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Sunday, November 22, 2009
Communion and Consistency?
I post the following in the interest of stimulating thoughtful conversation on religion and politics, one of our specialties here. It turns out the Catholic Church has been urging Rep. Kennedy to avoid participating in communion based on his support for abortion rights. The story has been percolating intensely the last couple weeks but stems from a letter sent to Kennedy from a bishop based in RI back in 2007.
In response to this article, someone writes:
Now I'm not a Catholic, but this is despicable. The Church has never told supporters of the death penalty or the criminal wars not to receive communion. It has never denied communion to anyone who covered up the sexual abuse scandal. It has never linked communion to its own teachings on rich people and camels and eyes of needles. Hell, it has even gone out of its way to praise Pius XII and has a current pope who was a member of Hitler Youth. What more is there to say?
I suspect there is more to say than this provocative (incendiary?) comment, but I don't think I'm in a position informed enough to respond and would like to hear more about how these choices are made about which issues place politicians beyond communion, and which don't. For what it's worth, I don't doubt that other religions and religious organizations are regularly guilty of selective emphasis (aka hypocrisy), so blogging about this topic shouldn't suggest anything about my own inchoate views or that I think Catholics are occupying the field here. So, any thoughts in defense of the Bishop's choice or is this rank wrongness? Do people think (strictly from a normative/moral perspective, not legal) that isolating one group of persons is ok b/c the Church should be able to "regulate one step at a time"?
Now I'm not a Catholic, but this is despicable. The Church has never told supporters of the death penalty or the criminal wars not to receive communion. It has never denied communion to anyone who covered up the sexual abuse scandal. It has never linked communion to its own teachings on rich people and camels and eyes of needles. Hell, it has even gone out of its way to praise Pius XII and has a current pope who was a member of Hitler Youth. What more is there to say?
Posted by Dan Markel on November 22, 2009 at 02:47 PM in Current Affairs, Religion | Permalink
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In the commentary on the Code of Canon Law, here is a revealing statement:
"Likewise excluded are those who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin. In this third case, unlike the first two, there has been no public imposition or declaration of the person's state and so, before a minister can lawfully refuse the Eucharist, he must be certain that the person obstinately persists in a sinful situation or in sinful behavior that is manifest (i.e. public) and objectively grave."
Likewise in a memorandum by then Cardinal Ratzinger:
"'Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion', makes it clear that a Catholic politician's formal cooperation in abortion or euthanasia, that is, his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws, constitutes an objective situation of sin, and that, therefore, he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin."
As regards the "someone" above,
1. The Church teaching on the death penalty is different than that of abortion and euthanasia - someone publicly supporting the existence of the death penalty (which is also different than failing to take action to end its existence) is not in an objective situation of sin.
2. Those who covered up the sexual abuse, presuming they did not persist in such action after being put on notice, and presuming they confession such sin, are not any longer formally cooperating in the scandal, and (similarly to what might happen if Rep. Kennedy changed his position regarding abortion) are free to receive the Eucharist.
3. The literature regarding Pius XII is voluminous, and it is not decided at this point whether praise for Pius XII is out of order. The commentator reveals his / her own ignorance of the discussion of that Pope.
4. As for Pope Benedict being a member of the Hitler Youth, yet another instance of ignorance. I think even Wikipedia has it better than the commentator:
"Following his 14th birthday in 1941, Ratzinger was conscripted in the Hitler Youth, as membership was required for all 14-year old German boys after December 1939,[8] but was an unenthusiastic member and refused to attend meetings.[9] (His father was a bitter enemy of Nazism, believing it conflicted with the Catholic faith. In 1941, one of Ratzinger's cousins, a 14-year-old boy with Down syndrome, was taken away by the Nazi regime and killed during the Aktion T4 campaign of Nazi eugenics.[10]) In 1943, while still in seminary, he was drafted into the German anti-aircraft corps. Ratzinger then trained in the German infantry, but a subsequent illness precluded him from the usual rigours of military duty. As the Allied front drew closer to his post in 1945, he deserted back to his family's home in Traunstein after his unit had ceased to exist, just as American troops established their headquarters in the Ratzinger household. As a German soldier, he was put in a POW camp, but was released a few months later at the end of the war in the summer of 1945."
--Jonathan
Posted by: Jonathan | Nov 22, 2009 4:38:37 PM
Not every Church teaching is as bright-line as abortion, but some are. There were bishops who denied communion to Catholics who took public stances opposing the integration of parochial schools, for example.
Posted by: rob vischer | Nov 22, 2009 4:59:57 PM
Well, the usual problem with regulating one step at a time in both the moral and legal context is that it's often an attempt at justifying present selective enforcement of rules or morality by promising to be more consistent in a future that never arrives.
Posted by: Patrick | Nov 22, 2009 5:39:04 PM
Jonathan,
thanks for the helpful replies. I don't think they all "settle" the underlying challenge, but they do add some context. Btw, I didn't mean for the "someone" reference to be so obscure; it's the view of a friend of mine who made the comment on facebook.
Posted by: dan markel | Nov 22, 2009 9:01:51 PM
Dan,
I'm not sure it is possible or helpful to accuse the Church of "selective emphasis" or hypocrisy. The initial predicate here is a comparison of the relative morality of two acts: (1) supporting abortion, and (2) supporting the death penalty, or covering up abuse, or whatever.
Presumably, everyone can agree that if 1 is worse than 2, the Church is entitled to impose the penalty on 1 but not 2. The uselessness of the debate comes from how to judge "worse" in this situation.
Option A. You can say that *you* or "secular society" think that 2 is worse than 1. The problem here is that the Catholic Church, quite obviously and rightly, defines its own moral weights for these purposes. What anybody else's moral values might be is irrelevant to a charge of hypocrisy.
Option B. You argue that, under the Church's own teachings, it assigns greater moral weight to 2 than to 1. The problem here is how the Church defines the moral weight of a sin cannot be divorced from the penalty that it imposes. If it imposes a greater punishment on supporting abortion than on supporting the death penalty, that is almost by definition saying that the Church regards supporting abortion as a greater sin (or at least more worthy of punishment). A tautology cannot be attacked for being self-contradictory.
Of course, nobody has to agree with the moral weights placed on various acts by the Catholic Church. But that is simply disagreeing with its teachings. Saying the Church's teachings are wrong is different from saying that they are self-contradictory and hypocritical.
Posted by: TJ | Nov 22, 2009 11:08:24 PM
Dan,
I am curious - what do you think is the nature of the underlying challenge?
It seems to me that an understanding of what exactly is occurring in the case of Rep. Kennedy requires an understanding of both the nature of the moral teaching of the Catholic Church (e.g., abortion and the death penalty differ greatly in their nature, as do abortion and the cover-up of sexual abusers), and the nature of the relationship between the Church and professed Catholics (what we are dealing with here is a member of the Church who persists in scandalous behavior). In such an understanding, were a professed Catholic to insist that pedophilia / ephebophilia were normal states for a person, and that the Church was wrong in defining such things as evil, that person would face the same strictures that Rep. Kennedy now faces.
--Jonathan
Posted by: Jonathan | Nov 22, 2009 11:16:50 PM
Dan,
I believe the Bishop's letter, referenced below, bears out at least some of my thoughts:
http://the-american-catholic.com/2009/11/22/patrick-kennedy-barred-from-communion/
-Jonathan
Posted by: Jonathan | Nov 22, 2009 11:20:08 PM
The Church is nothing if not logical. And because they define all their own premises by various species of decrees, divine and otherwise, there is really no point in arguing. But in the end, right practice, not defined by mere Canon Law (unless Jonathan cites something to correct me), determines your ultimate fate upon physical death. And because the Church ultimately defers to God, and the Pope has rarely spoken infallibly, right practice may turn out to be quite liberal.
Posted by: anon | Nov 23, 2009 7:52:25 AM
Vatican Searches for Aliens
19-Nov-2009
Not many people realize that the Vatican has an expensive state-of-the-art observatory in Arizona that they are using to search for extraterrestrial life (and they hope to have results soon!) The facility is run by Jesuit Jose Gabriel Funes, who is also an astronomer. Did they pick Arizona not only for its clear skies, but also because of the Phoenix Lights?
In the Huffington Post, Ariel David quotes Funes as saying, "The questions of life's origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration." Funes adds that the possibility of alien life raises "many philosophic al and theological implications."
David quotes astronomy professor Chris Impey as saying, "If biology is not unique to the Earth, or life elsewhere differs bio- chemically from our version, or we ever make contact with an intelligent species in the vastness of space, the implications for our self- image will be profound."
Posted by: anon1 | Nov 23, 2009 8:04:32 AM
TJ/Jonathan, and others, thanks for these illuminating comments. Very helpful to me in understanding how these choices are made. FWIW, my sense is that if TJ is correct, the charge of hypocrisy may be inapt, but of course, as TJ suggests, it places the Church in a space where many (within and outside the Church) might find its relative priorities quite misguided. Not sure which is worse: being thought a hypocrite or a fool/knave (depending on the mens rea one associates with the setting of these priorities). Of course, true belief is a shield against insecurities of this sort--and so, if the Church has it right on the merits, then how it's being thought of by others is much less significant. And in any event, none of this conversation is meant to disparage the wonderful work the Church does more generally. Thanks again.
Posted by: dan markel | Nov 23, 2009 9:05:19 AM
If it is clear, why is it that every Catholic politican who aids and abets abortion in similar ways (along with Justice Kennedy, I guess) not refused communion? We hear of various ones, but at no time do I hear of thousands of them -- and thousands do support abortion as a legal right, in votes and so forth -- being refused.
Given that, I fail to see how grave the wrong is -- if it was soooo very grave, how can the pope allow priests to do this? It seems rather arbitrary to me.
Posted by: Joe | Nov 23, 2009 11:01:18 AM
"If it is clear, why is it that every Catholic politican who aids and abets abortion in similar ways (along with Justice Kennedy, I guess) not refused communion? We hear of various ones, but at no time do I hear of thousands of them -- and thousands do support abortion as a legal right, in votes and so forth -- being refused....Given that, I fail to see how grave the wrong is -- if it was soooo very grave, how can the pope allow priests to do this? It seems rather arbitrary to me."
This is more the position of the local ordinary (usually, the Bishop) to make the determination - it is not usually the place of the priest of the local parish to make the decision.
As for why more politicians are not refused, again, this is a determination by the local Bishop, and some have more spine than others. Indeed, it is a great question as to why more pro-abortion politicians are not denied communion, and as a newer crop of Bishops replace some of the current ones who seem to be willing to let pro-abortion stances pass, you may see more of it.
See, for instance, here: http://www.lifenews.com/state3173b.html.
Posted by: Jonathan | Nov 23, 2009 1:01:15 PM
I'm not sure that the argument from "priorities" or "hypocrisy" is apt. The Church sees a moral difference between public support for abortion and public support for the death penalty, period. That's where the difference in treatment comes in.
So what sort of behavior would rise to the level of public support for abortion in the war / death penalty / abuse case?
...saying that sexual abuse is a matter of choice, or that initiating war is a matter of choice, or that administering the death penalty is a matter of choice.
I do not know of any politician who supports these things. Publicly, at least, all seem to agree that sexual abuse is always wrong, that there is such a thing as an objective standard governing war (you can't just start one because you feel like it), and that the death penalty is a matter of "desert" and states do not have license to administer it willy-nilly.
If a politician were to apply these standards to the abortion case, saying, e.g., that abortion is always wrong, that a woman's choice in the matter is constrained by objective and/or international norms (not a pure matter of choice), or that somehow certain fetuses can "deserve" abortion, and this politician were denied communion, one might be able to argue that like cases were being treated differently.
Posted by: AndyK | Nov 23, 2009 2:04:26 PM
I would second some of the other comments. The possible hypocricy has less to do with abortion vs. death penalty and more to do with Rep. Kennedy being singled out for being a Kennedy, while countless other politicians with similar views are allowed communion without objection. Here in the Netherlands, both abortion and euthanasia are broadly supported, including by the Catholics among the Christian Democratic Party. (Most notably the party's deputy leader, our currenty foreign minister.) If the Catholic Church in the Netherlands started to refuse communion to those who support a right to euthanasia, there'd hardly be anyone left, which - I assume - is why no such idea has ever been mooted here.
Is that hypocricy?
Posted by: Martin Holterman | Nov 23, 2009 2:09:49 PM
I second Jonathan, TJ, and everyone else who explained the inaccuracy of the oft-heard charge of Catholic hypocrisy about abortion/death penalty. Such charges reflect such a deep ignorance about Catholic teaaching, combined with a willingness to condemn without having the facts, that in some cases it comes close to, or crosses into, anti-Catholic prejudice. I hesitate to say so, as I dislike the Catholic League guy and others always whining, and I of course don't accuse Prof. Markel's friend based on the limited info here. But I think it is a valid concern, as condemning a group so strongly, without pausing to check the facts, is easier to do if you've prejudged them in the manner that we usually define as "prejudice" (putting aside the view that definitionally limits bigotry/prejudice to immutable characteristics, as many do speak of anti-Muslim bigotry, etc.)
By comparison, I think a parallel criticism against other religion or denomination, whether Islam, Jews, or any black Church, if equally based on ignorance about what that group's own teaching even is, would more quickly draw a charge of bigotry -- including from some of the same folks willing to take the cheap shots at the Catholics.
Try it. Post something, even on a silly facebook thread, that says Muslims are hypocrites for teaaching XYZ, when they don't. See what happens.
Thanks and compliments to Prof. Markel for not letting it pass, and for seeking information before deciding. We should all do that routinely, of course, especially academics, but since that's not the case, this example deserves praise.
Posted by: sad observer | Nov 23, 2009 2:55:09 PM
Mr. Holterman is right; the comparative is which politicians are targeted on abortion, not otehr issues. Belgium may be too far gone, so the issue is different treatment of American Catholic politicans. Aside frome the point that each bishop decides for himself, two other principles explain the differences: scandal and prudence.
Scandal is the danger that someone's behavior will lead others astray. A bishop should care about Kennedy's soul, but he must also consider whether others will say, "I guess supporting abortion is not that bad, because Kennedy is in good standing." Prudence asks whether a strategy will work, and Catholic teaching is full of prudential considerations.
Kerry illustrates how scandal changes things even in the same person's case: as a Senator, he did not affect American Catholics, but the specter of a dissenting Catholic Prez upped the stakes. Pelosi became more scandalous as Speaker, especially when she misstated teaching while trumpeting her Catholic bona fides.
With Kennedy, his family's prominence raises the danger of scandal, increasing his bishop's justification. Ted K.'s death reminded us that they are America's First Family of Catholicism, & their example matters. One well-written article argued that if Ted K. had stayed pro-life, it might have changed the whole debate, but his example made it easier for other Catholic Democrats to follow.
Both scandal and prudence allow consideration of current circumstances. Before, either a GOP Congress or President would stop any real movement on abortion, so pro-choice Democrats weren't a big threat to outcomes (aside from dreams of reversing Roe). Now, without enough Protestant GOPers to protect Catholic teaching, Catholic Dems are the bishops' last hope against a federal entrenchment of an abortion-friendly regime. For some unknown frosh Catholic deciding on Stupak, the Kennedy example looms large.
All this raises the stakes immensely. Those opposed to the Church's abortion views know that, too, and that is why so many are eager to fight this fight from the opposing side. I don't know how it'll turn out, but I expect it to heat up before cooling down.
Posted by: Catholic guy | Nov 23, 2009 5:02:16 PM
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