Catholic Replies
Editor’s Note: Regarding a recent reply about giving Holy Communion to everyone at a funeral or wedding, J.C. of Ontario, Canada, sent along the following comments:
“I appreciate the clear answers which were given to E.B. of New York. . . . I as a non-Catholic who is a Baptist am well aware that Protestants cannot participate with Catholics in Communion, which is made clear in the Church’s teachings. . . . I am not in any way offended by this clear teaching. I have attended Catholic weddings over the years as I rejoice with my Catholic friends. . . . But I remain in my seat in acknowledgment of the clear rules the Catholic Church has pointed out on those who can partake of Communion. . . .
“Prior to the Lord’s Supper at my local Baptist Church, our elder makes it very clear to the congregation that the church regards the bread and wine in communion as symbolic or a memorial, as well as making it clear that only those who have been baptized as believers and by immersion are permitted to participate. This would exclude not only Catholics but also Lutherans, who while rejecting the Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation, believe the bread remains bread, yet in some way it also actually contains Christ’s body after the prayer of consecration; likewise the wine contains His blood after this prayer, though it remains wine. . . .
“How I wish that Catholics and non-Catholics would consider the words of Thomas Jefferson’s 1786 Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, ‘that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion.’ Jefferson also said, ‘I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy as cause for withdrawing from a friend.’
“There must be more effort to spell out the various differences in the practice of communion in the Catholic and Protestant churches and to consider the words of the great Puritan Richard Baxter: ‘In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity’.”
Q. What happened to the title “Pastor Emeritus”? At my parish, the retired pastor was listed on the bulletin cover as Pastor Emeritus for about three years after he retired. But when a new pastor took over, he removed the priest from the bulletin cover. We thought he had died, but Father is alive and well and very enthusiastic about serving the parishioners in a variety of ways. Why was his title removed? — A.S., Illinois.
A. You would have to ask the new pastor, but the title “Pastor Emeritus” is not an official designation. It is a nice way of recognizing the service of a former pastor, but it is not mandated by canon law. Canon 519 says that “the pastor is the proper shepherd of the parish entrusted to him, exercising pastoral care in the community entrusted to him under the authority of the diocesan bishop in whose ministry of Christ he has been called to share; in accord with the norm of law he carries out for his community the duties of teaching, sanctifying, and governing, with the cooperation of other presbyters or deacons and the assistance of lay members of the Christian faithful.”
There is nothing about honoring a former pastor with the title “emeritus.”
Q. Last weekend I attended a Fatima conference sponsored by Our Lady’s Army of Advocates. Their website is Fatima.org and their address is Fatima Center, P.O. Box 1470, Buffalo, NY 14240. I was concerned that they were not in communion with the Catholic Church because of their teachings that the consecration of Russia by the Pope was not done properly, their acceptance of the Society of St. Pius X, and their numerous criticisms of Pope Francis and the bishops. They had a publication there called Fatima Crusader. What can you tell me about them? — M.S., via e-mail.
A. As we have mentioned several times in columns over the years, these people are not reliable interpreters of the Fatima phenomenon. Until his death in 2015, Fr. Nicholas Gruner was the driving force behind the Fatima Center and the Fatima Crusader. He had been suspended from priestly ministry since 1996 after he refused to return to the Diocese of Avellino, Italy, where he was ordained in 1976. He had made a career out of disputing the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and alleging that the full Third Secret of Fatima was not revealed in 2000.
His successors are still beating the same drum today, even though both Pope St. John Paul II and Sr. Lucia have said that the consecration was valid. Sr. Lucia said in 2001 that “the consecration that Our Lady wished for was accomplished in 1984, and that it was accepted by Heaven.” After the contents of the Third Secret were made public in 2000, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, said that the entire secret had been revealed and that no “exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world” had been concealed.
The best summary of all matters surrounding the Fatima apparitions, in our opinion, is Fr. Andrew Apostoli’s book Fatima for Today.
Q. Please research the origin of “personally opposed, but.” I believe it originated in the Richard Cardinal Cushing era with the Kennedy clan, and not with Mario Cuomo’s speech at Notre Dame in 1984. – R.B.K., via e-mail.
A. You could trace this mantra back to a speech by presidential candidate John F. Kennedy to a group of Protestant ministers in Houston in 1960. Responding to claims that his first allegiance as president would be to the Pope, Kennedy said that “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote. . . . I believe in a president whose views on religion are his own private affair, neither imposed upon him by the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition for holding that office.”
Kennedy said that “whatever issues may come before me as president, if I should be elected — on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling, or any other subject — I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressure or dictate. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.”
In the summer of 1964, a group of dissenting Catholic theologians, including Jesuits Richard McCormick, Robert Drinan, Joseph Fuchs, Giles Milhaven, and Fr. Charles Curran, met at the Cape Cod compound of the Kennedys to discuss how Catholic politicians could support abortion. In 1984, Fr. Milhaven told a pro-abortion group, Catholics for Free Choice, that “the theologians worked for a day and a half among ourselves at a nearby hotel. In the evening, we answered questions from the Kennedys and the Shrivers. Though the theologians disagreed on many a point, they all concurred on certain basics . . . and that was that a Catholic politician could in good conscience vote in favor of abortion.”
In 1965, when the Massachusetts legislature was debating whether to repeal a law banning the sale of contraceptives, Cardinal Cushing said that while he was personally opposed to contraception, “I am also convinced that I should not impose my position — moral beliefs or religious beliefs — on those of other faiths.” He told state legislators that “if your constituents want this legislation, vote for it.” The repeal bill was defeated in 1965, so Gov. John Volpe appointed a special commission to study the issue.
Serving on the commission were three men closely connected to Cardinal Cushing — his lawyer Henry Leen, the editor of his diocesan newspaper Msgr. Francis Lally, and a theologian from the diocesan seminary, Fr. James O’Donoghue. All three favored ending the ban on contraceptives, and Cushing wrote to the commission in 1966, saying that Catholics “do not seek to impose by law their moral view on other members of society.” With this green light, the State House of Representatives passed the repeal by a vote of 130-80.
So Catholic politicians since then have voted publicly in favor of great moral evils while claiming to be personally opposed to them.
