What a lot of people don’t understand about the ecclesiastical sentence of excommunication is that it’s a medicinal penalty intended to move the guilty party to repentance.
San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has invited US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to examine and repent of her sins by barring her from receiving Holy Communion.
… Cordileone has instructed Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi, an outspokenly pro-abortion Democrat, not to present herself for Holy Communion in his diocese.
“[Y]ou are not to present yourself for Holy Communion and, should you do so, you are not to be admitted to Holy Communion, until such time as you [publicly] repudiate your advocacy for the legitimacy of abortion and confess and receive absolution of this grave sin in the sacrament of Penance,” Cordileone wrote to Pelosi …
It bears mentioning that Cordileone is only following Canon 915 and St. John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae. The former lays down the penalty of minor excommunication for those who persist in grave, manifest, public sin. The latter infallibly removes the “public and private position” loophole for pro-infanticide elected officials.
In a sane world that had an episcopate with the courage of their convictions, a bishop pointing out that an obstinate mortal sinner has placed herself outside of communion with the Church would not make the news.
But because we live in Clown World, where too many bishops have been derelict in their judicial duty, witches spent the weekend flipping out on Twitter.
Every. Single. Time.
Of course, His Excellency is to be commended for his paroxysm-inducing rebuke of a Death Cult high priestess. It’s the latest in a recent series of wins for normal people.
To God be the glory!
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I’m reminded of a scene from the Sopranos where an old school mafiosi was pushed to his wit’s end by a younger generation that didn’t respect the old guard and didn’t follow tradition. He laments the fact that he compromised on position after position until he looked weak and soft in the eyes of others.
The episode ends with him saying, “no more, Butchie. No more of this.”
God bless this bishop, a true good shepherd.
This is why The Sopranos series could never be made today, and why they had to skinsuit the movie.
Thought experiment for those claiming that Jesus welcomes everyone to the table:
Do they think Jesus would sit down and break bread with someone who proclaimed “I will join you at the meal, on the assumption that in doing you, you acknowledge me as Lord and Messiah”?
“In doing *so* … ” Alas for the lack of an edit button!
Jesus would probably reveal the blasphemer’s foolishness in a way that would cause the blasphemer to flip the table and throw Him out of his house. St. Peter, on the other hand, would probably cause something terrible to happen—something short of the blasphemer losing his life.
Stated another day, do they think of Jesus as a real Person, at all? Do they think of Him as Someone who has standards about who sits down to dinner with Him, or the authority to set them? Do they listen when He says, ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of God has come near?” Do they hear when He says, “Woe to you, blind guides!” I expect the answers are no, no, and no.
I suppose, at least during His earthly ministry, the minimum standard was a willingness to listen. Had every tax collector, prostitute, or Pharisee He met at a dinner party decided to give up their sinful ways? Maybe, and maybe not, but I expect the sinners at least wanted hear to what He had to say, in case He could offer the grace and mercy the Pharisees didn’t. The kinds of dinners He attended before He instituted Holy Communion aren’t the same thing as Communion, of course, but I use them as an example of the sort of hospitality He accepted, and from whom.
Going back to the woke-scolds, they probably they would get onto Him for using scary patriarchal, monarchist language like “Kingdom of God” and “Our Father in Heaven.”
It’s not even a question of “would they?” because we can see them engaging in all of those behaviors now.
I’ve wondered lately whether the faithful during the times of Judges thought of themselves living in their own equivalent of “clown world” as everyone around them did what was right in their own eyes.
Another big thing overlooked is that these punishments are public because of the issue of scandal. Usually it is sufficient for the sinner to just go to confession, which the priest distributing the Eucharist might not even know about it (even if the confession wasn’t with another priest, I have heard priests say that as part of maintaining the seal of confession they try not to determine who is giving the confession and often forget the details quickly after the confession is done.)
But Pelosi’s actions are very public. By emphatically supporting abortion and still presenting herself as a Catholic in good standing, she is sending the message that she is doing nothing wrong and thus leading others into sin. And we know that this is happening because there are in fact many who call themselves Catholic and who have supported Pelosi in this situation by saying that she did nothing wrong (I’m not going to name names, but there are enough prominent examples of this sort of apologist online for you to fill in the blanks with your own example.)
If Pelosi were to merely confess her sins privately and then continue on, it would do nothing to fix the problem of the scandal she has caused. Her actions were very public, and thus her repudiation of her actions must also be public.
Yes, justice demands that the bad example given by her scandal be corrected.
Finally! Someone else can corroborate that priests forgetting confessed sins isn’t a Catholic may-may.
I have found that a Communion not taken in spite of the expectation of loved ones that I should do so, because I know I am in need of Confession, has graces comparable to its reception when not in sin, such is the honour and reverence shown to our Lord by refusing It justly in front of witnesses – witnesses to whom I confess I am in sin by this act of penance and love.
The grace is not the perfection of receiving our Lord justly, but loving consolation, and the motivation of the spirit to attend Confession soon after.