{"id":7991,"date":"2004-02-05T08:24:25","date_gmt":"2004-02-05T08:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/02\/evaluating_burke.html"},"modified":"2004-02-05T08:24:25","modified_gmt":"2004-02-05T08:24:25","slug":"evaluating_burke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/02\/evaluating_burke.html","title":{"rendered":"Evaluating Burke"},"content":{"rendered":"

From NCR’s Washington Notebook<\/a><\/p>\n

Next, did Burke, a canon lawyer, act properly under church law? Hard to tell.<\/p>\n

He employed Canon 915, which allows a bishop, in the name of quashing scandal and instructing the faithful, to deny communion to someone he determines is guilty of “manifest grave sin.” But Canon 915, because it represents a restriction on a right (in this case, the right to receive communion, found in Canon 912) must be interpreted narrowly. <\/p>\n

Burke’s public “notification” is broadly written; it applies to all legislators in the Diocese of La Crosse. A canonical no-no? Perhaps. Those affected by Burke’s order, the “pro-choice” lawmakers, can appeal to Rome if they feel procedures have been abused. <\/p>\n

Third, was Burke’s action theologically sound? Depends on whom you ask. <\/p>\n

The burden is on the lawmakers, not the bishop, says Princeton University’s Robert George. “You are not fully in communion with the church if you have placed yourself on the side of so grave an injustice in the public realm thus denying to some members of the human family their basic human rights.” Burke, said George, is “making clear that [this] is a fundamental matter on which a pretense of unity will not be tolerated, cannot be tolerated.” <\/p>\n

Burke’s way off base, counters Loyola Marymount theologian Michael Horan. <\/p>\n

“From a pastoral theological perspective, this new policy, if made practice by the bishop toward individual Catholics, is more likely to cause scandal than the practice of the politicians themselves,” says Horan. <\/p>\n

He continued: “The bishop’s point of view presumes that the Eucharist is a reward for good behavior. Interestingly, the only transgressions for which the early church communities practiced excommunication were adultery, apostasy and murder (of human beings already born). Abortion was not one of the transgressions that merited excommunication.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From NCR’s Washington Notebook Next, did Burke, a canon lawyer, act properly under church law? Hard to tell. 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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\/7991","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=7991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}