The Scandal That is Eating the Heart out of the Catholic Church in America

By Father Vincent Fitzpatrick

(American Life League)  Here is the text of Canon 915: “Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”

Several American bishops have made statements to the effect that a bishop must exercise “discretion” regarding whether to “impose the penalty” of denial of Communion. Among them: Chaput, Dolan, O’Malley, and Wuerl.

All bishops who refuse to “impose the penalty” are participating in a lie. Namely, that denial of Communion is a penalty.

Denial of Communion is NOT a penalty.

So? What is the import of this fact?

It means that denial of Communion is not an option that MAY be chosen. It is MANDATED by Canon 915. No bishop, priest, or other minister of Communion is free to disobey Canon 915, for the simple reason that the action Canon 915 forbids is ALWAYS gravely sinful.

It needs to be emphasized that Canon 915 is NOT a canon that may be “applied” or “not applied.” Canon 915 can only be obeyed or disobeyed. And disobeying Canon 915 is always gravely sinful.

Canon 915 exists precisely because giving Communion to a person “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin” is always gravely sinful. Doing so is always to give grave scandal, and to participate knowingly in a sacrilegious act.

Let that sink in. Always gravely sinful.

In terms perhaps more familiar to the laity: To give Communion knowingly and deliberately to ANYONE delineated in Canon 915 is ALWAYS a mortal sin.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl has been the most outspoken of those bishops who refuse to obey Canon 915, but all of them are on record, as he is, as endorsing the commission of MORTAL SINS by their priests and other ministers of Communion. Cardinal Wuerl has even punished those who have obeyed Canon 915.

Of course, this is something he has no right to do, because no bishop has the authority to command anyone to commit a mortal sin!

“Bearing in mind the nature of the above-cited norm (cfr. n. 1), no ecclesiastical authority may dispense the minister of Holy Communion from this obligation in any case, nor may he emanate directives that contradict it.” Cardinal Wuerl and many other bishops have been doing PRECISELY what they are EXPRESSLY forbidden to do by this statement from the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts!

They have also emanated specious arguments. Here are some of Cardinal Wuerl’s preposterous, irrelevant statements, made in these or very similar words:

That’s not my style.

I follow a “pastoral approach” rather than a “canonical approach.

”We need to find out if the canon was written for the purpose of bringing politicians to heel.

I will not deny Communion to anyone who has not been formally excommunicated.

Now, that is a stunning statement, because the divorced-and-illicitly-remarried are not excommunicated. Yet, does anyone doubt that, were Cardinal Wuerl to direct all ministers of Communion in his jurisdiction to give Communion to the divorced-and-illicitly-remarried, the news would flash around the world, and Rome would take action within hours?
But Canon 915 mentions no particular SPECIES of sin! That is, the KIND of sin in which a would-be communicant is publicly involved is of no account!

In other words, Cardinal Wuerl’s long-standing determination to give pro-abortion people Communion is precisely as outrageous and scandalous as would be a directive to give Communion to the divorced-and-illicitly-remarried. Yet, there is no evidence that this massive scandal has attracted the attention of Rome.

It is said by many, including Cardinal Wuerl, that Communion should not be used as a political weapon.

Absolutely true. And the reception of Communion is being used as a political weapon—by pro-abortion politicians. As long as they are permitted to receive Communion, the bishop (e.g., Cardinal Wuerl) endorses their claim to be “ardent Catholics” whose promotion of abortion is NO SIN.

Abraham Lincoln is credited with the statements: You can fool all of the people some of the time. You can fool some of the people all of the time. Cardinal Wuerl and other bishops appear to be relying on the truth of these observations. It appears that it has been left up to the laity to demonstrate the truth of Lincoln’s further statement: But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

If this scandal is to end, Rome needs to hear a great deal more noise from the laity. As Pope Francis told the youth of Brazil: “Raise a ruckus.”

For further reading on Canon 915, please see the following links:

http://tinyurl.com/canon915
http://www.canonlaw.info/a_denialofeucharist.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_915

A native of Washington, DC, Fr. Vincent Fitzpatrick is a retired priest of the Diocese of Fargo.

Link:

• The Scandal That is Eating the Heart out of the Catholic Church in America 

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A Canonical Letter Challenging Dr. Peters on the Father Guarnizo Eucharistic Affair

From RORATE CÆLI:

When Church matters are filled with the marks of injustice and persecution of Priests and lay faithful who merely wish to do what they are and have always been called to do (for instance, taking the greatest of cares for the Most Blessed Sacrament), it is quite understandable that people remain moved to speak up.

That was the case with George Neumayr and his article for The American Spectator.

It was also the case of a reader, Scriptor, who has sent us this letter on the several canonical aspects involved in the Washington Eucharistic Affair as a follow-up to his shorter post on the same matter posted in The New Theological Movement.

Greetings in Christ,

In light of Fr. Guarnizo’s recent letter and Dr. Peters’ recent posts in response to that letter, I would like to continue discussion and reflection on the application of c. 915 vis-à-vis the Guarnizo-Johnson controversy.  I continue to find myself disagreeing with Dr. Peters’ interpretation of c. 915 in this case.  For the sake of argument, permit me to consider the situation in abstraction from Fr. Guarnizo’s own self-understanding of what he was doing when he refused communion to Ms. Johnson.  I want to focus on c. 915 and in particular on its use of the word “manifest”.    

An Insuperable Burden? 

In one of Dr. Peters’ recent posts (“Canonical observations…”, March 15^th) he cites a number of canons to show that, in light of its having the effect of restricting the rights of the faithful, we need to interpret c. 915 “as narrowly as reasonably possible”.  He then goes on to cite a number of traditional commentators to the effect that before a minister refuses the sacraments to someone, he must have no reasonable doubts about whether the person is publically unworthy in the technical sense.  Both these points are well taken.  I will argue though, that when analyzing Guarnizo-Johnson case, Peters does interpret c. 915 in an unreasonably narrow fashion.  I will also argue that a priest in Fr. Guarnizo’s shoes could reasonably have been free of doubts as to whether c. 915 applied to Ms. Johnson.  Peters writes, “…the burden is, without question, on the minister of holy Communion to verify that all of the conditions listed in canon 915 are satisfied before he withholds holy Communion from a member of the faithful who approaches for it publicly.”  In the Guarnizo-Johnson case, I don’t think this is an insuperable burden. 

Peters writes, “To justify withholding the Eucharist under Canon 915 according to its plain terms, the conduct in which a communicant perseveres must be obstinate, manifest, grave, and sinful.”  First off, I think he is rhetorically loading the deck in his favor by highlighting five distinct words.  The PCILT document that I often cited in my post on The New Theological Movement breaks c. 915 down into just three distinct concepts (see the post for March 12^th on the New Theological Movement, “Guest Letter Challenging Dr. Peters…”).  There is no question of withholding communion in the case of venial sins and so the only sort of sin we are considering here is serious or gave sin.  That’s one notion.  I think we can know that a woman who introduces to us her “lover” is engaged in serious sin.  The second condition of c. 915 as interpreted by the PCILT document is “obstinate perseverance”.  I dealt with this in the New Theological Movement post.  We can reasonably know that this condition too would obtain for Ms. Johnson.  So the third and last condition is “manifest”.  This is the crux of the matter.    

Towards A More True-To-Life Adjudication of When Obstinate Grave Sin Is “Manifest” 

Dr. Peters’ approach to “manifest” in c. 915 remains two-dimensional and unrealistic.  He reduces the public knowledge of a person’s obstinate grave sin to what is already actually known by the particular witnesses who are present when the sinner in question presents himself for communion.  For example, in one of his recent posts (“A brief thought…”, March 17^th), he writes, “However sinful it might be, conduct that is not already widely known in the community is not manifest as canon law understands that term in this context.” [Emphasis mine]  A little later on, he writes, “Some folks…think the Church is being too lenient in dealing with grave-but-as-yet-private sin.  They’re free to make that case, though I think the Church’s wisdom is more than canon-law deep here.  Anyway, though they disagree with the law, they understand it, so my job is done in their regard.”  Apart from bringing notice to what I consider an unfair conflation of his readers differing with him in his interpretation of the Church’s law with his readers having differences with the Church, I would like to underscore his phrase “grave-but-as-yet-private sin.”  Is “as-yet-private-sin” never “manifest” in the technical canonical sense?   

In another one of his recent posts (“Three recent questions…”, March 13^th), Dr. Peters touches briefly upon the principle, entertained as a legitimate opinion by canonists for many ages now, that the “notoriety” of a person’s sin can be present in one community while not being present in another.  Take the unlikely but possible scenario of a man whose unworthiness is known say in Sacramento California but completely unknown in Richmond Virginia.  Now say there was a priest of Richmond Virginia who knew of this man and his bad reputation in Sacramento.  If this man were to come into this priest’s parish in Richmond and present himself for communion, the priest might have poor grounds for considering this man’s unworthiness to be “notorious” or “public”.  It could be public in Sacramento while not being public in Richmond.  The priest should in this case give the man communion.  There is a flip side to this principle, though.  If the nature of the man’s obstinate grave sin is such that the knowledge of it is likely to spread from the first into the second community, then the priest who is administering the Eucharist to this man in the second local is justified in regarding this man’s sin as “manifest” even though to those in the second community it is “as-yet-private”.  Those who are witnessing the man present himself for communion may not be actually currently aware of the man’s sin, but the priest has good reason to believe they will soon be aware of it.  The point is that when making a decision as to whether an obstinate grave sin is manifest, the minister doesn’t simply take into account the actual but also the possible or likely knowledge of the witnesses.  To do this, he must take into account the nature of the community or communities in question and also the kind of sin that is being dealt with.

Here is a passage from a classic moral theology manual which takes into account the above mentioned factors: “The Sacraments are to be refused to a public sinner, whether he asks for them publicly or secretly…Such a one has no right to the Sacraments, with the exception of Penance. That sinner is called a public sinner, absolutely speaking, if he is notoriously so; he will be a notoriously public sinner, if he has been juridically condemned as such, or has admitted his sin, or if his sin cannot be concealed nor excused, or if his sin is noised abroad so that it can be easily known anywhere.” [Emphasis mine] (Moral and Pastoral Theology, by Henry Davis, S.J., vol. III, p. 35)  One of the conditions for the “notoriety” and thus technically “public” status of the sinner in question is whether or not his sin can be concealed or excused.  Notice how the kind of sin and its potential to become common knowledge to others are relevant considerations.  Now what happens when the sinner in question is not ashamed of his sin and doesn’t even try to conceal it in public?  What happens when the sinner in question has even adopted a personal m.o. of actively making known his sin to others even upon first introductions?  What happens when the sinner in question doesn’t just regularly make his sin known to others but wants and even expects others to accept and applaud his sin as normal and good?  What if such a sinner even thinks that he has a right—his habit of making his sin known in public notwithstanding—to the precious and immaculate body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ?  This, I suggest, is the case of the baptized Catholic who is also a practicing and open homosexual.  According to the standards of the above cited manual, such a person’s sin could not be concealed and would thus count as “notorious” or “public” or “manifest”.

To bring it home a little closer to the actual circumstances of the Guarnizo-Johnson case, the practicing and open homosexual in question showed up to the funeral with her lover and presented her to the priest as such.  I think it reasonable for a priest who had received such an introduction to conclude very quickly that this woman likely had already introduced herself and her lover as such to others at the funeral.  This priest might also justifiably conclude that, given the nature of this woman’s sin, if the people at the funeral don’t already know about it, they probably will by the time the funeral is done.  Two active and open homosexuals present at a funeral who have introduced themselves to the priest as such are going to be verbally making known to others their status as “partners”.  What’s more, the two homosexual lovers are likely going to be relating to each other physically and socially in a spousal manner.  This is not going to be just about hugs and hand holding but a total way of relating to each other that sends a multitude of subtle but clear signals to others as to who they are.  And the witnesses have plenty of opportunity to catch those verbal and non-verbal signals.  There is the funeral mass itself but also the burial and often also the reception after the burial.  There is also, in many cases, the wake the night before.  The sin of such a couple is of such a kind that it’s not going to remain secret for very long.  It’s the kind of sin that can’t be concealed.  This is what we are dealing with when it comes to this phenomenon of “out-of-the-closet” gays.  Let’s not ignore the obvious. 

There Is More Than Just One Conscience We Need To Respect

In the first of Dr. Peters’ posts that I cited above (“Canonical observations…”, March 15^th), he makes it clear that that “Canon 916 binds gravely in conscience and an accounting to God of one’s conduct under that canon (or at any rate, under the values it protects) will be owed by each Catholic at Judgment.”  But what he fails to mention, although I know he would acknowledge it as true, is that canon 915 also binds gravely in conscience before God.  The reader is left with the impression though, that canon 916 is a matter of conscience while canon 915 is something else.  This is a misleading way of presenting the situation.  The obligation of the minister to withhold communion from the publicly unworthy (canon 915) is just as much a divine law as the obligation of the communicant to make sure he is rightly disposed before receiving communion (canon 916).  Referencing different authorities, we read, “Divine and ecclesiastical law command absolute exclusion from the Holy Table of all persons publicly unworthy of it, unless they have shown signs of conversion and amendment and repaired the scandal given to the community” (Legislation on the Sacraments in the New Code of Canon Law by H. A. Ayrinhac, 1928).  And from a more recent commentary, we read: “…this [c. 915] is a norm of divine-positive law…declared by the council of Trent in its decree on the Holy Eucharist, received by the 1917 Code, and restated by Vatican II’s post-conciliar legislation.” (Gramunt, in EXEGETICAL COMM (2004) III/1: 614-615.)  Thus the person who violates the divine precept underlying c. 915 will be accountable to God on Judgment Day just as much as the person who violates the divine precept underlying c. 916.  Arguably, the law of the Church itself recognizes by way of sanction the seriousness of violating c. 915.  At least in the opinion of Gramunt, the minister who violates this precept “can be punished by virtue of c. 1389 sec. 2, or by invoking c. 1399 which foresees, in a general way, the possibility of punishing those who cause grave scandal by an external violation of divine or ecclesiastical law” (Gramunt, p. 616).       

Dr. Peters talks about the importance of interpreting canon law in continuity with the tradition of the Church.  To that I say ‘Amen’.  This was one of the concerns of my previous post.  So to continue in that vein, and to bring home with one more citation the seriousness of the divine precept underlying c. 915, let’s reference yet one more authority—an older one.  Here is Rev. James O’Kane’s 1867 commentary, Notes on the Rubrics of the Roman Ritual, p. 380:

“[Public sinners] are not to be admitted to Holy Communion in any circumstances, until they have given proof of their repentance and amendment.  They have no claim to be admitted.  By their exclusion they are merely prevented from consummating an act of sacrilege; and even their reputation cannot suffer, since they are, by supposition, public sinners; and on the other hand, great scandal would arise from admitting them.  The priest, therefore, is bound to exclude them.  According to some theologians, he might administer the sacrament to save his own life, provided he were not required to do so in contempt of religion.  St. Liguori for a time thought this opinion probable, but he afterwards rejected it, and maintains that the priest must refuse the sacrament to the notoriously unworthy, at the risk of his life, even when contempt is not intended.” 

In the opinion of St. Alphonsus Liguori, a Doctor of the Church, the minister should rather die than give communion to the publicly unworthy.  By anyone’s account, this is pretty serious stuff.  Have we today lost the sense of the seriousness of the sin of sacrilege and scandal?  Upon the altar of the rights of the individual, have we sacrificed God’s right not to be profaned and the right of the community not to be scandalized?  We need to respect the conscience of the minister bound by such serious obligations just as much as we need to respect the right of the individual to be provided with the sacraments.  Have we focused on the latter to the exclusion of the former—unwittingly embracing an unbalanced hermeneutic that distorts our reading of canon law and the sacramental life of the Church?     

Differences of Opinion on Prudential Judgments Calls for Charity

Looking through a number of manuals and commentaries from the 19^th and 20^th centuries, it becomes clear that there is wide variety of factors to take into account when deciding whether or not a particular case of sin is “public”.  In the last analysis, this is not an exact science but a matter of prudential judgment.  The authorities themselves concur.  Stanislaus Woywod, for example, in A Practical Commentary on the Code of Canon Law, vol. I (1925), says: “No general rule covering all cases can be given for distinguishing a public sinner from an occult one, and the circumstances of every individual case must be considered.”  To return to the O’Kane commentary, we read on p. 381: “We need not seek for mathematical accuracy in a matter of this kind, and Carriere concludes that a crime may be looked on as public in any community when, considering the crime itself, the persons to whom it is known, and the community of which there is question, the knowledge of it is morally certain to spread.”  It is true that the minister must have a practical certainty that any given person falls into the category of those who “obstinately persevere in manifest grave sin” before he is bound to withhold communion from that person.  I have argued above that practicing and open homosexuals could very easily fall into that category.   More specifically I have argued that such an active and open homosexual as is being considered in the Guarnizo-Johnson does in fact do so.  But more to the point here is that even if in your judgment a priest in a situation like Guarnizo’s would not have made the right prudential decision by withholding communion from the person in question, it should at least be acknowledged that his decision was not wildly unreasonable.  We can in all charity acknowledge that one minister’s doubtful case might be another minister’s clear case.  We can respect his certain conscience even if in the same situation ours would have been doubtful.  We can acknowledge that there are situations in which different prudential judgments can be made by different people without either side faulting the other for negligence on the one hand or insensitivity on the other.  The Guarnizo-Johnson case is certainly one such case.  For example, probably Dr. Peters himself has a good pulse on the academic world of canon law and would know whether or not there are at least some respectable canonists who would disagree with him on this issue.  Are there no canonists who would judge that, per c. 915, Ms. Johnson should have in fact been withheld from communion?  I would imagine we could find a few.       

A Broader Perspective 

Peters can also, no doubt unintentionally, sometimes write as if canonists are the only people who should have anything to say on this issue.  Are there not other specialists whose respective expertise would be helpful?  What might a Scripture scholar, for example, have to say about this issue?  We often quote I Cor 11:27-29 when talking about the divine obligation undergirding canon 916.  But the Church has also traditionally cited Mt 7:6, “Give not what is holy to the dogs”, when talking about the divine obligation undergirding c. 915 (cf. Didache 9).  Is Mt 7:6 Eucharistic?  Does it have a sacrificial subtext to it? (cf. Ex 29:37; Lev 2:3)  Who are the dogs? (cf. Rev 22:15; Deut 23:18)  Maybe the canonists can learn from the Scripture scholars? 

Also what might a moral theologian have to say about the little known fact that the good name of the occult sinner is actually not a proportionate reason for the minister of communion to materially participate in the sinner’s sacrilegious communion but that the minister is only morally justified in materially participating in such a sacrilege in light of the possible negative effects a refusal might have on the community?  How might the perspective of the common good adjust our antecedent considerations that we bring to bear on reading and applying the Church’s law in the case of c. 915?  Also, if the sinner who presents himself for communion has the right to his good name, what happens when the sinner in question thinks his sin should be made public?  Is it even meaningful to talk about protecting the good name of the active and open homosexual?  What reputation is there left for the Church to protect at this point and how might this affect our application of c. 915?  These are all questions moralists could fruitfully explore and canonists benefit from... (continued) 

Read More Here

Links:

• A canonical contribution on the Washington Eucharistic Affair
• Guest letter challenging Dr. Peters on canon 915, Communion, and "manifest" sin

Related:

• Cardinal Wuerl's Dereliction of Duty 
• EITHER BISHOPS TAKE CONTROL OVER THE SACRAMENTS OR THE CHURCH’S ENEMIES WILL
• Pontifical High Mass Honoring Pope Benedict XVI at National Shrine Cancelled
• Archdiocese of Washington reprimands priest for denying communion to a lesbian
• Father Guarnizo's Faculties Suspended - D.C. Bloggers Recommend Taking Action
• Fr. Marcel Placed on Administrative Leave 
• Fr. Marcel (!) Guarnizo receives gift from Chancery
  
• Washington D.C.: Homosexual Agenda Leads to Yet Another Priestly Suspension
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Father John Zuhlsdorf and Canon Lawyer: Deny Communion to Pelosi

by Patrick B. Craine

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 8, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – After pro-abortion House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi defied America’s bishops last week by proclaiming she would stand with her “fellow Catholics” in support of President Obama’s contraception mandate, one of the web’s most prominent priest-bloggers has issued an impassioned plea for her bishops to deny her Holy Communion in accord with canon law.

“For the good of souls, Nancy Pelosi must be denied Holy Communion and the Catholic people should be informed that she is being denied Holy Communion,” wrote Fr. John Zuhlsdorf (aka Fr. Z) on his blog Tuesday.

Fr. Zuhlsdorf is calling on Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco and Cardinal Donald Wuerl to invoke canon 915, which states that those who have been “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.”

Niederauer has said in the past that he was considering denying Pelosi Communion, but Wuerl has said such an act would turn the Eucharist into a “weapon.”

The priest got support Tuesday from leading canon lawyer Dr. Edward Peters, who holds the Edmund Cardinal Szoka Chair at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit and serves as a consultant to the Vatican’s highest court.

On his In the Light of the Law blog, Dr. Peters writes that Pelosi is perhaps the best case for applying canon 915 in the United States.

“If her prolonged public conduct does not qualify as obstinate perseverance in manifest grave sin, then, in all sincerity, I must admit to not knowing what would constitute obstinate perseverance in manifest grave sin,” he writes.

Last Wednesday, a CNSnews.com reporter asked Pelosi if she would stand with her fellow Catholics in resisting the contraception mandate, which would force Catholic institutions to offer coverage of contraception to employees.

In reply, Pelosi, a self-professed devout Catholic, said, “First of all, I am going to stick with my fellow Catholics in supporting the Administration on this. I think it was a very courageous decision that they made, and I support it...”  (continued)

Read More Here

Links:

• Deny Communion to Pelosi urge canon lawyer, popular priest-blogger
• Nancy Pelosi: ‘I am going to stick with fellow Catholics’ in Pres. Obama’s war on Catholics. Wherein Fr. Z rants.

Related:

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• Pelosi on contraception insurance mandate: I am going to stick with my fellow Catholics in supporting the administration on this

Archbishop Burke: Holy Eucharist is God’s ‘greatest gift’

San Diego, Aug 23, 2008 / 02:02 am (CNA).- Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, the newly appointed Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura and former Archbishop of St. Louis, recently discussed in an interview the topic of respect for the Holy Eucharist and its pastoral aspects of canon law. Reiterating that the Church has the right and the duty to tell someone who persists in public grave sin that he or she may not receive Communion, Archbishop Burke suggested that laxity among Catholics regarding respect for the Blessed Sacrament has resulted from a lack of Eucharistic Adoration and a felt connection between the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Penance.

Speaking in an interview with Thomas J. McKenna, president of the San Diego-based group Catholic Action for Faith and Family, the archbishop noted that an “alarming” percentage of Catholics do not believe the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ and a similarly alarming percentage do not participate in Sunday Mass.

Endorsing Eucharistic Adoration, he said “Without devotion to the Blessed Sacrament people quickly lose Eucharistic faith.”

In the interview, Archbishop Burke criticized rhetoric that presents receiving Holy Communion as a “right.”

“Who could claim that he has a right to receive the Body of Christ? This is all an act of God’s immeasurable love Our Lord makes Himself available to us in His Body and Blood for Holy Communion. But we can never say that we have the right to Him, that we can demand to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion. Each time we approach, we should approach with a profound sense of our own unworthiness.”

The archbishop said that Catholics have lost the sense of their unworthiness to receive the Sacrament and their need to confess their sins and repent in order to receive Holy Communion worthily.

Discussing Canons 915 and 916 of Church law, which concern worthy reception of the Blessed Sacrament, Archbishop Burke explained that the Church has those laws in place not to be mean and imposing, but to help the faithful reach salvation and to warn people who are in the state of mortal sin.

“It is the greatest act of charity to prevent somebody from doing something that is sacrilegious that is, to warn them, and then actually refuse to be party to a sacrilege… the Church, in Her love, prevents people from doing things that are gravely offensive to God and gravely damaging to their own souls.”

Often, the archbishop said, our serious sins are known only to ourselves and maybe one or two other people, in which case “we have to be the one to monitor the situation and discipline ourselves not to approach to receive Holy Communion.”

In cases where people are committing grave sins “knowingly and publicly,” such as a government official who publicly promotes procured abortion, they should be admonished not to receive Holy Communion until they have reformed their lives. If such a person persists in serious or mortal sin in a public way, Archbishop Burke said “the minister of Holy Communion has the obligation to refuse Holy Communion to that person.”

This refusal is necessary both for the good of the public sinner but also for preserving the whole Church from scandal, which the Catechism defines as “an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil.”

If the Sacrament is not refused, the archbishop explained, “People would be led to think it is alright to be in the state of mortal sin and to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion,” or it could lead people to believe “that the public act which this person is committing, which everyone thinks is a serious sin, must not be so serious because the Church permits that person to receive Holy Communion.”

While noting that Catholics must follow their conscience, Archbishop Burke emphasized that the conscience has to be properly formed:

“Conscience is not some sort of subjective reality where I make up for myself what is right and good. Rather, it is an objective reality where I conform my own thinking to what is true.”

People who cite following their own conscience as a reason they should receive Holy Communion ignore that the minister of the Sacrament also has a duty in conscience to ensure the Sacrament is properly received, he noted.

In all this, the archbishop said, we must remember the great importance of the Sacrament.

“The first thing that needs to be said is that the Body and Blood of Christ is a gift of God’s love to us. It is the greatest gift, a gift beyond our ability to describe,” he said. “…A gift is freely given out of love and that is what God is doing for us every time we are able to participate in Mass and approach to receive Holy Communion.”

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