Interview With an American Theologian in Rome
ROME, 26 APRIL 2004 (ZENIT).Moves by the Church to deny Holy Communion
to staunchly pro-abortion Catholic politicians are growing.
At a Vatican press conference last Friday, Cardinal Francis Arinze said
that politicians who unambiguously support abortion must not go to
Communion and priests must deny them the sacrament.
Last January, then Bishop Raymond Burke of La Crosse, Wisconsin, issued a
decree forbidding Catholic legislators who support abortion or euthanasia
from receiving Communion.
To learn more about the canonical and pastoral implications of these
declarations, ZENIT interviewed American theologian Father Thomas
Williams, dean of the School of Theology of the Regina Apostolorum
Pontifical Athenaeum.
Q: Is the Church beginning to adopt a hard-line stance regarding the
reception of Holy Communion?
Father Williams: The Church has always taken this issue seriously. In very
strong terms St. Paul admonished the Church in Corinth: "Whoever,
therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy
manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a
man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup." That's
in 1 Corinthians 11:27-28.
The 1983 Code of Canon Law, echoing the teaching of the Council of Trent,
Canon 11, states that, without a very serious reason, a person who is
aware of having committed a mortal sin should voluntarily abstain from
Communion. "A person who is conscious of grave sin is not ... to receive
the Body of the Lord without prior sacramental confession," says Canon 916
of the 1983 code.
Q: But isn't there a big difference between encouraging those in a state
of sin to abstain from Communion and forbidding Communion to determined
persons?
Father Williams: Yes, of course. Whereas anyone who is aware of having
committed a grave sin of any sort, hidden or public, should willingly
abstain from Holy Communion, only grave sins committed overtly or publicly
provide grounds for non-admittance to Communion on the part of priests and
bishops.
The pertinent reference in canon law can be found in Canon 915. In its
entirety, this brief canon reads: "Those who are excommunicated or
interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others
who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to
Holy Communion."
This canon treats two instances where members of the faithful are not to
be admitted to Communion. The first deals with excommunication and
interdicts
ecclesiastical censures forbidding participation in the sacraments
and
the second refers to obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin.
Q: So in the case of pro-abortion politicians we would be dealing with a
situation of manifestly grave sin? What does this mean?
Father Williams: The technical language of the code which refers to those
who "obstinately persist in manifest grave sin" must be carefully parsed.
Four essential elements come into play, all of which are necessary to
fulfill the conditions laid out in Canon 915.
The first element is "gravi peccato," or grave sin. This can only be taken
to refer to the matter of the action
or
omission
without necessarily implying a judgment of subjective culpability. "Grave
sin" in this case simply means objectively evil conduct of a serious
nature.
The second requirement specified by Canon 915 refers to the "manifesto,"
or overt, character of the sin. This stipulation limits the sanction to
sins of a public nature, and reiterates the public and ecclesial dimension
of Holy Communion, which signifies moral, spiritual and doctrinal union
with Christ and with his Church.
Thirdly, to be refused Communion a person must persist
"perseverantes"
in
this openly sinful behavior. To say that a person persists in a public sin
means that he somehow makes it known that he plans to continue engaging in
his sinful behavior.
Finally, the code speaks of obstinate persistence. The Latin adverb
"obstinate" here means that the person has been duly informed of the evil
of his behavior but deliberately chooses to persist in it anyway.
There is such a thing as inculpable persistence in evildoing, when a
person is unaware that a certain habitual activity is sinful. But once the
evil of his actions has been brought to his attention, his persistence
qualifies as obstinate.
Judging from the foregoing considerations, it seems clear that a
politician who votes in a way that fails to defend innocent human life on
a consistent basis and gives every indication of his intention to keep
doing so despite warnings from ecclesiastical authorities can be said to
obstinately persist in objectively evil behavior of a public nature. And
in this regard he fulfills the requirements of Canon 915.
Q: In Bishop Burke's Notification, made public this past January, he
speaks of scandal. To fail to "uphold the natural and divine law regarding
the inviolable dignity of all human life," he writes, "is a grave public
sin and gives scandal to all the faithful." How does scandal fit into the
equation?
Father Williams: Though in common language "scandal" often refers to
something shocking or disgraceful, the word comes from the Greek "skandalon"
a
stumbling block
and
properly means "an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil,"
as the Catechism says in No. 2284.
Because of their high public visibility and moral authority, politicians
can, by their example, lead others to good or to evil.
According to the Catechism, No. 2285: "Scandal is grave when given by
those who by nature or office are obliged to teach and educate others." We
further read in No. 2286 that "they are guilty of scandal who establish
laws or social structures leading to the decline of morals."
Along with its practical role of making certain actions punishable or
permissible under the law, civil legislation has a pedagogical role as
well and thus contributes to the formation of public opinion and private
conscience.
The criminalization or legalization of determined activities influences
the way people view the morality of such activities since it represents a
social judgment on this sort of behavior. Thus legislators, even more than
other public figures, are called to a higher standard of accountability
because of their moral authority and the influence that their decisions
have on others.
Q: In his comments last Friday, Cardinal Arinze stated: "The norm of the
Church is clear. The Catholic Church exists in the U.S.A. and there are
bishops there. Let them interpret." If the norm is clear, why is
interpretation necessary?
Father Williams: One thing is the objective norm, another the application
to specific cases.
According to the Code of Canon Law, it falls to the local bishop
the
"ordinary"
to determine when such situations arise and to take the appropriate steps
to correct the causes.
Canon 1339 states in part: "An ordinary can likewise rebuke a person from
whose behavior there arises scandal or serious disturbance of order in a
manner accommodated to the special conditions of the person and the deed."
Thus it falls to bishops to apply these sanctions.
Q: Won't such sanctions be seen as playing partisan politics?
Father Williams: In the specific case of Catholic politicians who openly
dissent from the Church's stand on life, prudence is particularly
necessary.
Especially in the present instance, when the major political parties
differentiate themselves along these lines, great care must be taken to
avoid the appearance of partisan politics while at the same time giving an
unequivocal message of both the Church's position on abortion and the
importance she accords to this issue because of its centrality to the
common good.
Where a political party takes an anti-life stand as a fundamental
component of its platform, the Church may have no choice but to denounce
it.
If the Church's pastors were to make it clear to politicians that abortion
is truly a non-negotiable question and one on which they were prepared to
"go to the mat," they would exert considerable moral, and political,
pressure on all politicians to give this moral issue the weight it
deserves.
Sometimes a prophetic voice is needed to shake people out of their moral
lethargy, especially when people have come to accept as "normal" something
which by rights should provoke moral outrage.
If publicly supporting abortion doesn't constitute a sufficient pastoral
reason to justify the denial of Holy Communion, it is hard to imagine when
recourse to this measure would be appropriate.
Q: Is this issue really that important? Should bishops really risk their
moral authority on the question of pro-abortion legislators?
Father Williams: A glance at the past may prove instructive. History tends
to be severe in its judgments of Church leaders who failed to use all the
means at their disposal to put an end to egregious sins against human
rights.
It is sufficient to recall events of the past centuries such as the
African slave trade or apartheid or Hitler's Germany to bring home this
argument.
Situations which appeared complicated and multifaceted at the time take on
a peculiar starkness when viewed with historical hindsight.
A dispassionate analysis of the facts may show that the current situation
with legalized abortion is no less grave than the greatest human rights
issues of other times.
Though we may be inured to the grim reality of abortion, it seems likely
that once civilization has comes to its senses, future generations will
look back on our time as one of the most barbarous in history, not merely
for our wars and terrorism, but especially for the antiseptic
extermination of the most defenseless members of our society, the poorest
of the poor, precisely because they have no voice.
Furthermore, the mere magnitude of the crisis
now
more than 40 million planned deaths of unborn children in the United
States alone since the legalization of abortion in 1973
is
sufficient to make abortion the greatest social justice issue of all time.
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