Pope extends Jubilee mandate on abortion, SSPX confession

Rome, Italy, Nov 21, 2016 / 04:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Although the Jubilee of Mercy has ended, Pope Francis has decided that some of the novelties he applied to the Church during the Holy Year will continue.

He is allowing all priests to absolve the sin of abortion from here on out, while SSPX priests will be able to continue hearing confessions validly...

The Pope announced his decision in his new Apostolic Letter “Misericordia et Misera,” meaning “Mercy with Misery.” Published Nov. 21, the letter was signed by the Pope Nov. 20 during Mass for the close of the Jubilee of Mercy.

In the letter, Pope Francis said that “the Sacrament of Reconciliation must regain its central place in the Christian life.”

“Given this need, lest any obstacle arise between the request for reconciliation and God’s forgiveness, I henceforth grant to all priests, in virtue of their ministry, the faculty to absolve those who have committed the sin of procured abortion,” the letter read...

He noted how during the Jubilee, he allowed “that those faithful who, for various reasons, attend churches officiated by the priests of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, can validly and licitly receive the sacramental absolution of their sins.”

“For the pastoral benefit of these faithful, and trusting in the good will of their priests to strive with God’s help for the recovery of full communion in the Catholic Church, I have personally decided to extend this faculty beyond the Jubilee Year, until further provisions are made, lest anyone ever be deprived of the sacramental sign of reconciliation through the Church’s pardon...” (continued)

Read More at Catholic News Agency

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• Pope extends Jubilee mandate on abortion, SSPX confession

Pope unleashes 'super confessors' to tackle special sins

By Ella Ide

Vatican City (AFP) - Dubbed 'super confessors', for one year only they can absolve sins usually only pardoned by the pope himself.

And on Wednesday over 1,000 of these "missionaries of mercy", handpicked by Pope Francis, were sent forth to win back the hearts of those who have left the Catholic Church and open the door to repentant sinners across the world.

There are certain evils the Vatican ranks above other sins, from attempting to assassinate the pope to defiling the Eucharist -- the rite of consuming consecrated bread and wine in Church -- by spitting it out or using it in a Satanic ritual.

Since the 12th century, those guilty of these so-called "reserved sins" had their cases evaluated by a secret tribunal in the tiny Vatican city state before they were sent before the pope, who would determine an appropriate penance.

Now, 1,142 priests and monks from around the world have be given the power, for the Vatican's Jubilee Year, to forgive sinners in their flocks -- and possibly fellow priests as one of the special sins is breaking the seal of confession.

Maltese Franciscan Marcello Ghirlando, 53, told AFP he thought giving the 'super confessors' authority usually reserved for the man in white was "a symbolic gesture" to show people the Church is ready to wipe slates clean... (continued)

Read More Here

Link:

• Pope unleashes 'super confessors' to tackle special sins

What have we come to?

By Fr. Ray Blake

What have we come to? I had a letter recently from a parishioner telling me he had fallen in love with another man and therefore wasn't going to be coming to Mass anymore!

The Gospel yesterday in the Old Rite was the wheat harvest sown with zizzania (translated as cockle), the owner tells the servants that rather than weeding out the weeds, to leave them until harvest time, 'lest the wheat also is lost'. The Second Vatican Council spoke about a 'universal call to holiness', what we seem to have difficulty with is coping with the fact that not everyone wants 'holiness', or at least wants to delay it until the last moment, or simply feels they are incapable of it.. (continued)

Read More at Father Ray Blake's Blog

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• What have we come to? 

Pope, ending synod, excoriates bishops with 'closed hearts'

By Philip Pullella

(Reuters) Pope Francis, ending a contentious bishops' meeting on family issues, on Saturday excoriated immovable Church leaders who "bury their heads in the sand" and hide behind rigid doctrine while families suffer...

In his final address, the pope appeared to criticize ultra-conservatives, saying Church leaders should confront difficult issues "fearlessly, without burying our heads in the sand."

He said the synod had "laid bare the closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the Church's teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families"...

The synod document did offer some hope for the full re-integration into the Church of some Catholics who divorce and remarry in civil ceremonies.

Under current Church doctrine they cannot receive communion unless they abstain from sex with their new partner, because their first marriage is still valid in the eyes of the Church and they are seen to be living in an adulterous state of sin.

They only way such Catholics can remarry is if they receive an annulment, a ruling that their first marriage never existed in the first place because of the lack of certain pre-requisites such as psychological maturity or free will.

The document spoke of a so-called "internal forum" in which a priest or a bishop may work with a Catholic who has divorced and remarried to decide jointly, privately and on a case-by-case basis if he or she can be fully re-integrated.

"In order for this happen, the necessary conditions of humility, discretion, love for the Church and her teachings must be guaranteed in a sincere search for God's will," the document said.
Tally sheets showed that the three articles on the divorced and re-married were the most fought-over, reaching the two-thirds majority needed to remain in the document by only a few votes each. One passed by only one vote... (continued)

Read More Here

• Pope, ending synod, excoriates bishops with 'closed hearts'

Dog Vomit Expansion

By Ann Barnhardt @ Barnhardt.biz

1.  I tickles me to no end that this dialogue is not only possible, but probable:

Person One:  So, what was it that finally convicted you of the truth and caused you to revert/convert to Catholicism?

Person Two:  Dog vomit.  The thing about the dogs eating their own vomit.  Totally.

2.  So I posted 2 Peter 2 in the post below, which ends with Peter recalling Proverbs 26:11:
As a dog that returneth to his vomit, so is the fool that repeateth his folly.

Sicut canis qui revertitur ad vomitum suum, sic imprudens qui iterat stultitiam suam.

Now, the story of how that came up is this: I am currently reading “Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori”, which I cannot recommend with sufficient strength, and I found myself earlier this week reading “Sermon XLI, On the Abuse of Divine Mercy”.  Ever so slightly relevant to the current goings-on, eh?  “Oooh.  This should be interesting,” I thought to myself.  Indeed.  Allow me to quote from Section 2, emphases mine:

“When you intend to commit sin, who, I ask, promises you mercy from God?  Certainly God does not promise it.  It is the devil that promises it, that you may lose God and be damned.  “Beware”, says St. John Chrysostom, “never to attend to that dog who promises the mercy of God.”  If, beloved sinners, you have hitherto offended God, hope and tremble: if you desire to give up sin, and if you detest it, hope; because God promises pardon to all who repent of the evil they have done.  But if you intend to continue in your sinful course, tremble lest God should wait no longer for you, but cast you into hell.  Why does God wait for sinners?  Is it that they may continue to insult Him?  No; He waits for them that they may renounce sin, and that He may thus have pity on them, and forgive them.  “Therefore the Lord waiteth, that He may have mercy on you” -Isaiah 30:18. But when He sees that the time which he gave them to weep over their past iniquities is spent in multiplying their sins, He begins to inflict chastisement, and He cuts them off in the state of sin, that, by dying, they may cease to offend Him.  Then He calls against them the very time He had given them for repentance. “He hath called against me the time” -Lamentations 1:15.  “The very time”, says St. Gregory, “comes to judge.”

It was pointed out to me that when Chrysostom uses the pejorative “that dog”, it is far from random name calling.  He is referencing the “dog that returneth to his vomit” from Proverbs 26 and 2 Peter 2.

The dog that eats his own vomit; the sow that was washed who returns to wallow in mud mingled with her own feces, that is “mire”, is the unrepentant sinner who has no intention of STOPPING THE SINFUL ACTIVITY.

One more block quote from section 5 of St. Alphonsus’ sermon:

St. Bernard says that the confidence which sinners have in God’s goodness, when they commit sin, procures for them not a blessing, but a malediction from the Lord.  O deceitful hope, which sends so many Christians to hell!  They do not hope for the pardon of sins of which they repent; but they hope that though they continue to sin, God will have mercy upon them; and thus they make the mercy of God serve as a motive for continuing to offend Him.

Pray the Rosary, most especially the Sorrowful Mysteries, the First Sorrowful Mystery being The Agony of Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane.  The fruit of this mystery is SORROW FOR SIN, which is the utterly critical and essential prerequisite for His Mercy and forgiveness.  Beg Him to know what every single one of your sins are, and for you to feel a portion of the agony at your sins that He bore in the Garden, such that you may be animated to STOP DOING THE SINFUL ACTIVITY.

Here is my recording of the Sorrowful Mysteries in Latin with the Litany of Loreto and the text file, specifically for the crushing of and in reparation for the Heresy of Modernism. 

I hope this helps.

Link:

• Dog Vomit Expansion

Related:

• Starting Wednesday Off Right: Dogs Returning to Their Vomit Edition
• Latin Rosary

Pope Francis Is Not Saving Souls, But Losing Them

By Fr. Peter Carota

(Traditional Catholic Priest) Pope Francis’ concept of the Catholic Church is a welcoming home for all the Lesbians, Gays, Transgenders, Bisexual, divorced and remarried, Evangelicals and atheists.  He feels that these people have been oppressed by the Church by Her condemnation of these “sins” and he wants to welcome them into the “hospital church” to be accepted and healed.

 

I think he puts them in the same category as the poor, the unemployed youth and anyone else who may have been oppressed.  Although his compassion is to be commended, it is misplaced.   These people are living in sin and will go to hell if they are not corrected before they die.

 

The pope has a pattern.

1. He receives a letter from someone feeling alienated from the church because he is gay or had a “sex change”, (which is impossible genetically, a boy is always a boy no matter what operations he may use to change his exterior body. Boys have an X and a Y chromosome. Girls have two X chromsomes), or is divorced and remarried, or is a single mother separated from a violent boyfriend, who could have killed her baby by abortion but did not.
2. Then there comes the phone call from the pope to make them feel accepted by the “church”.
3. In some cases, they are invited to have a private audience with him.
4. Then somehow the media hears about it.
5. The liberals acclaim the pope as a hero.
6. Almost every Catholic and nonCatholic gets confused.
7. People begin to believe that the Catholic Church can, and has changed Her teachings on sexual morality.
8. Most Catholics who have already accepted the “world’s new morality” feel affirmed in their deviant life styles.
9. Their conscience is appeased because they have heard from the pope that their deviant life style is not immoral after all.
10. In fact it is something to celebrate and be proud of.
11. More people copy these sinful “Catholics” immoral life styles.

These same people continue to die at every age imaginable, every minute, all over the world and here are the consequences:

1. These people are judged by God’s rules, not Pope Francis’ rules.
2. These people may be damned to hell for all eternity.
3. Their souls are lost, not saved.

Now let us look at what then happens to someone who might disagree with the pope and instead, uphold what Jesus teaches in the Holy Bible and His 2000 year old Catholic Church.

1. Progressive blogs, media, clerics and people strongly condemn them as extremist.
2. They are immediately labeled as unloving and extremely judgmental.
3. If they happen to speak the truth at a parish or Catholic school, an angry group of opposition is organized against them.
4. They justify their anger, hate and persecution of that person by quoting “their loving pope” who says “Who am I to Judge” and “Do not talk about Abortion or Birth control”.
5. The cardinals, (like Cardinal Burke), religious, (like Franciscan Friars), priests or persons who spoke the Catholic truth, are then demoted, removed, silenced or punished.
6. All over the world, traditional Catholics are being persecuted and suppressed by the pope, bishops, religious and other priests.
7. Being a believing and traditional Catholic is the only “unforgivable sin”.

The very first Spiritual Work of Mercy is to Admonish the sinner.  Yes, we Bible believing and Catholic Church believing people also love and care about the sinners.  We love those struggling with same sex attraction or gender identity confusion or any sinful temptation and confusion.  But we help them to realize;

• Sin is still sin.
• God loves us and put His commandments to protect us.
• God is just.
• Any unconfessed mortal sin at time of death will condemn us to hell for all eternity.
• Heaven is our true home and where true pleasure is to be found.

 

Let us keep on speaking the Biblical and Catholic truth no matter how much we are persecuted, judged, condemned, hated, silenced, called extremist and black listed.  We are in great company with Jesus, St. John the Baptist and all the saints throughout history. Be a prophet of truth, you will be ridiculed, ostracized, called names, exiled and maybe soon, imprisoned or killed.  Jesus said: “Do not be afraid”.

 “Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you.”  Matthew 5:11-12.

Link:

• Pope Francis Is Not Saving Souls, But Losing Them

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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Traditional Catholics Care That Sexual Sins Offend God And Hurt Us

By Father Peter Carota

(Traditional Catholic Priest) Jesus never said; “Love the sinner, hate the sin”, but; “For I have not come to call the just, but sinners”.  Jesus came to call us sinners to repent.  He does not accept sinners so that they can continue to sin.  Sin is a terrible offense against God and offends Him greatly.

“He who saith that he knoweth him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” 1 John 2: 4.

It was St. Augustine who said; “For this reason, the man who lives by God’s standards and not by man’s, must needs be a lover of good, and it follows that he must hate what is evil.  Further, since no one is evil by nature, but anyone who is evil is evil because of a perversion of nature, the man who lives by God’s standards has a duty of perfect hatred towards those who are evil; that is to say, he should not hate the person because of the fault, nor should he love the fault because of the person.  He should hate the fault, but love the man.  And when the fault has been cured there will remain only what he ought to love, nothing that he should hate.”

 

The whole idea of accepting homosexual lust and the adultery of remarried couples living together goes against calling sinners to repentance.  It is pleasing man and offending God.

 

As a priest who councils hundreds of people, I see the horrible consequences of every sin.  An example is what I heard last week.

A 15 year old boy came to me because he was depressed and had no one to talk to.  He was depressed because his 15 year old girlfriend was going to be put in a foster home.  It all began with sin.

She has been living with her uncle and aunt.  Her aunt, behind the back of her uncle, had allowed her to sneak out to be with this young man.  When the uncle found out about the dishonesty, he started the divorce against the aunt. So the girlfriend has to move to a foster home.

She ended up living with her uncle and aunt because her mother had committed adultery and when her dad found out he committed suicide.  Her mother then hooked up with another man who ended up continuously rape his girlfriend.  He is in prison and her mother is in jail.  So she has no place to live other than a foster home because of sin.

How often you and I have to hear, in the Church and outside the Church, that we have to accept sinners life styles.  How often do we have to hear, as long as it is two consenting adults, sin does not hurt anyone (heterosexual or homosexual).

This 15 year old girl will have another opinion.  If her mother had not had the consensual adulterous affair, her father would not have committed suicide.  If her mother had not had a consensual affair with the next man, the girl would never have been raped over and over.

 

By my estimation, step fathers in second marriages, have a very high rate of sexual abuse of their stepdaughters.  I hear of it over and over.

There is another family in this parish where the first father was put in prison for drugs and robbery.  The next man, the mother moved in with, sexually molested her daughter whom I am trying to help get over it.  That man is also in prison for this sin.  The rate is so so much lower where a biological father sexually molests his daughter.

Fathers and mothers married in the Church are whom make a safe home for their children.

So when it comes to accepting homosexual sex and remarried couples, the Church leaders are forgetting that it offends God greatly and that these sins hurt the individual, those around them and society as a whole.

It is, again, the case of misdirected compassion.  We traditional Catholics love the homosexual, the remarried person, but we hate the sin and the consequences it has caused in the lives of those involved.

Where is the compassion for the men and women and children who have been hurt by the divorce?  Where is the compassion for the girls who have been sexually abused by their step fathers?

There is another young woman in our confirmation classes.  She is for homosexual relations because her sister is in one.  But when I talked to her mother, she told me that her daughter is always being beaten up and her cell phone taken away because of the  jealousy of her female lover.  Where is the compassion for all those who are abused in these unnatural relationships?

How many homosexuals would still be alive if they had never had homosexual sex that gave them AIDS.  Yes we love those who have same sex attraction.  For that reason we want them to stay alive and be healthy.  We do not want them dying or suffering from AIDS.

When will the pope, bishops, priests, religious and lay Catholics understand that compassion is teaching people that sin offends God and hurts them and all of society.

We traditional Catholics love sinners.  We are also repented sinners ourselves.  But we also love God above all things and believe with all our hearts that His laws of love are for our good.  When they are loved and obey, there is peace and blessings.  When they are despised and broken, there is interior turmoil and curses.

We are so fortunate to be traditional Catholics and know God’s laws of Love.  We are also so fortunate to have access to His graces through the Holy Sacraments of Our Catholic Church.

Link:

• Traditional Catholics Care That Sexual Sins Offend God And Hurt Us

So you want to surrender on Sodomite Marriage?

Domenico Beccafumi (Domenico di Giovanni di Pace). 1486 - 1551

Saint Catherine of Siena Receiving the Stigmata 1513-5

From Ann Barnhardt:

Saint Catherine of Siena, a religious mystic of the 14th century, relays words of Our Lord Jesus Christ about the vice against nature, which contaminated part of the clergy in her time. Referring to sacred ministers, He says: "They not only fail from resisting this frailty [of fallen human nature] . . . but do even worse as they commit the cursed sin against nature. Like the blind and stupid, having dimmed the light of their understanding, they do not recognize the disease and misery in which they find themselves. For this not only causes Me nausea, but displeases even the demons themselves, whom these miserable creatures have chosen as their lords. For Me, this sin against nature is so abominable that, for it alone, five cities were submersed, by virtue of the judgment of My Divine Justice, which could no longer bear them. . . . It is disagreeable to the demons, not because evil displeases them and they find pleasure in good, but because their nature is angelic and thus is repulsed upon seeing such an enormous sin being committed. It is true that it is the demon who hits the sinner with the poisoned arrow of lust, but when a man carries out such a sinful act, the demon leaves."

HERE IS THE FULL COLLECTION OF QUOTES - DEFINITELY WORTH A BOOKMARK.

Link:

• So you want to surrender on Sodomite Marriage?

A Strange Thing Jesus Said to a Paralyzed Man – Another Insight from Pope Benedict’s New Book

By Msgr. Charles Pope

The Gospel from Monday the second week of Advent is the gospel of the paralyzed man who is lowered through the roof. It is presented to us in Advent because, among the many prophecies about the Messiah, would be that the lame would walk. But the Gospel also helps us to focus on Jesus’ central mission for us, and it is very provocatively expressed in this Gospel.

The Gospel passage contains a rather peculiar and somewhat awkward moment. Jesus looks at a paralyzed man and says to him,  As for you, your sins are forgiven (Lk 5:20). What a strange thing to say to a paralyzed man.

The Pharisees and scribes of course are all worked up for other reasons, but their reason is not ours, we know that Jesus has the authority to forgive sins. Let us stay focused on the strange thing to say to a paralyzed man, your sins are forgiven you.

One of us modern folk might be tempted to tap Jesus on the shoulder and say, “Ah excuse me, Lord, this man is paralyzed, his problem is paralysis, that’s what he needs healing for.”

Of course Jesus is not blind or unintelligent, knows this. But looking at a paralyzed man he does not see the paralysis as his most serious problem. The man has a far more serious problem, his sin.

Now most of us, who live in the world, have the world’s priorities, and we do not think like this. The Lord sees something more serious than paralysis, and we think, “What can be more serious than paralysis?!”But not as man sees, does God see. For God, the most serious problem we have is our sin. But again, we don’t think like this, and even being told we should think like this, we still don’t think like this.

For most of us, influenced by the flesh, are far more devastated by the loss of our physical health, or the loss of money, or the loss of a job, or some large worldly asset, than we are by the fact that we have sin. Threaten our physical health and well-being, or one of our larger physical assets, and we’re on our knees begging God for help. Yet most human beings have far less concern for their spiritual well-being. More often than not we are not nearly so devastated by sin that can deprive us of eternal life, as we are devastated by the loss of our health or some worldly thing.

Even many of us who have some sense of the spiritual life struggle with this obtuseness, and misplaced sense of priorities. Even in our so-called spiritual life, our prayers are often dominated by concerns that God will fix our health, improve or finances, get us a job, etc. It is not wrong to pray for these things, and we should. But honestly how often do we pray to be freed of our sins, do we really and earnestly pray to grow in holiness and to be prepared to see God face-to-face? Sometimes it almost sounds as if we are asking God to make this world more comfortable and we’ll just stay here forever. This attitude is an affront to the truer Gifts God is offering.

And so it is that Jesus, looking at a paralyzed man, says to him, your sins are forgiven. In so doing he addresses the man’s most serious problem first. Only secondarily does he speak to the man’s paralysis, which he almost seems to have overlooked in comparison to the issue of sin.

We have much to learn hear about how God sees, and what really are the most crucial issues in our life.

Joseph and Mary were told to call the child “Jesus,” for he would save his people from their sins. Of this fact Pope Benedict speaks in his latest book, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives:

…Joseph is entrusted with a further task: “Mary will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).… On the one hand, a lofty theological task is assigned to the child, for only God can forgive sins. So this child is immediately associated with God, directly linked with God’s holy and saving power. On the other hand, though, this definition of the Messiah’s mission could appear disappointing. The prevailing expectations of salvation were primarily focused upon Israel’s concrete sufferings–on the reestablishment of the kingdom of David, on Israel’s freedom and independence, and naturally that included material prosperity for this largely impoverished people. The promise of forgiveness of sins seems both too little and too much: too much, because it trespasses upon God’s exclusive sphere; too little, because there seems to be no thought of Israel’s concrete suffering or its true need for salvation.

Pope Benedict then cites this same story of the paralytic and says,

 

Jesus responded [to the presence of the paralyzed man] in a way that was quite contrary to the expectation of the bearers and the sick man himself, saying: “My son, your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2:5). This was the last thing anyone was expecting this was the last thing they were concerned about.…

The Pope concludes:

 

Man is a relational being. And if his first, fundamental relationship is disturbed–his relationship with God–then nothing else can be truly in order. This is where the priority lies in Jesus’ message and ministry: before all else he wants to point man toward the essence of his malady.

Yes, God sees things rather differently than we do. There is much to consider the fact that Jesus says paralyzed man your sins are forgiven you.

Link:

• A Strange Thing Jesus Said to a Paralyzed Man – Another Insight from Pope Benedict’s New Book

Satan went to Padre Pio pretending to be a penitent

From The Tenth Crusade:

Satan went beyond all the limits of deception when he went to Father Pio pretending to be a penitent. This is the Father Pio’s testimony:

 “One day, while I was hearing confessions, a man came to the confessional where I was.

He was tall, handsome, dressed with some refinement and he was kind and polite. He started to confess his sins, which were of every kind: against God, against man and against the morals. All the sins were obnoxious!

 I was disoriented, in fact for all the sins that he told me, but I responded to him with God’s Word, the example of the Church, and the morals of the Saints. But the enigmatic penitent answered me word for word, justifying his sins, always with extreme ability and politeness. He excused all the sinful actions, making them sound quite normal and natural, even comprehensible on the human level.. He continued this way with the sins that were gruesome against God, Our Lady, the Saints, always using disrespectful round-about argumentation.

He kept this up even with with the foulest of sins that could be conjured in the mind of a most sinful man. The answers that he gave me with such skilled subtlety and malice surprised me. I wondered: who is he? What world does he come from? And I tried to look at him in order to read something on his face.

At the same time I concentrated on every word he spoke, trying to discover any clue to his identity.. But suddenly; through a vivid, radiant and internal light I clearly recognized who he was.

With a sound and imperial tone I told him: “Say long live Jesus, long live Mary!” As soon as I pronounced these sweet and powerful names, Satan instantly disappeared in a trickle of fire, leaving behind him an unbearable stench.”

Link:

• The penitent - not!

On Loudmouthed Tough Guys in the Church

By Ann Barnhardt at Barnhardt.biz:

To open this post I wrote up this whole brilliant allegory about how sometimes you gotta be Paul Scofield, and sometimes you gotta be Ernest Borgnine, and if you put the two together you get Marty, but then I realized that all of three people reading this would have any idea who or what I was talking about, so I skipped it. But trust me, it was brilliant.

Here is Voris, clearly edified and energized by his new digs and new name, ChurchMilitant.tv, knocking it out of the park. I have pasted the key quotations he cites below, in case you want to copy and paste them into a file for future reference.

Since, in order that the deceits of the enemy may be avoided, it is necessary first of all that they be laid bare; since much is to be gained by denouncing these fallacies for the sake of the unwary, even though We prefer not to name these iniquities "as becometh saints," yet for the welfare of souls We cannot remain altogether silent. - Pope Pius XI

We’ve had enough of exhortations to be silent! Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that the world is rotten because of silence! -  St. Catherine of Siena

If people are scandalized at the Truth, it is better to allow the birth of scandal, than to abandon the Truth.  - Pope St. Gregory the Great

Let me add two more from the Church Fathers:

Everyone who can speak the Truth, yet speaks it not, will be judged by God. - St. Justin Martyr, died A.D. 165

Anyone who conceals the Truth for fear of some authority calls down the wrath of God upon himself, because he fears men more than God... Both are guilty: he who conceals the Truth and he who speaks falsehood, because the former does not wish to make the Truth known and the latter desires not to refute it. -  St. Augustine, died A.D. 430

I have heard a priest relate an anecdote regarding "prudence" that makes my flesh crawl. It goes something like this:

During World War II, the priests and bishops in Italy kept fairly quiet, and did not preach with fire and zeal against Mussolini or Hitler - their efforts against the Axis were more clandestine and underground. In the Netherlands (correction here: I originally said Denmark - I was wrong), by comparison, the priests and bishops were vociferous in their preaching against the Reich. As a result, nearly the entire Jewish population of the Netherlands was exterminated, while a far higher percentage of the Jews in Italy survived the war.

This argument is specious. It sounds good on the surface, but it is terribly flawed. The Dutch clergy did the right thing - they were the truly PRUDENT actors. They did what was right in those circumstances, which is to preach the Truth without hesitation, and with as much zeal and fire as they could muster. The failing in prudence was on the part of the other clergy in Europe. Had the clergy of the entire Church stood tall and railed without ceasing against Hitler, Mussolini, and the rest of the players, had they made clear that ANY cooperation with these governments was a mortal sin, and thus laetae sententiae excommunication, which means automatic by virtue of committing the sinful action itself, and not requiring any official juridical action of a bishop; if they had told the people of Europe that it was either friendship with Christ, which meant the total rejection of the Reich and the Fascist Italian regime, or eternal hellfire, perhaps a war which killed 70 million human beings could have been avoided, or drastically reduced in scale. Comparing survival rates of Jews in one country versus another makes the terrible assumption that the situation in Europe could not have been any better, and could ONLY have been worse. Considering that 70 million people were killed in World War II, it is lunacy to argue that "it couldn't possibly have been any better."

This is why I am doing what I am doing now with regards to Obama. I have, for my entire life, marveled at the people of Germany, in particular. Why didn't anyone say anything? Why didn't anyone do anything? If you had the chance and ability to rhetorically destroy Adolf Hitler in the early 1930s, if you had the capacity to reveal Hitler's insanity, homosexuality and unspeakable fetishes and perversions, and also the lies of National Socialism, wouldn't you do it? Wouldn't you do everything you could to rhetorically destroy Adolf Hitler? Wouldn't you expose his depraved homosexuality in order to utterly discredit him in the eyes of the German people so that they would never come to regard him as some sort of savior in the first place? Wouldn't you try to derail the train before it caused a war that killed tens of millions of human beings?
If not, WHY NOT?

How is NOT speaking the truth in any way prudent, much less charitable?

Expect God's wrath all you who fear MEN more than you fear God, and thus willfully conceal and stifle the Truth through silence and passivity. And don't you dare call it prudence.

Links:

• On Loudmouthed Tough Guys in the Church 
• ChurchMilitant.tv

Make Sure You Bleed Out Real Good Part 1

By Ann Barnhardt @ Barnhardt.biz

So I got an email from someone last evening stating that I should totally monetize this website and make all kinds of money off of it because even if doing so is indeed sinful, I will never be punished for that or any other sin if I’m “saved”, because once a person is “saved” sin doesn’t matter anymore.

I hear variants on this all the time from neo-pagans who fancy themselves "Bible Christians." It’s the old “once saved, always saved” heresy, and man is this heresy bad, bad, bad. All heresies are bad, but this one is truly from the pit of hell.

As with all heresies, satan begins with a statement that is true, and then twists and perverts it into a hellish nightmare. The true statement that gets perverted in this case is: no person can ever merit salvation. No person can ever, through their own efforts “earn heaven.”

That is true. Christ’s Passion and Sacrifice is infinite. No person can ever come even remotely close to earning, deserving or meriting the Cross, which is nothing less than the total self-immolation of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.

Where satan now leads people – and let me tell you, it is a massive number of people – is to the conclusion that because the Sacrifice of Calvary is infinite in the amount of grace that it makes available, and because no one can ever fully merit the total self-immolation of God Himself, that people need not even bother to try, and as corollary beyond that, that sin has become irrelevant to a person who declares themselves “saved.”
In short, do what you want, Jesus has it covered.

You people have got to snap out of this, because to embrace this mindset is to completely and totally reject Christ. Let me say that again: to embrace the “once saved, always saved” mindset is to completely and totally reject Christ. How can that be? Isn’t the “once saved, always saved” mindset simply an expression of faith in Jesus? No, it is not. It is an expression of faith in a legalistic abstraction. Jesus is not a legal contract, a juridical philosophical abstraction. Jesus Christ is a Person – a Divine Person. Saying, “If I do x, then Jesus is obligated to do y . . . If I accept Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, then Jesus HAS to forgive my sins, so if I get “saved” I can do or not do whatever I want without any further worry . . . .” is not Christianity. It is a perverse, evil form of heartless litigation, and that lawyering bullshit is not going to fly at your Particular Judgment.

For the last 2000 years, there have been many people, later declared saints, who have been given private revelations from Our Lord. There is a remarkably consistent thread that runs through these revelations, and that is the command, and dare I say even the pleading by Our Lord to pray and contemplate on His Passion and Death. It is constant. The Stations of the Cross. The Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. Spontaneous prayer focused on His Passion and Death. And obviously, the Mass itself, which is Calvary Itself re-presented by the manipulation of time. Why? Because keeping focused on His Suffering forces us to acknowledge His Humanity and His Personhood. If a person stops regarding Jesus as a Person, or never regarded Him as a Person at all, but rather as an abstract philosophical or legal construct, that person is no longer Christian. They are no longer worshiping God. They are worshiping something inside their minds that does not exist. Non-existent abstractions did not die for you. Non-existent abstractions do not and cannot forgive your sins and reconcile you to the Father. Non-existent abstractions DO NOT EXIST. By staying focused and ever-mindful of the Passion, we are kept engaged and close to Christ’s Humanity and Personhood and from slipping into this apostasy of worshiping a system of contract law that we name “jesus.”

Oh, but it gets so much worse. If you are a person who believes that sin no longer matters, and that no matter what you do or don’t do, it’s cool because “Jesus has me covered – I’m free to live my life and no longer worry about whether my actions are sinful or not,” you will be one of the people who very well may be utterly rejected and turned away by Christ at the Judgment. Remember this verse?

Not every one that saith to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: Lord, Lord, have not we prophesied in Thy name, and cast out devils in Thy name, and done many miracles in Thy name? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, you that work iniquity.
--Matthew 7:21-23

Make Sure You Bleed Out Real Good Part 2

By Ann Barnhardt

Let’s think this through, and I warn you, this is going to get brutal, because you people clearly are not thinking about this or comprehending this.

Jesus Christ is a Person, who is also God, who loves you infinitely. He has freely chosen to suffer infinitely for you – and not just physically, but spiritually. He has volunteered to allow you to kill Him and break His Heart unto complete burning immolation. You do this to Him with every sin you commit. Since He is infinitely good, infinitely innocent, and loves you infinitely, every sin you commit against Him is an infinite offense. And because His Blood is infinitely precious, it has the capacity to cover any sin, and can never be earned or merited by any person. Got it? Every sin causes Him infinite pain.

If you tell yourself that because of this dynamic of infinities canceling each other out that you can therefore mathematically sin without compunction and still be “legally covered”, and that since you can never mathematically merit salvation, you shouldn’t even bother worrying about or trying to avoid sin, you have declared that you by definition DO NOT LOVE JESUS. How? Because you are declaring that you are indifferent to His suffering. You are declaring that you do not care and are unmoved by the fact that you are causing Jesus Christ infinite pain. Not only that, but you are using His infinite capacity for pain as a satanic counterfeit currency with which you happily convince yourself you have an infinite supply of to purchase the legal right to sin and still retain your salvation. And this is what gives satan tremendous satisfaction. THIS is what he is seeking to accomplish. Satan luxuriates in a masturbatory frenzy at the agony of Christ, the God-Man.

Do you know what the opposite of love is? It isn’t hate. The opposite of love is indifference. If you are indifferent to the suffering you inflict on Christ with your sins, you do not love Him in any way shape or form. Your indifference is worse than hating Him. Satan hates Him, but satan fully acknowledges both His Divine Personhood and His Suffering on the Cross. The indifferent man denies Christ’s very personhood and thus is totally indifferent and apathetic towards His very real Suffering.

If some soulless gang-banger walked up to me on the street and started beating the crap out of me, I wouldn't take it personally. It would be a physical crime, but it wouldn't break my heart. You know what would break my heart? If I was walking along with my best friend, a soulless gang-banger started beating the crap out of me, I cried out for help, and when I turned to my best friend, instead of helping me he turned and walked in the opposite direction. THAT would break my heart. THAT would damn-near kill me, not Pookie the gang-banger. Bruises and broken bones heal. Broken hearts? The total indifference of a FRIEND? That would leave scars that would never, ever would go away. That's why Jesus still has His Wounds after the Resurrection, and always will. Look at the holes in His hands, feet and side, and see your own indifference to Him.

If your parent, spouse, best friend, or even a total stranger was hooked up to a torture device and tortured to death every time you sinned in exchange for your life . . . wouldn’t you be horrified and try to do everything you could to not sin, and thus spare them as much agony as possible? And when you did sin, wouldn’t you be wracked with sorrow and tell that person that you were sorry? Wouldn’t you want to get them removed from the torture device, or at least hook yourself up to it too so that you could bear a share of the agony – agony that you fully deserve, but they do not?

Oh, but not you “once saved, always saved” people. No. You would look at your beloved family member or friend hooked up to the torture device, feel absolutely nothing, and then with aloof indifference say, “You got me covered then? Cool. I’m out. I’ve got a life to lead, and since you’ve got me covered, I’m gonna live it up, Baby! Yeah!”

What the hell is wrong with you people? Seriously. This is all the domain of the psychopath. You have the unmitigated gall to call yourselves “true, Bible-believing Christians” and yet, from what I can tell, a terrifying number of you are totally indifferent to what you are doing to Christ by your sins, and even promote that indifference to His Passion as virtuous, and proof of your “faith.”

Well, I guess that’s what happens when you are the member of a schismatic sect and not of the Church. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t go to Mass, but instead go to a pagan rock concert and worship yourself. I guess that’s what happens when there isn’t even a Crucifix, or for that matter even a Cross in your pagan meeting hall, so you don’t have even the slightest reminder of Christ’s Humanity, much less His Suffering. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t think or use your brain. I guess that’s what happens when churchin’ is merely a self-serving social and entertainment experience.

You got me covered then? Alright, I’m out. Catch You on the flip. Dude, make sure You bleed out real good ‘cause I’m planning on living it up, Baby! No worries, just doing what feels good and doin’ what a man’s gotta do to make it in the world, cause I know You got me covered, right? I’m prolly gonna need, like, a swimming pool of Blood to cover me, so just plan on that! But seriously, you can't expect me to hang around and deal with this, right? See Ya. I'll call You later.

“And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, you that work iniquity.”

Link:

• Make Sure You Bleed Out Real Good Part 1 & 2

Cardinal Burke: Yes, it’s a sin to comply with the Obamacare mandate

AP Photo

By Tina Korbe

(Hot Air) In the clearest statement of what’s at stake for Catholic employers when it comes to the Obamacare contraception mandate, a leading Catholic cardinal recently said that it is, in fact, a sin for employers to comply with the mandate.

Cardinal Raymond Burke told EWTN’s Thomas McKenna that Catholic employers would not only be guilty of material cooperation with sin, but also formal cooperation because they would knowingly and deliberately be providing employees with contraception:

Thomas McKenna: “So a Catholic employer, really getting down to it, he does not, or she does not provide this because that way they would be, in a sense, cooperating with the sin … the sin of contraception or the sin of providing a contraceptive that would abort a child, is this correct?”

Cardinal Burke: “This is correct. It is not only a matter of what we call “material cooperation” in the sense that the employer by giving this insurance benefit is materially providing for the contraception but it is also “formal cooperation” because he is knowingly and deliberately doing this, making this available to people. There is no way to justify it. It is simply wrong.”

Responding to the comments, [former executive director of HLI America Jenn] Giroux says, “This comment by a high ranking Cardinal is the clearest explanation to date on the issue of an employer’s culpability when providing contraception, sterilization, and abortion inducing drug options in the insurance plans for employees.”

It’s easy to see that this statement might come as a surprise even to the most faithful of Catholics, who are taught that an individual must freely consent to sin to bear full responsibility for it. Under the mandate, do employers really have the freedom not to consent? Cardinal Burke is telling them that, yes, they do. They have the freedom, for example, to get out of whatever business it is they’re running. They have the freedom to not have employees. They have the freedom to ignore the mandate and suffer the legal consequences. Burke’s comments are a hard call to faithfulness to all those Catholic employers who have been outraged by the mandate but might have been tempted to justify their ultimate compliance with it with that perennial of excuses: “I had no choice.” The seriousness of Burke’s words are also a warning to the Obama administration: He is saying that Catholic employers should go out of business before they comply with the mandate. Just as opponents have said from the very beginning, the mandate does, in fact, endanger the very existence of Catholic hospitals, schools and other charitable organizations. The president had better think long and hard about whether contraception coverage is more important to him than broader health care, education and help for the poor.

• Catholic Cardinal: Yes, it’s a sin to comply with the Obamacare mandate
• Catholic Cardinal: A Sin to Cooperate With Obama Mandate

Related:

• Moving Beyond
• Exile to Malta for Cardinal Burke
• The Scandal That is Eating the Heart out of the Catholic Church in America
• Cardinal Raymond Burke: Obama’s Policies ‘Have Become Progressively More Hostile Toward Christian Civilization’

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

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