{"id":7144,"date":"2004-06-16T15:18:27","date_gmt":"2004-06-16T15:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/06\/in_america_1.html"},"modified":"2004-06-16T15:18:27","modified_gmt":"2004-06-16T15:18:27","slug":"in_america_1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/06\/in_america_1.html","title":{"rendered":"In America"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two articles on bishops, politicians and Communion:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.americamagazine.org\/articles\/Burke-communion.cfm\">Archbishop Burke<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Did I impose a canonical sanction on the Catholic politicians from the Diocese of La Crosse, who had departed from the church\u2019s teaching on the inviolability of human life? I did not. I merely declared that public cooperation in a gravely sinful act, which has always excluded one from the worthy reception of the sacrament and is the cause of scandal, was present in the situation I was addressing. Here I note that the declaration regarding the exclusion from holy Communion came only after a personal communication of the church\u2019s teaching and the request to speak with the Catholic politicians about the gravity of their position. Canon 915 does not require that the competent authority in the church actually judge the state of a person\u2019s soul, which only God can do, but rather the objective contradiction between the faith the person professes and his or her persistent actions contrary to clear teaching, after pastoral admonition, especially in the light of the harm that such counter-witness causes. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.americamagazine.org\/articles\/Beal-communion.cfm\">Canonist John P. Beal<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It may be objected that by making it difficult to discipline erring members of the flock by refusing them Communion, this strict interpretation of Canon 915 makes \u201ca scarecrow of the law.\u201d This was, in fact, an objection raised during the code revision process about drafts of what eventually became Canon 915. The response of the commission responsible for revision, however, was not to lower the bar for refusing holy Communion but, if anything, to raise it. One of the functions of law in the church, as in every society, is to make it difficult for people, especially those in authority, to act on their visceral instincts, lest hasty action inadvertently harm a higher ecclesial value. By making it difficult for church authorities to refuse admission to holy Communion to politicians whose public records arguably cannot be squared with church teaching, a necessarily strict interpretation of Canon 915 serves as a brake on the temptation to politicize the Eucharist by allowing the sacrament that signifies and effects the union of love between Christ and the church to become a sacrament that signifies and brings about disunity. Zeal to protect the Eucharist from profanation by sinners can unwittingly lead to an even greater profanation by transforming the eucharistic celebration into a continuation of politics by liturgical means.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two articles on bishops, politicians and Communion: Archbishop Burke Did I impose a canonical sanction on the Catholic politicians from the Diocese of La Crosse, who had departed from the church\u2019s teaching on the inviolability of human life? I did not. I merely declared that public cooperation in a gravely sinful act, which has always&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>In America - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/06\/in_america_1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In America - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Two articles on bishops, politicians and Communion: Archbishop Burke Did I impose a canonical sanction on the Catholic politicians from the Diocese of La Crosse, who had departed from the church\u2019s teaching on the inviolability of human life? I did not. I merely declared that public cooperation in a gravely sinful act, which has always&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/06\/in_america_1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2004-06-16T15:18:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"In America - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/06\/in_america_1.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"In America - Via Media","og_description":"Two articles on bishops, politicians and Communion: Archbishop Burke Did I impose a canonical sanction on the Catholic politicians from the Diocese of La Crosse, who had departed from the church\u2019s teaching on the inviolability of human life? I did not. I merely declared that public cooperation in a gravely sinful act, which has always&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/06\/in_america_1.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2004-06-16T15:18:27+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/06\/in_america_1.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/06\/in_america_1.html","name":"In America - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2004-06-16T15:18:27+00:00","dateModified":"2004-06-16T15:18:27+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/06\/in_america_1.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/06\/in_america_1.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/06\/in_america_1.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"In America"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}