{"id":771,"date":"2009-12-04T23:01:48","date_gmt":"2009-12-05T04:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/?p=771"},"modified":"2010-12-19T21:53:28","modified_gmt":"2010-12-20T02:53:28","slug":"patrick-kennedy-and-communion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/?p=771","title":{"rendered":"Patrick Kennedy and Communion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Previous I Read The News Today Entry<\/a> | Next I Read The News Today Entry<\/a><\/p>\n

Patrick Kennedy and Communion<\/h2>\n

News that Rhode Island Archbishop Thomas Tobin asked Congressman Patrick Kennedy in 2007 to stop receiving Communion<\/a> because of his public stance on abortion is a perfect example of the insanity loose in my Catholic Church these days.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We are supposed to be witnesses of Christ\u2019s love and his example \u2013 Catholics at all poles of all debates agree on that premise.\u00a0 Given that premise, what then do we observe about Jesus\u2019 example?\u00a0 Why, he\u2019s the guy who gets taken to task for dining with sinners.\u00a0 Matthew 9:9-13<\/a>; Mark 2:17<\/a>; Luke 5:30-32<\/a>.\u00a0 And it should be noted that in response, Jesus doesn\u2019t deny that the people he\u2019s eating with are sinners, or suggest that his questioners are wrong about that.\u00a0 He simply says that the sinners need most of all to be with him, so he can call them to repentance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So granting (without conceding) where Tobin and his ilk are starting from, that Catholic politicians who support abortion rights are committing grave sin, how on earth do Tobin et al. get to their conclusion that the politicians should be cast out from the sacred meal?\u00a0 Are the politicians in question not, on the authority of divine example, to be regarded as the ones who need it most of all (accompanied with however many admonitions about the supposed sinfulness of their outlook and actions)?\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was reported that Archbishop Raymond Burke asserts it is simply a matter of Church law, which unambiguously (so he says) commands this<\/a>.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t cite chapter and verse, and I\u2019m no canon lawyer.\u00a0 But assuming he\u2019s correct, isn\u2019t this a case of Church law seeking to be greater than the God who founded the Church?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Burke\u2019s gloss on this is that pro-choice\u00a0politicians who receive Communion are attempting to \u201cus[e] that reception for political leverage.\u201d\u00a0 Could be.\u00a0 No doubt, though, that some of the sinners who broke bread with Jesus were also attempting to make a point of their own.\u00a0 They surely must have hoped that they could be seen with this prophet and holy man, and still go on being what they were.\u00a0 And no doubt they hoped that this would make the world think better of the sins the sinners would not necessarily give up.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t deter Jesus.\u00a0 Jesus, as we know, was never deterred because he might be victimized or exploited.<\/p>\n

\u00a0If you are a follower of Jesus, therefore, you simply do not get to cast someone seeking to break bread with you out from your midst because you believe, however profoundly, that he or she is sinful.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A proposition which will come in handy for Archbishops Tobin and Burke if they ever have the courage to ask to dine with me.\u00a0 Because I think they\u2019re plenty sinful.\u00a0 Lucky for them I try to be a good Christian.<\/p>\n

Copyright\u00a0(c) Jack L. B. Gohn<\/p>\n

Previous I Read The News Today Entry<\/a> | Next I Read The News Today Entry<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What then do we observe about Jesus\u2019 example? Why, he\u2019s the guy who gets taken to task for dining with sinners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[791],"tags":[858,856,863,862,860,857,859,861],"class_list":["post-771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-i-read-the-news-today","tag-archbishop-raymond-burke","tag-archbishop-thomas-tobin","tag-catholic-church","tag-church-law","tag-communion","tag-congressman-patrick-kennedy","tag-dining-with-sinners","tag-holy-communion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=771"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1703,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771\/revisions\/1703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}