Obama Voters Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion

Lead Us Not into Temptation


In one of the comments sections below, "anonymous" (profiles in courage) asserts that if you haven't heard your local Bishop ordering his priests to enforce a particular Church teaching, you may construe the silence as affirmation that the purported teaching is a rumor and not to be believed.

"Anonymous said...Please quote me one Bishop who has instructed his priests that it is OK to withhold communion from people based on their vote."


For instance, if there are no quotes that your Bishop instructed his priests to preach using contraception is a mortal sin that makes you unworthy to receive the Eucharist, this trumps Evangelium Vitae and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Same thing goes for abortion, adultery, murder. If there's no quotes from the Bishop instructing his priests, none of these things are mortal sins affecting our state of grace or worthiness to receive the Blessed Sacrament.

I know what you're thinking. THIS IS CRAZY. But, alas, in some parishes there is a secret signal between the priest and congregation. If you've committed mass murder and you get in line for Communion afterward --- if the priests give you Communion, you are worthy to receive.

If you haven't dusted your feet from a pastor teaching such drivel, good luck to ya.

In terms of the Pope and the Deposit of Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote the navigator, "Worthiness to receive Holy Communion".

In it, he clarifies that politicians must be refused and unless there is a proportionate reason to vote for a proabort politician, the voter is guilty of formal cooperation. He spelled out what does not qualify as a proportionate reason:

Christians have a "grave obligation of conscience not to cooperate formally in practices which, even if permitted by civil legislation, are contrary to God’s law. Indeed, from the moral standpoint, it is never licit to cooperate formally in evil. [...] This cooperation can never be justified either by invoking respect for the freedom of others or by appealing to the fact that civil law permits it or requires it" (no. 74).

3. Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

4. Apart from an individual's judgment about his worthiness to present himself to receive the Holy Eucharist, the minister of Holy Communion may find himself in the situation where he must refuse to distribute Holy Communion to someone, such as in cases of a declared excommunication, a declared interdict, or an obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin (cf. can. 915).