Avoiding Scandal

Is that what Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone is doing by refusing communion to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi? I thought that debate was over for good, that something between the words of the Pope and ordinary common sense must have prevailed among the bishops to avoid further public ridicule. It’s reported that Pelosi received communion last week without fanfare in Washington. The way it should be.

Another cause of scandal to the Catholic Church is the impending end of Roe. Despite the impetus that Protestant evangelicals gave to the pro-life movement in the late 1970s, those practicing or raised Roman Catholic wound up on the Supreme Court. The webinars organized by Catholic Organizations for Renewal got better and better about this history—and the first ones were great. The scandal is that now whatever decision comes down invalidating Roe, it will be identified as “Catholic.” See Katha Pollitt in The Nation. The way it should not be.

Even Michael Sean Winters reinforces my point of view. He finds Cordileone’s saying that his decision is “not political” is “laughable,” and quotes Melinda Henneberger in the Sacramento Bee, saying that Cordileone’s claim is “a silly thing to say, since no one who would believe him needs to hear it, and no one who wouldn’t will be at all persuaded by it.” Scandal in the secular press.

Winters himself resorts to theology. “[Cordileone] has misrepresented several cardinal points of church teaching and then erroneously applied that teaching.” Winter contrasts Cordileone to Pope Francis in Lautato Si: “everything is connected.” The Archbishop “isolates abortion from all other sins and isolates, too, Pelosi’s involvement in this issue.” In her own interviews, Pelosi notes that others take positions against other church teachings and are not chastised. Winters says that Cordileone lacks “prudential judgment,” not exactly scandal, but close:

"Our Catholic tradition has a rich theology of cooperation to address the complexities of living in a world in which one's own choices are circumscribed by, and involved with, the choices of other people. That theology was developed by St. Alphonsus Liguori in the 18th century, drawing on the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas and others, long before the challenges posed by a modern, pluralistic society came about."

Winters goes further in quoting Henneberger – remember, in the Sacramento Bee – who encourages Pelosi to invoke Canon Law:

"According to a canon lawyer I consulted, Speaker Pelosi does have a right of appeal to Rome. If she chose to, she could base that appeal on Canon 213, which is that Christ's faithful have a right to receive the sacraments, Canon 843, §1, that the Church's ministers cannot deny the sacraments to those who properly seek them, and that the archbishop has improperly interpreted Canon 915, barring "obstinate public sinners" from communion."

Keep both that and the recourse to Liguori and Aquinas handy in case you find yourself in similar trouble.

Now I will confess disappointment. Winters and many others see the scandal, even if they do not name it. I will briefly summarize. Phyllis Zagano is most relevant to us. She finds Cordileone’s action against Pelosi “one battle in a decades-long disintegration of trust between women and the bishops,” starting with birth control. In essence: They know we don’t listen any more and they don’t like it. Rome correspondents in The Tablet report that sources there find it “distressing.” It revs up the culture wars unnecessarily, and may make Pope Francis feel he has to become involved.

In case Cordileone has forgotten the consequences of the sex abuse scandal for our church, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) reminded us this week. Most moving is Russell Moore in Christianity Today. Everything I’ve read about the SBC reports abuse of mostly women and girls, and I wonder if the strongly heteronormative ethic in this church had that result. This makes me think that the leadership, the Executive Committee, is couples:

"When my wife and I walked out of the last SBC Executive Committee meeting we would ever attend, she looked at me and said, 'I love you, I'm with you to the end, and you can do what you want, but if you’re still a Southern Baptist by summer you’ll be in an interfaith marriage.'"

In other words, she’s not standing for it, and neither did he. Her light response masks the kind of pain that brought so many Catholics to a similar decision, a tragedy for so many young people and a scandal for our church.

Then, then, 19 children and their teachers. Again. If Cordileone is looking for a bunch of legislators to deny communion to, there’s those who resist sensible gun control laws at every level of government. But before I wander into that tragedy, I will merely say looking at many issues is modeled for me by Rosemary Radford Ruether, feminist theologian, who died last week after a long illness. Mary Hunt’s loving remembrance in NCR reminds us of the leadership that this woman willing to take risks provided to our movement and to many other causes. No scandal here—the way it should be.