of the unborn leads to automatic excommunication, not just from communion but all sacraments. This mandate flows from the unequivocal direction and urgent nature of the Church’s teaching on the preservation of unborn life. Thus, when a public official uses political power to facilitate the extermination of the unborn, the argument that Church discipline should attach – that this exercise of power is material participation in abortion – surely is a plausible (if not the only possible) interpretation of canon law. (I should note, by contrast, that however much some of us (and I include myself) might wish that political approval for, and most especially participation in, capital punishment should invoke a similar condemnation, neither Church teaching nor canon law has yet developed in a manner that would plausibly support imposition of similar discipline.)

In his e-mail to me, Professor O’Callaghan poses a hypothetical that should provoke us to consider whether the Eucharist is ever properly withheld and, if so, under what circumstances:

“Since the Mirror of Justice is a legal blog, perhaps a hypothetical is in order. I used to live in Omaha. The abortion clinic in Omaha, made famous in the Supreme Court case Stenberg v. Carhart, was across the street from a Catholic Church and its grade school. Now suppose Dr. Carhart was a Catholic. Suppose also that in his conscience he did not think that his business of performing abortions precluded him from receiving communion. So suppose further that it was his practice, perhaps from when he was a child, to regularly attend mass on a daily basis and receive communion. Suppose at lunch time, having performed any number of ‘intact dilations and extractions,’ he strolled across the street to attend mass and got in line for communion with all the other faithful, including as many children from the school who happened to be there for their weekly class mass. . . . What would the appropriate response of the pastor be? . . .

Of course this is simply an analogy. It is not at all designed to draw a moral equivalence between an abortionist who actually performs abortions, and a politician who legislatively and politically supports that abortionist. They are not equivalent, and should not be treated as equivalent. But that does not mean that they should not be treated in any similar ways. And with regard to politicians it is necessary to distinguish between those who politically and legislatively support abortion and those who tolerate it while working to eliminate it. The point of the analogy is simply to ask whether in general there is any public scandal great enough that the refusal of communion to someone is justified and consistent with . . . charitable concern for the sinner.”

Should the Catholic leader who seeks after political power and publicly promises that he would affirmatively empower the abortionist in his deathly craft be seen in the same light as the abortionist? Is the prospect of scandal to the Church and harm to the Church’s witness to human life similar? Do either warrant the exercise of disciplinary authority by the Church?

It may be tempting to avoid these questions by asking larger political ones, such as which candidate for political office given an imperfect choice is the best alternative or which partisan grab-bag of political platforms is most consistent with Catholic Social Thought as a body of thought. But that is not the immediate problem. Instead, the question is whether the Church in integrity can remain silent and inactive when an individual professes to be part of our Catholic communion, but seeks political advantage by aggressively advocating a course of action that is deeply antithetical to fundamental premises of the Church as an advocate for human life and social justice. It is the very claim of Catholic affiliation that creates the occasion of conflict from a disciplinary standpoint and makes the matter so poignant and painful as a pastoral matter.

As I’ve said, my undoubtedly frustrating point here is to raise questions rather than suggest answers, as I remain unsettled myself on the proper disposition. But I am increasingly of the view that something must be said or done, and something powerful, or the Church’s witness to the sanctity of human life will be seriously undermined. I close with the following link to a story from the Catholic News Service, which reports that Cardinal Ratzinger of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has indicated doubts about the wisdom of denying communion and has asked to meet with the United States’s bishops task force to achieve “a concerted and nuanced approach” on the question. Both the Vatican and American bishops are seeing an urgency in clarifying the issue.

Greg Sisk