Mirror of Justice

I thought that my posting of March 31 on Catholic Legal Theory and Final Things (end times) would be my last posting until after Easter. But I have changed my view on this. As always, I am grateful for the entries posted that have helped us concentrate on Holy Week. But other postings have prompted me to formulate at least an initial response to a variety of contributions dealing with communion, marital relationships, political candidates, and Georgetown University Law Center.

I’ll start with the communion issue since it brings into play the questions addressed by others on political candidates and same-sex couples. Any Catholic who wishes to receive the Eucharist needs to be in a state of grace, but any person aware of having committed a mortal sin must not receive Communion without first having received absolution through the sacrament of reconciliation and penance. As a priest I assume at every public Eucharist which I celebrate that each person who comes to receive communion complies with these criteria. There are a good number of Catholics who proceed to Communion but signal that they do not wish to receive the Eucharist because they probably do not meet the Church’s criteria for receiving the Eucharist, so they ask for a blessing. But for this external sign, I would normally not know the state of the person who is in the line before me. As a priest, I also serve as the minister in the sacrament of reconciliation. As a result of this, I have a pretty good idea of how other Catholics fall out of the state of grace. (If I am the sinner, I know how I can and do fall outside of the state of grace.) But I would not know this about other people if I were to meet these same folks outside of this second sacrament because they do not proclaim urbi et orbi that they are unprepared to receive the Eucharist. When they do participate in the sacrament of reconciliation, I strive to do what most priests do in this sacrament and help the penitent back to a life of holiness; I absolve their sins since I am usually convinced that their act of contrition is sincere; I wish them well and I offer the words of Jesus in Saint John’s Gospel: “nor do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.”

But for most of us who do participate as penitents in the sacrament of reconciliation do come back again because we have exercised our free will in such a manner as to fall outside of the state of grace. So we must once again reconcile with God before receiving the Eucharist. Yet once again, the private nature of how we exercise our free will is known to no one but the penitent person and God (and then the minister of the sacrament).

This changes when the sinner freely decides by word or deed to make publicly known that he or she is not in a state of grace. For the person who holds public office, their words and deeds found in their public record of speeches, statements in support or against legislation, and votes would provide strong evidence about whether they are or are not in the necessary state of grace. With a couple (or other group of persons) not united in the sacrament of matrimony but who proclaim to the world their sexual practices and relational state, their deeds freely chosen and publicly self-proclaimed also place them outside of the necessary state of grace to receive the Eucharist. For the husband or wife united in the sacrament of holy matrimony who announce to the world their practices that are inconsistent with the teachings of the Church on marital life, they similarly jeopardize their ability to receive the Eucharist.

These points and principles need to be kept in mind when receipt of the Eucharist is discussed on the pages of MOJ. They apply to us all if we are Catholics. Moreover, they apply not because we are forced to be Catholics; they apply because we freely choose to be Catholics.

I briefly want to touch upon the matter of Catholic identity, Georgetown University Law Center, and the denial of the summer internship for the student who wanted school funding to work at Planned Parenthood. The school’s decision was proper and long overdue. Some years ago when I had the opportunity to be a visiting research fellow at another law school in the “Jesuit tradition,” I raised concerns with the then-dean that the weekly announcements publication circulated at the law school consistently had a notice advising students that they could apply for internships at the Center for Reproductive Rights. The dean and I agreed that this was problematic for a school which claimed a Catholic identity and a “Jesuit tradition,” and I believe that in good faith he discussed his concerns with members of the faculty. The notices continued for the remainder of the school year until the internship application season ended. It is my impression that any remote chance of my ever becoming a member of that faculty became even more remote when my stance on the issue of “reproductive rights” and this school’s view on them in the context of sponsored student internships became known. So, I am not surprised with the outspoken opposition to the Georgetown decision that has resulted. I followed the links provided in Rick’s posting of the Georgetown decision and came across a posting of William Sumner Scott, J.D., of the Judicial Equality Foundation, Inc. who asserts that, “The Georgetown Law abortion issue should prompt a broad discussion of the harm organized religion does to the World.” The italics are mine.

If I may permitted to paraphrase Justice Harry Blackmun in his concurring and dissenting opinion in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, the signs are evident and very ominous that a chill wind blows against Catholic identity—meaning the support of Catholic teachings—in the academy these days. It also appears that another ominous and chill wind is beginning to develop when it comes to practicing Catholic teachings on public policy issues that emerge in the public square. But I shall not despair for I place hope and trust in the one who came to save us all from our sinfulness and whose sacrifice and resurrection we celebrate this weekend.    RJA sj