Recently the Catholic blogosphere was once again set on fire with talk about denying communion to public sinners.
I have my own problems with talk of "public sinners” (technically "manifest and obstinate") if only because it seems to create a two-tiered system of sinners and to imply that it is somehow better to keep our sins swept under the rug and keep up appearances in order to “avoid scandal” somehow (although I don’t see why merely knowing that random people sin would cause anyone else to sin; why should we be taking them as our example?) As I've also written about before, in the case of cohabitation it also often seems to involve some weird and unwarranted assumptions about the nature of people’s relationships, as if sharing a house means you’re sexually active, or more “obviously” so than people nowadays who are dating but live separately (Puh-leeze.)
Really, it seems like a lot of this is the "good Catholics" (who are all sinners too, many often mortally so, and mortally so against the same virtues, just in different ways) trying to set up an "us/them" Pharisaical notion, wanting to create a "pure" Church by scapegoating certain people, creating an "internal enemy" to go against and be punished and excluded as a way of defining the righteous remnant.
Of course, the assumption is that when someone lives unapologetically openly in an immoral situation, they must also be heretics who reject the Church's teaching on its wrongness. And maybe this is true, but maybe it isn't; I don't think anyone in the medieval world assumed prostitutes thought prostitution wasn't a sin.
Either way, I think, currently there is a mismatch in canon law. Certain sins carry an “automatic excommunication.” Some of these make sense, like heresy. Others, however, are used apparently just to emphasize the gravity of a sin in a world that questions it, like that for abortion. On the other hand there is also the canon regarding denying communion to “manifest and obstinate” public sinners.
I think it is not correct to have these be two separate categories. It seems absurd to me to call some people “excommunicated” (allegedly “automatically”) whose sins are not known publicly, or at least who do not meet the canonical standards for “manifest and obstinate,” and so who are not denied communion publicly. But then to have other people denied communion publicly who are “not” in fact “excommunicated” (automatically or otherwise)!
This seems a ridiculous situation to me because all “excommunicated” is supposed to mean (or originally meant) was that someone was denied communion publicly. Having classes of “excommunicated” people, like in abortions, whose sin is secret and so who are aren’t publicly denied it (even if they are supposed to deny themselves privately, like anyone in mortal sin) but then having classes of people publicly denied communion who are technically not “excommunicated”…doesn’t make any sense!!
Instead, I say, collapse the two concepts. Make excommunication apply to sinners who are manifest and obstinate, who are “public,” and get rid of the distinction between the two categories. No longer apply excommunication to secret sins, or deny communion to people who are not excommunicated.
And perhaps there should be no more "automatic" excommunication, period, because maybe that doesn't even make any sense given the public external-forum nature of excommunication. Perhaps excommunication should be considered in effect only when there is a public determination through some juridical process (even if a simple one left to the pastor on the parish level). And perhaps this would stop priests from setting themselves up as arbitrary judges of who should be denied and who shouldn't in spur-of-the-moment at-the-altar decisions.
Still, if there is to be some distinction between the internal forum and the external forum, I say we need to make that line more concrete, then. Keep private confession for private sins, and give absolution for the personl sin aspect. However, if any of the sins confessed are “public,” are of the variety that carry a denial of communion/excommunication then there would be a separate step: confession before the community to the bishop, solemn public penance, culminating in public reconciliation. In other words, separate the private absolution of the personal sin (an internal forum matter to be handled privately, under the seal) from the lifting of the public canonical censure (a matter of the external forum, to be celebrated publicly). This I think would help balance the internal forum/external forum question in confession better and be closer to the practice of the early Church.
I have my own problems with talk of "public sinners” (technically "manifest and obstinate") if only because it seems to create a two-tiered system of sinners and to imply that it is somehow better to keep our sins swept under the rug and keep up appearances in order to “avoid scandal” somehow (although I don’t see why merely knowing that random people sin would cause anyone else to sin; why should we be taking them as our example?) As I've also written about before, in the case of cohabitation it also often seems to involve some weird and unwarranted assumptions about the nature of people’s relationships, as if sharing a house means you’re sexually active, or more “obviously” so than people nowadays who are dating but live separately (Puh-leeze.)
Really, it seems like a lot of this is the "good Catholics" (who are all sinners too, many often mortally so, and mortally so against the same virtues, just in different ways) trying to set up an "us/them" Pharisaical notion, wanting to create a "pure" Church by scapegoating certain people, creating an "internal enemy" to go against and be punished and excluded as a way of defining the righteous remnant.
Of course, the assumption is that when someone lives unapologetically openly in an immoral situation, they must also be heretics who reject the Church's teaching on its wrongness. And maybe this is true, but maybe it isn't; I don't think anyone in the medieval world assumed prostitutes thought prostitution wasn't a sin.
Either way, I think, currently there is a mismatch in canon law. Certain sins carry an “automatic excommunication.” Some of these make sense, like heresy. Others, however, are used apparently just to emphasize the gravity of a sin in a world that questions it, like that for abortion. On the other hand there is also the canon regarding denying communion to “manifest and obstinate” public sinners.
I think it is not correct to have these be two separate categories. It seems absurd to me to call some people “excommunicated” (allegedly “automatically”) whose sins are not known publicly, or at least who do not meet the canonical standards for “manifest and obstinate,” and so who are not denied communion publicly. But then to have other people denied communion publicly who are “not” in fact “excommunicated” (automatically or otherwise)!
This seems a ridiculous situation to me because all “excommunicated” is supposed to mean (or originally meant) was that someone was denied communion publicly. Having classes of “excommunicated” people, like in abortions, whose sin is secret and so who are aren’t publicly denied it (even if they are supposed to deny themselves privately, like anyone in mortal sin) but then having classes of people publicly denied communion who are technically not “excommunicated”…doesn’t make any sense!!
Instead, I say, collapse the two concepts. Make excommunication apply to sinners who are manifest and obstinate, who are “public,” and get rid of the distinction between the two categories. No longer apply excommunication to secret sins, or deny communion to people who are not excommunicated.
And perhaps there should be no more "automatic" excommunication, period, because maybe that doesn't even make any sense given the public external-forum nature of excommunication. Perhaps excommunication should be considered in effect only when there is a public determination through some juridical process (even if a simple one left to the pastor on the parish level). And perhaps this would stop priests from setting themselves up as arbitrary judges of who should be denied and who shouldn't in spur-of-the-moment at-the-altar decisions.
Still, if there is to be some distinction between the internal forum and the external forum, I say we need to make that line more concrete, then. Keep private confession for private sins, and give absolution for the personl sin aspect. However, if any of the sins confessed are “public,” are of the variety that carry a denial of communion/excommunication then there would be a separate step: confession before the community to the bishop, solemn public penance, culminating in public reconciliation. In other words, separate the private absolution of the personal sin (an internal forum matter to be handled privately, under the seal) from the lifting of the public canonical censure (a matter of the external forum, to be celebrated publicly). This I think would help balance the internal forum/external forum question in confession better and be closer to the practice of the early Church.
1 comment:
"I think it is not correct to have these be two separate categories. It seems absurd to me to call some people “excommunicated” (allegedly “automatically”) whose sins are not known publicly, or at least who do not meet the canonical standards for “manifest and obstinate,” and so who are not denied communion publicly. But then to have other people denied communion publicly who are “not” in fact “excommunicated” (automatically or otherwise)! "
I partially agree and disagree with you on this quote. Where I disagree is that there are various sins which by their nature are so against the faith and would have to have the three conditions for Mortal sin met to be committed. Take apostasy for example. People generally know the Church has "rules" and by even their ill-formed consciences get that going against it is "wrong", on the hot button issues like contraception. Yet many of those people even with that small bit of knowedge will violate it on purpose while calling themselves "Catholic" either in the form of condoms or the pill. I'd say that's will, intent, and severe gravity. So they in essence have committed the sin "latae sentitae".
Now, for other sins, perhaps you are right, like abortion. If you have examined pro-life blogs and spoken to reliable sources, not all abortions are 100% willingly the part of the mother to be. Perhaps a boyfriend, or a socially conscious family who'd reject the young woman for the illegitimate pregnancy, or severe economic issues, drives a woman to abort. If those factors apply, then clearly the woman is not 100% willing the act, or possibly intending the abortion.
I'd say that with many different matters and the rapid progression of society, it's finally time that before the 75 year dictated evaluation, the Church should update it's Canon Law to deal with modern society, heck even reduce that 75 limit to maybe every 25 years (so one update per generation), and perhaps an annual review of the laws, like protocols in hospital laboratories and clinical practices.
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