Ang. diskusjonen vi har hatt her i dag om hva som kan gj\u00f8re at man ikke tillater en person \u00e5 motta kommunion i Den katolske kire, ikke om hva som b\u00f8r f\u00e5 en person selv til \u00e5 holde seg borte fra nattverden – det er to litt forskjellig ting. Jeg leste for to m\u00e5neder siden et intervju av John Allen med den amerikanske kardinalen Francis George (pdf-fil) om akkurat dette sp\u00f8rsm\u00e5let, og vil her ta med noe av det interessante han der sier:<\/p>\n
– Another arena in which these identity tensions play themselves out is the question of Catholics in public life. Are we going to see a replay in 2008 of the tensions that surrounded the issue of communion for pro-choice Catholic politicians in 2004?<\/p>\n It depends what the media wants to play up. The bishops are not of one mind in approaching this question, and so that division can be played upon, in which case it will be with us. There are some who would say it\u2019s a moral theology question about the conscience of the individual. He or she has to be properly instructed, then come to communion in that perspective.<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n – Meaning that it\u2019s their business to make the proper decision?<\/p>\n Yes, [this view holds] that it\u2019s our business to instruct them, it\u2019s their business to make the decision. Others would say that it\u2019s not entirely that, because there\u2019s also public scandal, and therefore the public law of the church comes in. You have a canon that says the minister of communion, not the bishop, is to determine if it\u2019s a case of public scandal, then someone is to be refused communion. But that\u2019s the minister giving communion on the spot. The bishop can either encourage that or discourage that, I suppose, but in the canon itself it is first of all the minister giving communion at the time who makes that decision \u2026 the celebrant, or the extraordinary minister of the Eucharist, or the deacon, or whoever\u2019s giving communion.<\/p>\n – Do you have a policy on that in Chicago?<\/p>\n A policy that would say what?<\/p>\n – One that would specify under what circumstances someone should or should not be refused communion.<\/p>\n Our policy is the policy of the church, so if somebody is in a marriage that\u2019s not recognized by the church, and the one who gives communion knows, then he or she has no right to give communion because it\u2019s a matter of public scandal, assuming that it is public.<\/p>\n – What about a legislator who has voted in favor of a pro-abortion ordinance?<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think you should have a policy on that. I think you should talk first, determine what the state of the person\u2019s conscience is, what is in fact going on there. We\u2019ve done some of that. Of course, when all that is said and done, you have some people whose voting records are scandalous. Of course, in most cases they themselves continue to say, \u2018I personally accept the church\u2019s teaching,\u2019 which is the usual criterion for communion. That\u2019s the moral theology part of it. The other part is, whether you accept it or not, what you\u2019ve done is so scandalous that you\u2019re not worthy to receive the sacrament. That too is a prudential judgment, on the part of the minister. I don\u2019t see how you could have a policy about that.<\/p>\n – So we should not expect a unified position from the conference in terms of a national position?<\/p>\n We\u2019re going to talk about it. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s possible and what\u2019s not. But if it\u2019s a prudential judgment made by the individual minister, it\u2019s difficult to see how you could have a national standard. That\u2019s what the Code of Canon Law calls it.<\/p>\n – Have you seen Archbishop Raymond Burke\u2019s essay in De Re Canonica, in which he argues that we\u2019ve emphasized canon 916, which talks about the duty of the individual communicant, at the expense of canon 915, about the duty of the minister of the sacrament?<\/p>\n Yes, I think he argues very persuasively. I think it\u2019s a good canonical argument. But pastorally, you still have to decide what this means in the concrete cases we\u2019re talking about, so decisions still have to be made. You can point out that this is what the canons say, but what the canon says is that\u2019s the minister who does it. It\u2019s not first of all a bishop\u2019s problem. It has become a bishop\u2019s problem, because bishops are arguing about it.<\/p>\n – To take a specific example, if Rudy Giuliani is the Republican nominee and he shows up for Mass in the Archdiocese of Chicago, would you give him communion?<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think he\u2019s married in the church, so that\u2019s an easy one. We wouldn\u2019t even get to the question of his position on abortion.<\/p>\n – Would you agree that both the debates over liturgy and over Catholics in public life are rooted in a push for greater clarity about what makes Catholicism distinct \u2014 in other words, Catholic identity?<\/p>\n Yes, and that\u2019s why this argument on the part of Archbishop Burke is persuasive, because there is scandal. It is scandalous that after so many years of the church\u2019s constant teaching that you have so many Catholic politicians for whom this is a non-issue. They made up their mind that public policy is one thing and religion is private, and never the twain shall meet. Well, that\u2019s a scandal. The question is, do you use a sacramental moment to address that, and risk politicizing the sacrament? That\u2019s my biggest concern. The very sacrament that speaks about our unity becomes the occasion for this kind of fracas and disunity. I think we should think long and hard before we allow the Eucharist to become that. There are other ways, even a public declaration that Mr. So-and-So or Mrs. So-and-So is unworthy of receiving communion. After that, you don\u2019t put the onus on the minister, it\u2019s just out there. If they come to communion, they know. That would be far better than to take that moment of sacramental communion itself, and, you know, the flashbulbs go off. The minister may not even recognize someone coming up. It\u2019s a tremendous onus on the minister.<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ang. diskusjonen vi har hatt her i dag om hva som kan gj\u00f8re at man ikke tillater en person \u00e5 motta kommunion i Den katolske kire, ikke om hva som b\u00f8r f\u00e5 en person selv til \u00e5 holde seg borte fra nattverden – det er to litt forskjellig ting. Jeg leste for to m\u00e5neder siden […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-katolsk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6146,"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3210\/revisions\/6146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aomoi.net\/blogg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}