Excerpts from yesterday's column "One Canon 915 Case at a Time: Nancy Pelosi" by noted Canon Lawyer Dr. Ed Peters:
"Some who believe that Canon 915 is meant to be enforced might yet harbor reservations about actually barring from Communion this pro-abortion Catholic politician or that one, for fear of igniting endless debates about why one does not also bar that pro-abortion Catholic politician or this one. The prospect of being criticized for "imperfectly" applying the law might cause some prelates otherwise inclined to invoke the law to hesitate doing so.
I understand their concern, and have argued elsewhere that enforcement of Canon 915 is not as simple as some seem to believe. But, lest the perfect become the enemy of the good, I am convinced that one has to start what one might call the 'national application'* of Canon 915 somewhere, and that the best case to start with is that of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. (emphasis added).
Before proceeding, let's be very clear about something: verification of the conditions described in Canon 915 does not merely authorize ministers to withhold holy Communion from those 'obstinently preserving in manifest grave sin'; it requires ministers to withhold holy Communion in such cases, this, upon pain of dereliction of their sacred office (1983 CIC 128, 1389).
Now, I suggest that there is no US Catholic politician whose conduct at the national level is more stridently and widely pro-abortion (to name just one area in which Pelosi's machinations are gravely objectionable) and whose scandalous rhetoric is more overtly Catholic (many of her bizarre assertions the bishops have had to stop and refute) than is Nancy Pelosi's. If her prolonged public conduct does not qualify as obstinent perseverance in manifest grave sin, then, in all sincerity, I must admit to not knowing what would constitute obstinent perseverance in manifest grave sin." (emphasis added).
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I reprint below the closing paragraph of Fr. Malloy's January 2007 "Open Letter to Nancy Pelosi." Who knows how different the lanscape might be today had his example been followed by those with a greater degree of authority.
"Yes, Nancy, we would all like it if you were not so vocally pro-choice, i.e. pro-death. Until your choice is in line with Catholic doctrine, please, Nancy, do not receive the Eucharist when you attend Mass."
Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney
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Sadly, I'm starting to doubt Catholics believe in the real presence anymore. Of course Nancy Pelosi shouldn't receive communion--that there's even a debate is a sign of the problem. But how many people who take communion every Sunday unworthily? How many haven't been to confession in years, have extra-marital sex, calumniate their neighbors, and persist in other grave sins? How often does the priest move hosts between ciboria with a claw grip, tossing them about like poker chips? What happened to communion kneeling and on the tongue? Why are women wearing jeans and flip-flops reaching into the tabernacle and grabbing ciboria and handing out the body of Our Lord? Why don't priests take any of the proper steps anymore after a host is dropped? What happened to the use of patens to prevent such accidents? Until we bring back reverence and a sense of the sacred to the Eucharist, almost nobody is going to care enough about Nancy Pelosi to demand change.
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