This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

Holy Communion is NOT a Right

It seems that few don't already know about what happened in Chicago on Sunday: Protesters denied Eucharist (link requires free registration).

The gay activist Rainbow Sash protestors were denied Holy Communion because not only do they adhere to beliefs about homosexual activity that contradict Church teaching, but by wearing their sashes they are making a public statement of their opposition to Church teaching. In the Church's view, to publicly espouse a belief and practice that contradicts what the Church believes and practices is to cause a rupture in the unity of the Church. And if one has knowingly and willfully broken unity with the Church, one makes a mockery of Holy Communion by partaking of the Mysteries.

But this is not something our U. S. consumerist culture gets.

Because we believe that our own desires and beliefs should be served, rather than conformed to the Church's beliefs, there is a growing schism between the faithful living of the Church's Life and that of consumerist living. As the article notes:

The debate is a reflection of a growing incongruity between the Catholic Church and an ever-changing society, said Donald Senior, president of the Catholic Theological Union, a graduate school of religion in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood.

"What I see is a much broader question of how Catholicism retains its own ethical integrity in the context of a pluralistic society," Senior said. "How do you negotiate a conviction, say on the issue of abortion, where the Catholic stand is very clear and morally consistent? And how do you live with that in a culture that has very different views on it and has embedded the views in law?"

Unfortunately, what has happened thus far is that the churches have capitulated to modern consumerist culture and have jettisoned the beliefs the Church has held for 2000 years, conforming themselves to the desires of their parishioners.

. . . Bishop John Manz presided over the 12:30 p.m. mass Sunday, where 37 adults were confirmed. Manz said that like those who divorce and then remarry, people who practice homosexual lifestyles are not in line with Catholic beliefs and should be denied Communion.

"The Eucharist for us is a symbol of unity," he said. "And those of us who come together to receive are in agreement."

Unfortunately, this discipline is not consistently adhered to in the Catholic Church, for there are many parishes where the clergy will knowingly commune those whose beliefs and lifestyles contradict Church teaching.

But for one Dennis Kluge, the rubric for how to handle this is not that of Scripture, the Canons, and the living Tradition of the Church, but of secular political rights:

But for Dennis Kluge, 51, of Chicago the decision of who should and should not receive the sacrament should be left to a higher power.

Kluge, who has participated in the sash movement since 2000, serves as a Eucharistic minister in Immaculate Conception. He said he has never denied a person Communion. "It's never my place to do that," he said. "That is between the person requesting Communion and God. No human has the right to deny Communion."

For all Kluge's rhetoric, neither he nor any of the activists and those in sympathy with them really want it left to a higher power. Or, rather, the higher power they want it left to is themselves, backed by the secular law courts. This is as antithetical to Christian belief as one can get (cf. 1 Corinthians 6).

But on one thing Kluge is right: No human has the right to deny Communion. He's right on two counts: there is no such thing as a right to Communion, so one cannot deny that which does not exist; and it is no human that grounds such a denial in the life of the Church, it is the Holy Spirit leading and guiding the Church into all Truth (cf. Matthew 18 for Church discipline and unity).

The churches in the U. S. need to learn a very important lesson: if they capitulate to rights paradigms they will lose their very identities. They must make a strong case for the practicing of their beliefs, which has to include discipline, and that will mean the invocation of the first amendment and the separation of Church and state, but they must be careful not to get trapped in the rights talk. Even if that means losing tax-exempt status; which it may well mean, perhaps not under the current administration, but under one that is more publicly hostile to religion and more willing to use the tax code and corporation law to bend the churches to its secular will.

The sad thing about it is this: the churches and Christians who go along with the secular mindset and capitulate to the consumerist society, seem to think that by doing so they are somehow better able to speak to the culture and to retain their own identity. But this is a fool's paradise. If the churches do not resist the secularist encroachment, they too will find themselves crushed and obliterated under its antichrist. Secularism, like our Lord, himself, will not readily tolerate another master.

Posted by Clifton at June 1, 2004 06:30 AM | TrackBack