Bishops, communion, politicians, part III - laity

The clergy, in Catholic faith, may be the church's emissaries to the altar, but it is the people, the laity, who are the church's emissaries to the world. We are doctors, lawyers, short order cooks, construction workers, artists, grandparents, and lifeguards. The laypeople take the faith they have in church and in private prayer, and out into their everyday lives. The gift we are given with which to do this is our conscience.

The Vatican II declaration of Religious Liberty (Dignitatis Humanae) says that in "all his activity a man is bound to order that he may come to God, the end and purpose of life. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in manner contrary to his conscience." The ultimate accountability a person has for their actions remains with his or herself. Communion is one of those areas where the believer has some decisions to make.

Catholics believe that you have to be in a state of grace to take communion. That is in part where this whole controversy comes from. We believe this because in 1 Corinthians 11:27, St. Paul says, "Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord." He has two meanings - the first is that he is chiding the Corinthians for behaving as though communion was just some supper where one comes to get fed.

But he has another meaning, which he follows the passage above with, saying, "A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself." We call this today the examination of conscience - we do it as we prepare for the confessional, we do it as we prepare for Mass. Nobody else can do it for us - we the believers, individually, have to make that determination. The Bible offers us the ten commandments, and that is the usual formula most people use.

Should bishops ban politicians from communion for having "wrong opinions?"

In my opinion, no.

For what is a political opinion? An opinion is just that - an opinion. Sin, especially mortal sin that a Catholic considers to interfere with grace, is an action. Just like a virtue is an action. Being "pro-family" is not a virtue. Helping a poor family make the rent is a virtue. If a politician creates something that is an evil and many people are hurt or harmed by that evil, that is an action, and a sin. However, even for that, there is always reconciliation, the sacrament of healing. The church is supposed to be generous with her sacraments so that the sacraments save, and not wield them as a weapon with which to participate in the culture wars.

Make no mistake - the believer is responsible for how they approach communion. If we believe something to be so sacred that it really is the body and blood, shed for the forgiveness of sin, we must approach it with the respect it deserves. But no bishop is in a church policing as to whether doctors, lawyers, and short order cooks are in a state of grace, and there is no guarantee that they are. It is left to each of them to make that determination. The bishops should not treat politicians differently, making examples of people in order to get newspaper headlines - people who may be guilty of nothing more than "wrong opinions." After all, there are many people with "right opinions" who are probably not in a state of grace - I've heard so many stories even in Canada of lecherous politicians having more affairs than I would think they'd have time for. No bishop is talking about banning them, because there'd be no grand statement in the act.

I approach the sacrament with reverence. I have, many times, not gone up for communion because I did not feel certain I could in good conscience. And I know my parish priest would probably roll his eyes, as he seems convinced most people's sins are quite banal, and that we're just not important enough in the scheme of things to be big league sinners. :-) But I do this anyway, as part of my own self evaluaton. Nobody can do this for me. I must. If my bishops tells me I can't, I won't, out of the humility of St. Monica. But what is truly right is that I decide - for other than God, who is likelier to know?