Last week, a new chapter was written in the ongoing debate between church and state in our country.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court found in favor of Philadelphia Catholic Social Services, effectively defending their policy of discriminating against same-sex couples who are interested in adopting foster children.
On Friday, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops took a giant step forward toward prohibiting people like President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi from receiving Holy Communion.
Some Catholics went to church last weekend feeling reassured that conservative values like the defense of the unborn and the unacceptability of gay marriage were being upheld.
Some other Catholics went to church wondering what happened to unconditional love and the principle of treating everyone with dignity and respect.
Some other Catholics may have decided that it was time to look for another church.
To say that the issues of the entanglement of church and state which were thrown into bold relief last week are complex is a colossal understatement. Consequently, these events need to be processed slowly and examined critically.
The Supreme Court case is the easier of the two. The Court upheld the contention that Catholic Social Services should have been given an exemption from the Philadelphia policy that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
It did not weigh in on the larger issue of “anti-discrimination principles” versus claims of conscience based on religious beliefs. In true Supreme Court fashion, the case was unanimously decided, with the majority opinion focusing on the narrowest grounds possible.
The opinion held that because the city had the right to make exceptions and had already done so in other cases, there was no foundation for the denial of an exemption for Catholic Social Services.
The Catholic Bishops are another story. Several weeks ago, Pope Francis sent a message to the American bishops that they ought to be very cautious about making the reception of Holy Communion into a divisive issue within the Catholic community.
In another place, the Pope had already pointed out that Holy Communion is not a reward for good behavior but a healing remedy for the brokenness that afflicts everyone.
It is hard to know if this guidance was in the minds and hearts of the bishops at their June meeting. When they voted overwhelmingly to ask the Doctrine Committee to draft a statement on the Eucharist, they obviously did not take into consideration what we might call the “optics” of their decision.
Headlines across the country and nightly news programs reported that the bishops were taking aim at President Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, both practicing Catholics. In their political careers, neither the President nor the Speaker have sought to impose Catholic teaching with regard to abortion on the rest of the country.
Because some bishops perceive them to be off the Catholic reservation on this issue, they are seeking to effectively excommunicate them — i.e, deny them their right to receive Holy Communion at mass.
While the optics are one thing, the reality is a bit different. The bishops had a two-hour Zoom debate over whether the Committee on Doctrine should be empowered to write a teaching document on the Eucharist or Holy Communion.
Doctrine Committee Chair, Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana reassured the bishops that the proposed statement “… will not include policy or guidance on denying Communion to the president or other public officials, but rather will be a broader teaching document.” (NCR 6.18.21)
This new document will be presented at the November bishops’ meeting and will require a two-thirds majority of the conference for adoption. In all likelihood, it will break no new ground with regard to Catholic teaching on who should or should not be presenting themselves for Holy Communion.
It will also call respect for the authority of local bishops to make decisions about what is being called “Eucharistic coherence.”
So the bottom line for people who care about the Church is that the bishops had a heated debate that created more heat than light. The headlines around the country did not do justice to the complexity of the issue but did paint the Catholic Church in a bad light.
Because many people do not read beyond the headlines or take time to understand the nuances of what took place, the bishops have not advanced a deeper understanding of this Catholic issue but have succeeded in exacerbating the progressive versus traditionalist divide within the wider Christian community that should concern us all.
The smartest thing to have done would have been to take the issue off the agenda and save the church and the bishops the bad publicity that will now follow them into the November meeting.
Msgr. Paul V. Garrity is the former pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in Lynn and the current pastor of St. Brigid and Sacred Heart Parishes in Lexington.
