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
Friday, April 6, 2007
Greg Kalscheur, SJ, as many MOJ-readers know, is a former MOJ-blogger (and, of course, a present MOJ-friend). This is Greg's latest. Follow the "Full Text" link to download the paper.
"Catholics in Public Life: Judges, Legislators, and Voters"
Boston College Law School Research Paper No. 124
GREGORY A. KALSCHEUR, SJ
Boston College - Law School
Email: [email protected]
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=352803
Full Text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=965600
ABSTRACT: Does the desire to avoid culpable cooperation in moral
evil make the conscientious Catholic judge unfit for judicial
service in a constitutional system that will inevitably bring
before the judge cases that implicate a host of issues as to
which the Church offers moral teaching? Confused answers to this
question reflect a larger confusion which often accompanies
contemporary discussion of questions related to Catholic
participation in public life. The confusion stems in large part
from a failure to recognize that Catholics participate in public
life in different ways that give them different sorts of public
roles. This Essay tries to bring clarity to the confusion by
focusing attention on one of those public roles, that of the
judge. The analytical framework for exploring possible conflicts
between the demands of the law and the demands of the judge's
conscience is provided by the principle of cooperation with evil.
Applying that traditional principle of moral theology, I conclude
that there are not likely to be many situations in which a
Catholic Supreme Court justice's fidelity to his or her
conscience might require the justice to refuse to fulfill their
judicial duties in a particular case. Indeed, it is more likely
to be trial court judges who will face the most difficult
questions of cooperation with moral evil.
The MOJ "2008 rumble" is starting early! To be clear: I'm not a fan of Rudy Giuliani and would not vote for him (although, all things considered, I would prefer a Giuliani Administration to a Clinton, Obama, Edwards, or Gore Administration). That said, I think a small caveat is warranted to Eduardo's anticipatory "gotcha!" directed at "prominent Catholic voices that questioned Kerry's Catholicism and the permissiblity of Catholics voting for him[.]"
Certainly, Giuliani should be criticized by "prominent Catholics" for adopting the positions he has adopted with respect to abortion. (And, I'm confident that Eduardo and I will find that, when the times comes, he will be.) Indeed, Giuliani's abortion-related positions are (almost) as extreme as those staked out by John Kerry (and every plausible 2008 Democratic candidate). In each case, that a professed Catholic so brazenly and publicly embraces extremist pro-abortion-rights views is a scandal, and a shame.
Still, it is not clear that a Giuliani Administration would be as thoroughgoingly hostile or damaging to the pro-life cause (and to the cause of protecting religious conscience and authentic religious freedom) as a Kerry Administration almost certainly would have been. For example, it is not inappropriate, or hypocritical, for those who criticized Kerry to -- while strongly criticizing Giuliani -- take some comfort in the likelihood that Giuliani's judicial nominations might be less likely to invalidate reasonable regulations of abortion (or religion-inclusive school-choice plans) than judges appointed by Kerry would have been (or than judges appointed by President Obama probably would be).
A lesbian couple in Wyoming has been denied communion by the local bishop after going public with their opposition to a state ban on gay marriage:
[One of the women] questioned why Catholics having premarital sex and using birth control are not barred from receiving Communion, too. But the parish priest said the difference is this: The other Catholics are "not going around broadcasting, `Hey I'm having sex outside of marriage' or `I'm using birth control.'"
As same-sex couples become more accepted in society -- and thus more open about the nature of their relationships -- I wonder whether their exclusion from communion will become more commonplace, or whether such couples will leave the Church before they have to be told.
Georgetown Law School has denied funding for a student with an internship at Planned Parenthood. The student complains that:
“When we apply to Georgetown Law, the most you hear about the Jesuit tradition is that [the school] supports students doing work in the public interest . . . If I ever knew that taking part in women’s rights issues would lead to a chilling effect, I don’t know if I would have ever considered coming here.”
The school reportedly helped the student find an outside group that could fund her work. (HT: Leiter)
Dale Carpenter responds to David Blankenhorn's insistence that support for gay marriage correlates meaningfully with a weakening of marriage as a social institution, and that proponents of gay marriage intend to weaken marriage as a social institution.
It's almost not worth commenting on the obvious parallels with Kerry
at this early stage in the nominating process, since I think Rudy's
honesty on this issue makes it very unlikely that he will ultimately be
the Republican nominee. But I do want to put a marker down in the
event that it happens. What I want to know is whether the same
prominent Catholic voices that questioned Kerry's Catholicism and the
permissiblity of Catholics voting for him will say the same things, and
as loudly and insistently, about Rudy, who is now on the (recent)
record as favoring both abortion rights and public funding of
abortion? I suppose some will and some won't. It will be interesting
to see whether they do and, if they don't, what reasons they give for
their different treatment.
