Saturday, June 19, 2021

Beams, Splinters, and The Table

Let's start there, as appropriate perspective on this topic.  Not because Charlie is right, but because everything is a conspiracy of some kind, if you just leave enough facts out. I don't have a dog in this fight. I cannot absolutely reject or accept this position. I even have to be careful to to presume a position of judgment. The question of Newt Ginrich is an interesting one, as he was the Ambassador to the Vatican at one time.  But I guess his position on abortion was okay.  I will not get into the is mortal sin v. venial sins. I will point out that marriage is a Sacranemt in the Catholic church, which is one reason divorce is frowned on. Is violating a sacrament not as bad as taking a position on a public and political issue?

Except the problem is not yet what the USCCB did.  The problem right now is how it was…well, misreported. 

U.S. Catholic bishops overwhelmingly approved the drafting of a “teaching document” that many of them hope will rebuke Catholic politicians, including President Joe Biden, for receiving Communion despite their support for abortion rights.

Which is not quite the same thing as saying "The Bishops excommunicated Joe Biden and told all Catholic Democratic office holders to watch their six!"

As a result of the vote, the USCCB’s doctrine committee will draft a statement on the meaning of Communion in the life of the church that will be submitted for consideration at a future meeting, probably an in-person gathering in November.

One section of the document is intended to include a specific admonition to Catholic politicians and other public figures who disobey church teaching on abortion and other core doctrinal issues. 

This is more of a "fixin' to get around to it" moment than it is a "make the king crawl on his knees through to the snow to our castle in the mountains" moment (blame my vivid Protestant imagination for some of this).  Let's finish how HuffPost tells this story with this:

[Bishop Kevin] Rhoades [Chairman of the USCCB doctrine committee] also said the document would not mention Biden or other individuals by name and would offer guidelines rather than imposing a mandatory national policy.

That would leave decisions about Communion for specific churchgoers up to individual bishops and archbishops. Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, has made clear that Biden is welcome to receive Communion at churches in the archdiocese.

Which sets the USCCB at odds with the Pope (not, at this point, to be confused with "Rome", I think), but doesn't exactly drop the hammer on anybody's head.  Not that some bishops, per the NYT, don't want to do just that.

Elizabeth Dias frames it this way:

The Roman Catholic bishops of the United States, flouting a warning from the Vatican, have overwhelmingly voted to draft guidance on the sacrament of the Eucharist, advancing a push by conservative bishops to deny President Biden communion because of his support of abortion rights.

Now, granted, excommunication may not be excommunication any more in the Church.  When the Church was THE Church, the power of excommunication was an important, if not extreme, one.  So maybe church doctrine just calls it "denying communion," but I don't think that's quite as anodyne as the term sounds.  I used to take communion to invalids and "shut-ins," to make them as much a part of the church community as possible.  Cutting them off from that would have simply been cruel; but it wouldn't have been "excommunication."  By which I mean, I'm not sure the term really reflects Christian practices in the modern world.

Anyway....

Per the NYT account, somebody wants everyone else to think this is about Biden, and that it's a power struggle, to boot:

But the move to target a president, who regularly attends Mass and has spent a lifetime steeped in Christian rituals and practices, is striking coming from leaders of the president’s own faith, particularly after many conservative Catholics turned a blind eye to the sexual improprieties of former President Donald J. Trump because they supported his political agenda. It reveals a uniquely American Catholicism increasingly at odds with Rome and Pope Francis.

At which point I say:  maybe it is, or maybe some of the fringe elements of the USCCB want it to appear to be a power struggle.  After all, if you're taking on the POTUS and the Pope, you must be pretty powerful too, right?  To those people the NYT says:  "We got your back!"

The text of the proposal itself has not been written and would ultimately require approval by a two-thirds majority vote. The proposed outline, earlier reported by America Magazine, said it would “include the theological foundation for the Church’s discipline concerning the reception of Holy Communion and a special call for those Catholics who are cultural, political, or parochial leaders to witness the faith.”

Some conservatives want to use such a statement as theological justification to deny communion to Mr. Biden and Catholic politicians like him who support abortion rights.

First, Pope Francis and Joe Biden don't embrace a "liberal Christianity."  Not in any sense of how that term is used among Christians:

Mr. Biden, like Pope Francis, embodies a liberal Christianity focused less on sexual politics and more on racial inequality, climate change and poverty. His administration is a reversal of the power that abortion opponents, including bishops who advanced the measure, enjoyed under Mr. Trump. 

I mean, Biden and the Pope are "liberal Christians" if Focus on the Family and Liberty University are normative for Christianity.  They aren't, and "liberal" Christians has a meaning far apart from the usual American political labels (labels that really have no counterpart in Europe, much less most of the rest of the world).  Now, this is worth noting:

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, an assembly of the country’s 433 active and retired bishops, can issue guideline statements, but it does not have the authority to decide who can or cannot receive the sacrament of communion. That power is reserved for the local bishop, who has autonomy in his diocese, or the Pope. 

Not that the NYT notes that Biden's local Bishop has no intention of refusing him access to the sacrament.  Politics, however, is inevitably involved:

The tension over Mr. Biden’s abortion policies has been growing for months. Shortly after Mr. Biden’s election in November, Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, announced the unusual creation of a working group to address conflicts that could arise between his administration’s policies and church teaching.

On Inauguration Day, Archbishop Gomez issued a statement criticizing Mr. Biden for policies “that would advance moral evils” especially “in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender.” 

Although I do love this comment:

“We’ve never had a situation like this where the executive is a Catholic president who is opposed to the teaching of the church,” Bishop Liam Cary of Baker, in Oregon, said. 

Has the teachings of the church on marriage and faithfulness to one's spouse changed since Kennedy was assassinated?  Because he was famously the first Catholic President, and equally famously a philanderer who could have taught Bill Clinton lessons.

And it looks like it is gonna come down to that question of some sins being worse than others:

We need to accept the church’s discipline that those who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion,” [Bishop Rhoades] said.

Which brings me back to the beam in my eye, and the splinter in yours.  But it also leaves me wondering whose frame is right:  HuffPo's, or the NYT's?

And who's going to get this damned beam out of my eye? 

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4 comments:

  1. rick allen4:30 PM

    My two cents:

    A recently coined term of abuse in modern Catholic polemics is “Cafeteria Catholic.” You pick and choose among Church doctrines. Given as a standard JPII’s 600 page catechism, I know very few Catholics, traditional, progressive, or somewhere in between, who don’t have their doubts about something. Don’t know what made abortion the acid test.

    Second, one can consider abortion a serious sin without thinking that the best way of opposing it is secular law tossing moms in prison.

    Third, I’m not sure about the idea that the clergy has a duty to protect the sacrament from the sinning laity. Admonitions are fine—you are taking a risk if you commune when you shouldn’t —but to deny the sacrament is effectively to excommunicate.

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    1. Rmj4:34 PM

      Yeah, I kinda think it went out by the 16th century, but I’m neither Catholic nor a church historian.

      Delete
  2. The Thought Criminal7:24 AM

    Pope Francis should use the suppression of the Donatist heresy, that sought to invalidate the legitimacy of the Sacraments if the priest administering them fell short of their standards of sanctity and orthodoxy, he should declare that since that ancient stand legitimated the Sacraments even when administered by a priest who fell short, that when lay persons do, their receiving of the Sacraments is also legitimate. Somewhere in the 4th century, Pope Miltiades did it. Had to look it up, I forgot his name. Who would have thought that neo-Donatism would represent a majority of the USCCB in the wake of JPII and Benedict XVI.

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    Replies
    1. Rmj10:44 AM

      Convenient heresies are no longer heresies. A reminder that the observation that “peer tends to corrupt” was aimed at the actions of the Pope who declared the Papal See infallible in certain matters.

      Heresies are more often than not, about the permissible and impermissible exercise of power.

      Yeah, who knew so many “conservative” Bishops were Donatists?

      Delete

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