Earlier this week the Catholic World News reported that Democratic Presidential candidate John F. Kerry has now “incurred the penalty of excommunication from the Catholic Church” as a result of a Los Angeles canon lawyer’s lawsuit against the senator for his pro-abortion stance.

According to the article, Marc Balestrieri went to the Vatican to personally ask whether or not a Catholic’s open support of abortion rights rose to the level of heresy, and therefore to the level of excommunication.  Already several bishops in this country have openly told their subordinates to refuse communion and other Catholic sacraments to any politician who openly supports abortion, but the targeted politicians met these criticisms with derision.  Now, however, it would seem that the politicians will need to take the matter more seriously.

Apparently Balestrieri received a letter that said if “a Catholic publicly and obstinately supports the civil right to abortion, knowing that the Church teachers officially against that legislation, he or she commits that heresy envisioned by Can. 751 of the Code [of Canon law].  Provided that the presumptions of knowledge of the law and penalty and imputability are not rebutted in the external forum, one is automatically excommunicated.”  In other words: if you say you support abortion and don’t correct yourself, you’re no longer a Catholic.

There are, of course, two tiny problems with the letter other than its lack of the Holy See’s seal.  The first is the suggestion that the right to an abortion is somehow a civil right.  Killing the life of a child for no purpose is not a civil right granted to an individual.  Rape?  Incest?  Even the life of the mother?  Those are different circumstances, and even forgivable ones.

Psalm 139 reads, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (13-14).  In this sense, the child in the womb is a creation of God, an important concept to consider for those who profess their belief in Him.  Therefore, for those who truly believe, why would they support the destruction of an unborn gift from their Creator?  In Psalms, the creation of the child does not come from sin, rather it comes from the union of a man and a woman through copulation.  Incest and rape are regarded as sins, far more serious than simple fornication outside of marriage.  Jesus forgave those who were prostitutes and adulterers, but he did no such thing for murderers of the unborn or rapists.

The second foreseeable problem with the papal letter is that its content and delivery are precedent setting.  Balestrieri concedes to the Catholic World News “the response was unusual… [because] a response was provided to a layman at the request of the undersecretary in only 11 days, that the response was in writing, decisively clarifying the matter, and that it was in far greater detail than a typical official reply.”  Balestrieri adds, “Normally, only a bishop may request such a clarification of doctrine from the [Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith], such responses usually take a much longer time to be received, and they are rarely made public.”  The lawyer partially credits the enormous public complaints leveled against Kerry in his home archdiocese for the speed and clarity of the response.

This gray area will likely slow down the actual implementation and upholding of the papal decree, meaning that many bishops will be unlikely to withhold the sacraments from Kerry when he does show up for services.  That is too bad because it allows Kerry, and like-minded politicians, to get away with more of the same.  A person subscribes to a belief system – whether it’s a religion or some other personal system – because it helps to support their outlook on the world, and in the end, their moral framework.  For too long politicians have tried to be all things to all people, and Kerry especially is criticized for trying to have it both ways.

It would be nice to see the papal letter’s intent honored not to deny Kerry and other like-minded politicians the sacraments that they believe in, but rather because finally politicians like Senators Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Tom Harkin (D.-Iowa), and Susan Collins (R.-Maine) would have to decide what their belief system allows them to be first: a Catholic or a politician.

For too long, and for too many, it has been the latter at the expense of the former – a fact that tells you far more about the politician than about the belief structure they claim to hold dear.

| Main Page | Column Archive | Who Is Brian Clardy? | Files and Links | Feedback |

All written material on this website not attributed to another author is © 2001-2004 by Brian Clardy.
No part of this website may be reproduced in any way without the explicit consent of Brian Clardy.
All rights reserved.