Editor’s Note: Some words of wisdom from Fr. George Rutler in the parish bulletin of The Church of St. Michael in New York City:
“The other day, intemperate journalists accused youths from a Catholic high school in Covington, Ky., of making racial threats against an elderly Native American during the March for Life. Videos proved that there was no truth to it, but a flurry of ‘virtue signaling’ berated the boys without giving them a chance to testify. One might expect that from secular bigots, but not from their own diocese with its knee-jerk condemnation of the youths. Apologies have been coming in, but probably the last to correct themselves will be the epicene Church bureaucrats.
“Quickly, The Washington Post published a screed against ‘the shameful exploitation’ of Native Americans by the Catholic Church. No mention was made of the Jesuit Martyrs who endured torture and death to bring the Gospel to the native peoples, or of St. Kateri Tekakwitha who was exiled by her own Mohawks for her love of Christ, or St. Junipero Serra who transformed the fortunes of the indigenous California ‘gatherer’ culture, or St. Katharine Drexel who donated her vast inheritance to establish fifty missions among the native peoples, or heroic Bishop Martin Marty of the Dakota Territory, or Fr. Pierre De Smet who enabled the Fort Laramie Sioux Treaty of 1868 and so befriended Chief Tatanka Iyotake (‘Sitting Bull’) that the chief wore a crucifix to his dying day and encouraged his friend Buffalo Bill Cody to be baptized the day before he died. Defamation by journalists is sinful, but to detract from saints is blasphemous.
“The mental image of Pope Leo XIII applauding the Wild West Show of Buffalo Bill and Chief Sitting Bull on tour in Rome would confound The Washington Post. But that is a fact, and Catholics who do not know their history are accountable for letting it be maligned.”
(Note: Bishop Roger Foys of Covington issued an apology January 25 for a January 19 diocesan statement that condemned the alleged actions of the Covington Catholic High School students.)
Q. On Sundays at my parish church, a deacon has a service with Holy Communion at 10 a.m. and 12 p.m., instead of the celebration of Mass by a priest. Does this service by a deacon fulfill my obligation to attend Mass on Sundays? — A.S., Illinois.
A. No, it does not fulfill your obligation. However, if there is no priest available on Sunday, obviously there would be no way of fulfilling your obligation, and no sin would be attached to missing Mass under those circumstances.
It should be pointed out that Communion services are not to be conducted in a parish where there has been a Mass on the previous Sunday, or where there will be a Mass on the following Sunday (cf. Redemptionis Sacramentum, n. 166). If there is a legitimate reason for a Communion service, said Redemptionis Sacramentum (n. 165), “it is necessary to avoid any sort of confusion between this type of gathering and the celebration of the Eucharist. The diocesan bishops, therefore, should prudently discern whether Holy Communion ought to be distributed in these gatherings.”
Q. In view of Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York’s crazy, demonic actions regarding the late-term abortion bill he signed into law and celebrated by ordering state landmarks to be lighted in pink “to celebrate this achievement and shine a bright light forward for the rest of the nation to follow,” what will it take for the Catholic Church to excommunicate him? His actions are so outrageous that not excommunicating him would further damage the Church and drive away membership. The old excuse of “personally opposed, but,” which was started by his father, Mario Cuomo, in a speech at Notre Dame in 1984, is bogus. — R.B.K., Virginia.
A. From what we have read, Gov. Cuomo is not subject to automatic excommunication for signing into law and celebrating a measure that would make abortion legal up to the moment of birth. Canon 1398 of the Code of Canon Law says that “a person who procures a completed abortion incurs an automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication.” This means that all those involved in the deliberate and successful effort to bring about a completed abortion, including the doctor, the woman, and family members, friends, and counselors who advised the abortion, would be automatically excommunicated, provided that each of these persons knew the Church’s penalty for this action but went ahead with it anyway.
According to canons 1323 and 1324, however, excommunication would not be automatically incurred if a person were truly ignorant of the penalty attached to procuring an abortion, were under the age of 16, thought that the law applied only to the person having the abortion and not to her accomplices, acted out of serious fear about parental or societal reaction to the pregnancy, or erroneously believed that the abortion was necessary to save the mother’s life.
Responding to a similar question back in 2000, the respected moral theologian Msgr. William B. Smith said that the pro-abortion record of politicians who call themselves Catholics is “a scandal to the Faith and is radically inconsistent with being a ‘practicing Catholic.’ It is not, however, an automatic excommunication.” He said that pro-abortion politicians are not off the hook since “abortion is the direct killing of a moral innocent (i.e., morally it’s murder). By every moral standard, every direct and deliberate act of that kind (murder) is an objective offense against the natural law and divine positive law, from which no one on this planet is exempt. By definition, this is grave scandal and incompatible with being a practicing Catholic. Those who promote, sustain, and expand abortion cannot disentangle themselves completely from this grave sin and objective injustice.”
So what can be done about Andrew Cuomo? Something should be done, if not under canon 1398, then under canon 1369, which calls for punishment of “a person who uses a public show or speech, published writings, or other media of social communication to blaspheme, seriously damage good morals, express wrongs against religion or against the Church or stir up hatred or contempt against religion or the Church.”
Also applicable to Cuomo is canon 915, which prohibits giving the Holy Eucharist to persons “who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin.” Canon lawyer Dr. Edward Peters contends that Gov. Cuomo is already barred from receiving the Eucharist because of living with a woman to whom he is not married, but he says that the bishops of New York State “may wish to reiterate that ban publicly” in light of Cuomo’s “rabid support for this ghoulish abortion law.” He says that such action would not only safeguard the Eucharist from abuse, but would also “protect the faith community from scandal” and “give serious witness to the world about the importance of Church teaching to Church members.”
Timothy Cardinal Dolan, the archbishop of New York, said that he has received “wheelbarrows of letters” asking that Cuomo be excommunicated, but he claimed that such a step would be “counterproductive.” He said that “we have a governor that brags about it. We have a governor that uses his dissent from Church teaching as applause lines. We have a governor that takes quotes from Pope Francis out of context to draw an artificial cleavage between the bishops in New York and the Holy Father himself. He’s not going to be moved by this. So what would be the use?”
Dr. Peters concedes that “Catholics in the public sphere have grown thoroughly accustomed to doing Catholicism as they see fit and show little inclination to be told otherwise,” and says that clerics who attempt “to apply canon 915 in any noticeable way should expect to be called a pedophile and ignored.” But, he says, “these are precisely reasons why I think canon 915’s moment has arrived. The Church’s profane power is unlikely to bring about internal reform in this area today, but the divine witness of laity and clergy faithful to her teachings can.”
By the way, one of the landmarks that Gov. Cuomo ordered lit up to celebrate the massacre of the innocents was the Freedom Tower at the site of the former World Trade Center that was destroyed by Islamic terrorists in 2001. Ironically, a plaque at the site of the memorial lists eleven “unborn babies” who were killed along with their mothers. Many, many more will be killed as a result of the actions of the New York state legislature and the governor.
Blogger Matt Walsh wonders if we called unborn babies “undocumented infants,” would abortionists stop killing them? He says that it is hypocritical to support children coming to the United States from other countries, but not to support “undocumented infants who are trying to cross the border of the birth canal in hopes of a better life.”
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