Body and blood

Today being Corpus Christi Sunday, it’s more providential than ironic that controversy continues to whirl around the news stories over Catholic politicians, abortion, cloning and communion — which sounds odd when lined up like that. There’s a jarring disconnect there, which is what the issue in the press is about, though not many are getting it right.

Phil Lawler attached this note to the current lineup of news stories on CWNews, to share some perspective with subscribers. It’s a good and basic analogy:

Doctors say that cigarette smoking can cause lung cancer and heart disease. Would you say they’re threatening people by saying that? I don’t think so; they’re merely helping people to recognize the consequence of their actions.

Similarly, when a bishop says that politicians who support immoral legislation are endangering their standing as Catholics, the bishop is helping those politicians recognize a danger to their spiritual welfare. Notice that if any damage is done, the politician does that damage to himself. The bishop isn’t threatening anything.

But when a politician announces plans to “investigate” a bishop– as in today’s CWN headline story from Australia– that is a threat. The obvious aim is to deter the bishop from speaking freely: a clear offense against religious freedom.

It’s bad enough when politicians complain that bishops are intimidating them. It’s even more annoying when those grandstanding politicians use their own power to threaten bishops.

Here’s that story from Australia:

An Australian lawmaker has called for a parliamentary investigation of a Catholic archbishop who warned politicians against voting to support therapeutic cloning.

A parliamentary investigation of an archbishop for doing his job and teaching what the Church teaches?

Fred Riebeling, the speaker of the legislative assembly of West Australian, said that he wanted to question Archbishop Barry Hickey of Perth. The archbishop had said that Catholic legislators should not receive Communion if they voted for the cloning bill.

That’s just stating the obvious. 

Riebeling said that the archbishop’s public statement was a threat against members of parliament.

That’s ridiculous.

So just what was it that was, by any stretch, perceived as a “threat”?

Archbishop Hickey had said that Catholics who vote for legal cloning “are acting against the teaching of the Church on a very serious matter and they should, in conscience, not vote that way; but if they do, in conscience they should not go to Communion.”

No amount of histrionics by politicians can turn that into a threat.

The archbishop’s statement appeared shortly after another Australian prelate, Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, warned legislators that a vote in favor of cloning would have “consequences for their place in the life of the Church.”

Neither Archbishop Hickey nor Cardinal Pell threatened to excommunicate politicians, and neither prelate said that he would refuse to administer the Eucharist to legislators who supported the cloning bill– although Cardinal Pell left open that possibility.

The folks using the bully pulpit here are not the Church men. The body and blood on their hands is sanctified, and their task is to protect it from becoming a political symbol.