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“When a man has stepped over the threshold and allowed himself to fall into mortal sin, he must be purified by trial, but he must also, My children, be purified by the rule of penance and confession.
“What manner of evil is being set now upon mankind that compels him to lose his soul by rejecting the Sacraments, by no longer confessing to his confessor, but coming to receive My Son in sacrifice, while his soul is degraded by sin of mortal nature!”
- The Bayside Prophecies
Our Lady of the Roses, September 7, 1976
In the summer of 2003, Archbishop O’Malley of Boston said, “A Catholic politician who holds a public, pro-choice position should not be receiving Communion and should refrain from doing so.” O’Malley also said that “It is not our policy to deny Communion. It is up to the individual.”[1]
That is not the law of the Catholic Church. According to the Code of Canon Law, “Those who … obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Communion” (Canon 915). In 2003 the Vatican issued a decree that warned Catholic politicians “who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies [that they] have a grave and clear obligation to oppose any law that attacks human life. For them, as for every Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them….” [2]
On March 25, 2004, the Vatican issued a document entitled "On Certain Matters To Be Observed Or To Be Avoided Regarding The Most Holy Eucharist" which states, again, that sacramental Confession is required before receiving holy Communion, if the recipient is conscious of having committed mortal sin:
The Church’s custom shows that it is necessary for each person to examine himself at depth, and that anyone who is conscious of grave sin should not celebrate or receive the Body of the Lord without prior sacramental confession, except for grave reason when the possibility of confession is lacking; in this case he will remember that he is bound by the obligation of making an act of perfect contrition, which includes the intention to confess as soon as possible”. Moreover, “the Church has drawn up norms aimed at fostering the frequent and fruitful access of the faithful to the Eucharistic table and at determining the objective conditions under which Communion may not be given”.It is certainly best that all who are participating in the celebration of Holy Mass with the necessary dispositions should receive Communion. Nevertheless, it sometimes happens that Christ’s faithful approach the altar as a group indiscriminately. It pertains to the Pastors prudently and firmly to correct such an abuse. (#81-83)
Also, Pope John Paul II issued an encyclical on Holy Thursday 2003 entitled the Eucharist and the Church in which he
[W]arned that anyone conscious of a “grave sin” must go to confession before receiving Communion. “In cases of outward conduct which is seriously, clearly, and steadfastly contrary to the moral norm, those who ‘obstinately persist in manifest grave sin’ are not to be admitted to Eucharist Communion,” he said. The Pope’s view will strengthen the stand of priests and bishops who have refused Communion to gay activists or supporters of abortion. [3]
Furthermore, St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that “Holy Communion ought not to be given to open sinners when they ask for it,” [4] and “Holy things are forbidden to be given to dogs, that is, to notorious sinners….” [5]
Nevertheless, pro-abortion John Kerry provided advance notice that he would be attending Mass and receiving holy Communion on Easter Sunday. According to the Boston Herald:
The Rev. John Ardis, director of the Paulist Center, where Kerry and his wife worship locally, said an archdiocesan official telephoned Thursday to tell him Kerry “was as welcome as any other Catholic to receive the eucharist.”’[6]
Despite the protests of many Catholics, Archbishop O’Malley of Boston allowed John Kerry to receive sacrilegious Communion on Easter Sunday. Our Lady of the Roses laments, “Up to this time, My child and My children, you know full well that the wishes and the directives from Rome, from the Eternal Father in Heaven, through Pope John Paul II, they have been cast aside, each and every individual going his own way and making My Son’s House a shambles.” (Our Lady, March 18, 1983)
Definition of sacrilege
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “Sacrilege is in general the violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object.” Deliberate and irreverent treatment of the Eucharist is the worst of all sacrileges:
Real sacrilege is the irreverent treatment of sacred things as distinguished from places and persons. This can happen first of all by the administration or reception of the sacraments (or in the case of the Holy Eucharist by celebration) in the state of mortal sin, as also by advertently doing any of those things invalidly. Indeed deliberate and notable irreverence towards the Holy Eucharist is reputed the worst of all sacrileges. Likewise conscious maltreatment of sacred pictures or relics or perversion of Holy Scripture or sacred vessels to unhallowed uses, and finally, the usurpation or diverting of property (whether movable or immovable) intended for the maintenance of the clergy or serving for the ornamentation of the church to other uses, constitute real sacrileges. Sometimes the guilt of sacrilege may be incurred by omitting what is required for the proper administration of the sacraments or celebration of the sacrifice, as for example, if one were to say Mass without the sacred vestments. [7]
Many manuals on moral and sacramental theology likewise confirm that “Unworthy treatment of the Eucharist is the worst of sacrileges….”[8] “They who make a sacrilegious Communion,” writes St. Cyril, “receive satan and Jesus Christ into their hearts—satan, that they may let him rule, and Jesus Christ, that they may offer Him in sacrifice as a Victim to satan.” The Catechism of the Council of Trent declares: “As of all the sacred mysteries … none can compare with the … Eucharist, so likewise for no crime is there heavier punishment to be feared from God than for the unholy or irreligious use by the faithful of that which … contains the very Author and Source of holiness.” (De Euch., v.i)
The first sacrilegious Communion was committed by Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Christ:
“But let us follow Judas for a moment after his sacrilegious Communion. Jesus understood his miserly heart, his evil disposition, his lack of charity, from the comments he had made when the repentant Magdalen had bathed his Master’s feet with the precious spikenard. He had warned Judas of his coming betrayal, but there was no change of heart. In that state he received Communion from his Master’s hand. Now see what followed! St. John (13:27) tells us: ‘And after the morsel, satan entered into him.’ The cowardly betrayal followed. And satan pursued him remorselessly to that unhappy and dismal end of hanging himself in despair.
“St. Paul charges every other unworthy recipient of Holy Communion with the crime of Judas, when he tells us: ‘Whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord’ (1 Cor. 11:27). And who are they? They are those who receive while they carry the stain of mortal sin upon their souls. Usually an unworthy confession precedes a sacrilegious Communion. There may have been no true sorrow for sin, a refusal to avoid future occasions of grievous sins committed, or neglect to restore ill-gotten goods, wrongly obtained. Human respect may urge such to receive unworthily. Therefore, the Apostle warns us in these words: ‘Let man prove himself, and thus let him eat of that bread and drink of the chalice.’”[9]
An unrepentant pro-abortion Catholic who receives holy Communion commits a mortal sin of sacrilege by commission. But the above definition also includes under sacrilege “omitting what is required for the proper administration of the sacraments”, that is, sacrilege through the sin of omission. It would seem very clear that by omission (failure to act), Archbishop O’Malley permitted a sacrilege by allowing a sacrilegious Communion to take place; he had the power to stop Kerry from committing this sacrilege and scandal on Easter Sunday, but he failed to act.
If in mortal sin, a person must receive sacramental confession before receiving holy Communion
Concerning reception of the Blessed Sacrament, Fr. John Hardon, S.J. explains that “In order to receive fruitfully, a person must first of all be living in friendship with God—living in the state of grace. Otherwise, so far from benefiting from Holy Communion, a person commits a sacrilege. And in St. Paul’s words, such a person ‘draws condemnation on himself.’”[10]
The Council of Trent clearly teaches:
“For this reason we must remind those intending to receive Holy Communion of the commandment found in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 11:28): ‘But let a man prove himself and so let him eat of that Bread, and drink of the Chalice.’ The traditional and immemorial custom of the Church has always been unmistakably clear on this question: let a person wishing to receive Holy Communion truly examine his conscience and if he be in the state of mortal sin, let him not receive Holy Communion (no matter how contrite he may consider himself to be) without first availing himself of sacramental confession.”[11]
Many American bishops and priests do nothing
The Bible tells us: “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart, but reprove him openly, lest thou incur sin through him” (Leviticus 19:17); “Them that sin reprove before all: that the rest also may have fear” (1 Timothy 5:20); and “Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:2). The Bible, however, also has a grim warning for leaders who fail to correct their subjects. The Old Testament tells us that the priest Heli (1 Kings 2:22-36) hesitated to correct the inappropriate and even blasphemous offenses of his sons, which brought disaster not only upon himself but upon his two sons and his own house as well (1 Kings 4:1-18). St. Augustine writes: “Medicinal rebuke must be applied to all who sin, lest they should either themselves perish, or be the ruin of others…. Let no one, therefore, say that a man must not be rebuked when he deviates from the right way, or that his return and perseverance must only be asked from the Lord for him.”
Jesus warns us about the sin of omission: “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to me” (Matthew 25:45). Among the ways we can be accessory to another’s sin is through command, counsel, consent, praise, provocation, silence, assistance, defense of the evil done, and not punishing the evildoer. Very few bishops (the notable exceptions being Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz and Archbishop Raymond Burke) have risen to their duty of protecting our Savior Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament from sacrilege, or protected the Catholic faithful from the scandal of seeing and hearing pro-abortion “Catholics” receiving sacrilegious Communion with impunity. Dietrich von Hildebrand words could well apply to the cowardice of many American bishops:
“The unison we pretend to establish with evil—the attitude of coolly allowing a power of wrong to unfold—neither rests on actual love nor reflects a true harmony. Rather it is a product of weakness and involves a defilement with evil, a participation in the wrongdoer’s guilt.”[12]
Patrick Buchanan, in an article for WorldNetDaily:
“Whose duty is it to correct Kerry and, if need be, sanction him? The duty belongs to Archbishop Sean O’Malley of Boston and the conference of U.S. Catholic bishops. For Kerry is now a candidate for an office where his decisions on law, funding and Supreme Court nominees may determine whether countless unborn children live or perish. This one is going to separate the Cardinal Woolseys from the Thomas Mores…. But the real problem is not Kerry or his Catholic colleagues like Kennedy, Dodd and Daschle who vote and, one assumes, believes as he does. The problem rests with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Many prelates have failed dismally in their pastoral duty to correct, admonish and sanction our Catholic lords temporal, even as some failed to protect Catholic children from predator-priests.”[13]
Barbara Kralis wrote:
As Senator John Kerry travels throughout the U.S. in his bid for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency, this pro abortion, dissenting ‘Catholic’ legislator receives sacrilegious Holy Communions wherever and whenever he attends the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Each and every Sunday, Senator Kerry enters a different parish, approaches the altar, receiving the Eucharist while obstinately refusing to obey the Church’s clearly defined laws against his unlawful reception of Communion. Each parish receives advance notice of Kerry’s clamorous arrival, yet, in parish after parish, both pastors, priests, deacons and lay extraordinary eucharistic ministers (EOEMs) willfully give Kerry sacrilegious Communions.
Can a minister of the Eucharist deny Holy Communion to Kerry, a manifest (publicly known), persistent, obstinate politician, on their own, without their bishop’s permission? The Catechism teaches that all clergy who administer the Sacrament of the Eucharist to manifest, obstinate, persistent sinners also participate in this grave cardinal sin of sacrilege (CIC, n.1755). Isn’t it clear they must deny these politicians the Eucharist?[14]
Maggie Gallagher wrote:
The Catholic Church has begun to realize how big a problem it has on its hands: When highly visible Catholics dissent from the Church’s core teachings on things like abortion and remain Catholics in good standing, it is hard to see how the next generation of Catholics can avoid concluding the Church is just not serious….
The real problem my bishops are being forced to face is that for several generations now, they have not formed a majority of Catholics who actually believe what the Church teaches on abortion, sex, marriage, the Eucharist or anything else really.[15]
Yet John Kerry’s case is not unique; there are many pro-abortion Catholic politicians who likewise receive sacrilegious Communion each week and use their “Catholic” identity as a means to secure votes from the ignorant and misinformed. Other pro-abortion “Catholic” politicians (and former politicians) include Tom Daschle, Ted Kennedy, Christopher Dodd, Tom Harkin, Richard Durbin, Susan Collins, Joseph Biden, Patrick Leahy, Mario Cuomo, Geraldine Ferraro, Gray Davis, and many others. The American Life League has identified more than 500 politicians who are Catholic yet support legal abortion.
Barbara Kralis noted that “Archbishop Burke said that the most compelling reason that lead him to issue a ‘canonical notification’ against the [pro-abortion] legislators was the many letters, faxes, emails and phone calls he received from his flock who were greatly scandalized by the politicians’ sacrilegious Communions."[16]
Protecting the Blessed Sacrament from sacrilege
The following are several examples of priests and bishops who prevented their unworthy Catholic parishioners from receiving sacrilegious Communion.
Abortion:
Archbishop Raymond L. Burke formally notified the Diocese of La Crosse that Catholic lawmakers in that diocese who persisted in their support of abortion or euthanasia would be refused Holy Communion until they renounced their “grave public sin.”[17] Also, a priest from the Philippines defended by his archdiocese:
… a Philippine parish priest is being praised by his archdiocese for preaching against the use of abortifacient IUDs. The Philippine Daily Inquirer reports that a parish priest, Fr. Joseph Schwegmann, has refused Communion to women who refused to remove the abortifacient devices.[18]
Homosexuality:
On November 11, 2002, during the U.S. bishops meeting in Washington, D.C., homosexual activists (members of the group Lifeforce) were refused holy Communion. According to the bishops’ spokesperson Sister Mary Ann Walsh, their being refused Holy Communion was “based on their positions which are opposed to Church teaching on homosexuality.”
On May 19, 2002, Archbishop George Pell refused Holy Communion to openly gay and lesbian parishioners (members of the Rainbow Sash movement). Archbishop Pell has refused Sash members Communion at least 10 times. He told his congregation at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, Australia: “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve and important consequences follow from this.”[19]
Divorced and remarried Catholics:
Here is one case from Ireland, reported by BBC News, of an unmarried couple refused Communion because they were living in sin:
Unmarried parents who are living together will not be able to receive the sacrament when their children take first Communion in two parishes in the Republic of Ireland this weekend.
Parish priests in Abbeydonney and Lixnaw in County Kerry have said they will not serve Communion at any Mass, including first Communion to unmarried couples who live together.
Father Patrick McCarthy, parish priest in Abbedonney, told RTE’s Morning Ireland programme, he would not go against church teaching.
“In the catechism of the Catholic Church it clearly states, the sexual act must take place exclusively within marriage,” he said.
“Outside marriage it always constitutes a grave sin and it excludes one from the sacrament of Communion.”[20]
This is right in line with Church teaching and repeated Vatican rulings that exclude divorced and remarried Catholics from receiving Holy Communion. In 1994 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated:
… this congregation deems itself obliged therefore to recall the doctrine and discipline of the Church in this matter. In fidelity to the words of Jesus Christ, the Church affirms that a new union cannot be recognized as valid if the preceding marriage was valid. If the divorced are remarried civilly, they find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God’s law. Consequently, they cannot receive holy Communion as long as this situation persists.
This norm is not at all a punishment or a discrimination against the divorced and remarried, but rather expresses an objective situation that of itself renders impossible the reception of holy Communion.
They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and his Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist. Besides this, here is another special pastoral reason: If these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the church’s teaching about the indissolubility of marriage.
The faithful who persist in such a situation may receive holy Communion only after obtaining sacramental absolution, which may be given only to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage….
Members of the faithful who live together as husband and wife with persons other than their legitimate spouses may not receive holy Communion. Should they judge it possible to do so, pastors and confessors, given the gravity of the matter and the spiritual good of these persons, as well as the common good of the Church, have the serious duty to admonish them that such a judgment of conscience openly contradicts the church’s teaching. Pastors in their teaching must also remind the faithful entrusted to their care of this doctrine.[21]
In an interpretation of Canon 712, the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts stated:
“Those who are publicly unworthy are forbidden from receiving the Divine Eucharist” (can. 712). In effect, the reception of the Body of Christ when one is publicly unworthy constitutes an objective harm to the ecclesial communion: it is a behavior that affects the rights of the Church and of all the faithful to live in accord with the exigencies of that communion. In the concrete case of the admission to holy Communion of faithful who are divorced and remarried, the scandal, understood as an action that prompts others towards wrongdoing, affects at the same time both the sacrament of the Eucharist and the indissolubility of marriage. That scandal exists even if such behavior, unfortunately, no longer arouses surprise: in fact it is precisely with respect to the deformation of the conscience that it becomes more necessary for Pastors to act, with as much patience as firmness, as a protection to the sanctity of the Sacraments and a defense of Christian morality, and for the correct formation of the faithful.[22]
Masons:
On November 26, 1983, with the approval of Pope John Paul II, the Sacred Congregation of the Faith repeated the ban on Catholics joining the Masons:
“The Church’s negative position on Masonic association … remains unaltered, since their principles have always been regarded as irreconcilable with the Church’s doctrine. Hence, joining them remains prohibited by the Church. Catholics enrolled in Masonic associations are involved in serious sin and may not approach Holy Communion…. Consequently, neither the excommunication nor the other penalties envisaged have been abrogated.”
Immodestly dressed women:
The tradition of the Church, confirmed in the 1917 Code of Canon Law, excluded immodestly dressed women from receiving Communion. According to John A. McHugh, O.P. and Charles J. Callan, O.P, “Women immodestly dressed should be refused Communion, if otherwise scandal will result (Canon 858).”[23] The Plenary Assembly of the Bishops of Brazil banned immodest women from receiving Communion, as was the law of the Catholic Church according to Canons 855 and 1262 of the Old Code of Canon Law:
“Let the priests forcefully insist that women wear clothing which expresses modesty ...
“Let women, at all times, but especially, as the Apostle Saint Paul teaches, when they are in church, dress with modesty. If they should dare to enter the church immodestly dressed, let them, as Canon Law commands (Canon 1262, par. 2), be judiciously put out and prevented from assisting at any function whatsoever.
“Let those who are going to receive Holy Communion be decently dressed. Women whose heads are not covered and who are improperly dressed are to be excluded from the Sacrament, as Canon Law directs (Canons 855 & 1262, par. 2).”
The above examples show that it has been the law and tradition of the Catholic Church to protect the Blessed Sacrament by refusing it to those who are public, obstinate sinners. Many U.S. bishops, through the sin of omission and the sin of human respect, are now exposing the Blessed Sacrament to ill-treatment, mockery and sacrilege. As the Vatican has stated, the widespread deformation of conscience makes it even “more necessary for Pastors to act, with as much patience as firmness, as a protection to the sanctity of the Sacraments and a defense of Christian morality, and for the correct formation of the faithful.”[24] Canon 1311 of the Code of Canon Law states that “the Church has its own inherent right to constrain with penal sanctions Christ’s faithful who commit offenses.”
George Neumayr writes:
Before the liberal and libertine revolution in the Church, bishops didn’t need to convene a task force to figure out whether to give Communion to public figures not in communion with Church teaching. The matter was obvious. They just followed canon law, which clearly states that bishops have a duty to ensure that the sacrament of Communion isn’t abused (whether or not to permit sacrilege isn’t treated as a public relations question in canon law, a point the American bishops still can’t grasp) and that scandal doesn’t spread through doctrinal and disciplinary confusion. [Cardinal] McCarrick has said that he is ‘uncomfortable’ using certain sanctions against Kerry. Is comfort now a norm of episcopal action under canon law?[25]
Our Lady of the Roses has warned the Catholic clergy: “If Our clergy become deluded by satan and lax in their responsibility to My Son, they will be set in judgment before the Father for their part in the defilement of My Son’s Body” (December 31, 1974). The course of action for all priests and bishops confronting pro-abortion “Catholic” politicians is clear: “Those who ... obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Communion” (Canon 915).
“The sin of omission shall condemn many to hell, be they layman or hierarchy. I repeat: not the sin of commission, but the sin of omission will commit many to hell. Among them there will be also mitres.”
- The Bayside Prophecies
Our Lady of the Roses, October 6, 1980
“Red Hats, bishops, you go about earth oppressing the children of God, but you neither chastise nor condemn the evil ones in your House, the Church.”
- The Bayside Prophecies
Our Lady of the Roses, May 3, 1978
References:
1. “Kerry celebrates with Communion,” Boston Globe, April 12, 2004.
2. “Doctrinal Note on some questions regarding The Participation of Catholics in Political Life,” January 2003.
3. “Pope lays down the law on Communion,” The Post (Ireland), Kieron Wood, April 20, 2003.
4. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, III, art. 80, q. 6, sed contra.
5. Ibid., art. 80, q. 6, reply obj. 1.
6. “Diocese gives nod for Kerry to receive Eucharist,” Boston Herald, April 10, 2004.
7. Catholic Encyclopedia, “Sacrilege”.
8. John A. McHugh, O.P. and Charles J. Callan, O.P., Moral Theology: A Complete Course, Vol. II, #2316.
9. Rev. Richard Crock, Grace and the Sacraments, pp. 71-72.
10. Fr. John Hardon, S.J., “The Eucharist as Communion Sacrament.”
11. Council of Trent, Sess. XIII, chap. VII, can. 7.
12. Dietrich von Hildebrand, Transformation in Christ, p. 350.
13. Patrick Buchanan, “Fr. Kerry and Pope Pius XXIII,” WorldNetDaily, April 12, 2004.
14. Barbara Kralis, “Is the Church Serving Two Masters - Politicians and God?”
15. Maggie Gallagher, “The next great Catholic scandal?” April 13, 2004.
16. Barbara Kralis, “Bishop Bruskewitz will deny Kerry Communion,” April 6, 2004.
17. Paul Nowak, “Wisconsin Bishop Refuses Communion to Pro-Abortion Catholic Lawmakers, Lifenews.com, January 13, 2004.
18. “Philippine priest takes abortifacient IUD seriously by refusing Communion,” Lifesite.net, November 27, 2002.
19. Kelly Burke, “Pell lashes out after gays refused Communion,” smh.com.au, May 20, 2002.
20. “Unmarried parents refused Communion,” BBC News, May 17, 2001.
21. “Concerning the Reception of Holy Communion by divorced and remarried members of the faithful,” Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, October 14, 1994).
22. “Declaration on divorced and remarried persons,” Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, June 24, 2000.
23. John A. McHugh, O.P. and Charles J. Callan, O.P., Moral Theology: A Complete Course, Vol. II, p. 665.
24. “Declaration on divorced and remarried persons,” Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, June 24, 2000.
25. George Neumayr, “McCarrick to Kerry: Carry on,” The American Spectator, April 16, 2004.
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