Catholics Urge Denial of Communion to Pro-Choice Politicians

Conservative Catholics in America are making more noise about their desire to see pro-choice Catholics denied communion. They are, I suppose, getting tired of having to share mass with Catholics who don’t think that the criminalization of abortion is the best or only way to reduce the number of abortions.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports:

The protesters held signs denouncing abortion and the voting record of Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Kerry, a staunch backer of abortion rights, has received communion at least twice at local parishes. ... "If you publicly advocate abortion, that is what that would be, and you would not be in communion with the Catholic Church," said Mary Kay Brown of Dorseyville, a protester and local coordinator for Operation Witness.

The Boston Globe reports on similar protests in New York City:

About 10 demonstrators attended a rally outside St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City organized by the Society for Truth and Justice, a conservative, Houston-based religious group that also opposes gay marriage. "We're here to send a message to American bishops to please end the scandal of pro-abortion Catholic politicians like John Kerry, who say it is OK to promote abortion as a moral good, a moral right for women, while also professing allegiance to and their communion with the Roman Catholic Church," said one of the protesters, Chris Slattery. "They are hypocrites," he said. "They are not true Catholics."

All the protests are small and seem to be made up of people who think that they have the authority to speak on what is and is not “true Catholicism.” Interestingly, Bishop Donald Wuerl is able to make it pretty clear that the people pushing this are not correctly following canon law:

The crux of the disagreement between Wuerl and the pickets concerns the interpretation and application of canon 915, which says that those "who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion." ... But Wuerl's speech argues that canon law must be interpreted in the light of the church's official theology. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that for a person to be considered in grave or mortal sin, not only does their action have to be evil, but their objective must be to commit such a sin, and they must do so in full knowledge of the sinfulness of their action and its consequences, he argued.

Helen Cindrich, president of People Concerned for the Unborn Child, the major anti-abortion group in Western Pennsylvania, empathized with the protesters' feelings, but supported Wuerl's principles. She noted that Pope John Paul II gives communion to everyone who comes forward. "These are people who love the church and feel very strongly about this issue," she said of the protesters. "But none of us is worthy to receive [communion]. The sacrament should not be used as a political tool."

Seems pretty straightforward to me. Most pro-choice Catholics probably don’t fall under canon 915 as someone who intends to commit a sin that they know is a sin; instead, they honestly disagree with what the Vatican says and honestly believe that there are better ways of going about things. Moreover, it seems rather arrogant for conservative Catholics to go around arguing “I’m more worthy of receiving communion than thee!”

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