troubled

I didn't plan to write another post about Catholicism. I thought I'd just maintain a "wait-and-see" attitude on Pope Benedict XVI. Though I consider myself a political radical when it comes to issues of war, poverty and justice, I'm not a party-line secular American liberal. When it comes to consideration of the "conservative" opinions on certain thorny issues -- notably right-to-life ones -- I'm inclined to give both sides equal time.

But tonight I read Peter J. Boyer's New Yorker piece on the conservative ascendency in the Church, and it has really shaken me. There are few recent incidents in contemporary Church history that I found more shameful than the effort last year to deny John Kerry (and, as promoted by some extremists, Catholics who voted for John Kerry) communion, ostensibly because of his support for laws that keep abortion legal. I comforted myself, though, with the thought that the American Conference of Catholic Bishops had come down against the politicization of communion, had rejected in effect the single-issue morality that seems to say "one's position on abortion rights is a litmus test that trumps all other factors in determining your allegiance to the faith." The Bishops' position in the past, one to which I still adhere, is that Catholics should embrace a "consistent ethic of life," that rejects not only abortion but capital punishment, war, as well as political and economic policies that contribute to poverty.

It turns out, though, that I was wrong. In fact, as the Bishops were meeting this summer and considering their position, they received a starkly conservative message from the Vatican. This message was suppressed by the more prgoressive leaders of the conference, but was later leaked in the Italian press. It read:

Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to receive Holy Communion... There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty but not, however, with regard to abortion and euthanasia... [Politicians who support abortion rights should be warned against it, and if] the person in question, with obstinate persistence, still presents himself to receive the Holy Eucharist, the minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it.

At one time, that position would have rightly been regarded as a radical fringe opinion, not so much conservative as totally extremist. But the man who wrote those words (less than a year ago), Joseph Ratzinger, is now the Pope.

It's hard to describe how I felt to read that. The sentiment -- to deny the Eucharist in that way, to refuse to distribute a sacrament that all Catholics believe is "life-giving" -- is, in fact, un-Christian. It's medieval. It's despotic and it has really forced me to reconsider a statement that I have often made (without hesitation and often to the shock of liberals in the room) that I would "renounce my American citizenship before I ever renounced my membership in the Catholic Church." I don't know whether I would say that or not any more, but perhaps (according to Pope Benedict), the choice of renouncing isn't mine to make. It seems like they don't want to have me.

Here's another choice (and chilling) quote from the article. This is from Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, a leading enforcer of right-leaning orthodoxy:

We're at a time for the Church in our country when some Catholics--too many--are
discovering that they've gradually become non-Catholics who happen to go to Mass. That's sad and difficult, and a judgment on a generation of Catholic leadership. But it may be exactly the moment of truth the Church needs.

Well, there are an awful lot of other "non-Catholics" out there who happen not only to go to Mass, but to pray, to dedicate their lives to charity, to work for social justice, to read Scripture, to spread the Good News, and to remain fervently to Jesus Christ and the saints. I suppose the Chuch would do better without all of us?