Continuing the discussion on witholding the Eucharist...

When I wrote my commentary last week on Eucharistic sharing, I had no idea that the Archbishop of Sydney was about to make it a subject of such topical interest.

Pretty much as I was submitting my copy to the editor, the story was breaking of George Pell's comments on this very topic, made on the occasion of the issue of a press statement on behalf of the bishops of New South Wales concerning the Human Cloning and Other Prohibited Practices Amendment Bill 2007, currently before the New South Wales parliament.

You can read the press statement here. It makes important and worthwhile points which, even if you don't agree with them, demand attention, serious consideration and a response from any supporter of the Human Cloning Bill.

Cardinal Pell pictured in Europe wearing vestments that haven't been seen in Australia for a while

But it wasn't so much the press statement that attracted comment and attention as Dr Pell's own remarks. He was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald as saying that "Catholic politicians who vote for this legislation must realise that their voting has consequences for their place in the life of the church." According to The Australian, he "refused to say whether Catholic MPs would be excommunicated from the church if they voted in favour of the legislation", saying instead that "the church would deal with that issue if it arose".

Reportedly, Dr Pell later made it clear that he was not contemplating the excommunication of politicians who vote for this bill. It's generally understood that he is referring to the possibility that they might be denied holy communion. He later back-pedalled a little further; his weekly column in the Sydney Sunday Telegraph shifts the emphasis, and suggests that is the politicians themselves who should examine their consciences before going to communion.

There's nothing about taking communion in the statement issued on behalf of the bishops of New South Wales. Whether there was any consideration given to including a point about communion in the statement but it was eventually decided not to, or whether nobody raised the issue when the statement was being put together, I can't say. Be that as it may, Dr Pell chose to raise the issue when launching the statement.

It was an unwise choice, for several reasons.

Bad politics…

In a pluralist democracy like Australia, people should welcome contributions to public discussion from a variety of sources; that is seen as positive. Catholics (or Muslims, or Communists, or anyone) engaging in advocacy to seek to commend their views and ideas to the community at large, and trying to build support for them; no problem at all. That's how a pluralist democracy is supposed to work. So no reasonable person could object to bishops issuing a statement about the moral and ethical implications of the Human Cloning Bill, or say that the bishops' views on those issues should be disregarded or dismissed without consideration.

But Catholics (or Muslims, or Communists, or anyone) seeking to use organizational discipline to have their views implemented in public policy or legislation without securing broad support, rather than commending the views themselves, will be received quite differently. Stalinists, who made an art-form of this, called it "democratic centralism", and it was generally not well-received — or, the label notwithstanding, regarded as particularly democratic. Why would the Australian public regard it as acceptable when practised by a Catholic archbishop?

Historically, and currently, Australian culture values independent-mindedness in the individual and is a bit suspicious of "God-botherers". Imposing a three-line whip with veiled, or not so veiled, threats to withhold communion plays to these traits in the worst possible way. It creates completely the wrong set of incentives; Catholic politicians can secure political advantage by "standing up" to the Archbishop and displaying "feisty independence", and we have seen them competing to do that in the week or so since this blew up. Those who were actually minded to vote against the legislation were embarrassed, and will have had to mumble about voting against it because they were persuaded that it is not conducive to the common good, rather than because they have been told to by the Archbishop, or because they feared the denial of communion.

Leave aside for the moment whether this kind of playing to the gallery is moral behaviour on the part of Catholic politicians; it is certainly foreseeable behaviour, and it is something which Dr Pell should have considered when making his comments. His comments increased the political advantages of supporting the Human Cloning Bill, and increased the political cost of opposing it. Why, in the name of all that's holy, would he want to do this?

And that's not all. There are other undesirable consequences of Dr Pell's intervention.

It creates the impression that Dr Pell has no confidence in the intrinsic merit of Catholic ideas and principles in this area or, at least, no confidence in his own ability to articulate them. It will seem to the public that he doesn't believe that pro-life principles will secure broad acceptance, so he seeks to impose them, without broad acceptance, through the ecclesiastical equivalent of a party machine. Far from evangelising the wider community by promoting Catholic perspectives on life issues, I think this action reduces the credibility of those perspectives. It is, in short, an obstacle to the confident and joyful proclamation of the gospel of life to which we are called.

Finally, one other undesirable practical consequence is that he has moved the focus of the debate away from the proposed legislation and the issues surrounding it and on to the role of the church, and the tactics it uses. If innocent human life is really threatened by this Bill, is the question of whether Morris Iemma is a good catholic really the most important thing for the Australian community to be discussing today?

Bad Theology…

But, quite apart from the wisdom or lack of it displayed in making these comments, and their practical outcome, it seems to me that Dr Pell is also disregarding authoritative views from within the Catholic church on when it is proper to withhold communion.

	A photo of His Holiness as a Cardinal

Last week I mentioned the (then) Cardinal Ratzinger's guidance to the American bishops about the not-dissimilar issue of politicians voting to permit abortion. That guidance makes two things clear.

First, the issue of denying a politician communion only arises if he is "consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws" (or, presumably, stem-cell research laws). It appears from this that a single vote on a single bill would not justify a bishop in refusing communion; there needs to be a history of not only voting but also campaigning on this issue. And this must be right; canon law only allows communion to be withheld for "obstinately persevering" in manifest grave sin, and this requires a course of conduct over a period. A single vote cannot be "obstinate perseverance".

Secondly, Cardinal Ratzinger makes it clear that a bishop's first response should be private, and direct to the legislator concerned. He should "meet with him, instructing him about the Church's teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist." Only where this is impossible, or where it has been tried and has failed to produce any change of heart, does any question of actually refusing communion arise.

And this approach arises out of the real nature and significance of the Eucharist in Catholic thought. Withholding the Eucharist is a pastoral response to a flawed or broken relationship between the individual and the church. It's intended to reflect honestly the real brokenness of that relationship.

Cardinal Pell flew in the face of this by airing, in public, the issue of withholding communion before any vote at all had been taken on the Bill. And furthermore he chose to air it at a press conference called for the purpose of a campaign to influence public policy. This must be improper; Cardinal Ratzinger seems to me very clear that withholding communion is a response to a situation of objective sin, not some kind of pre-emptive strike to be used in a campaign to influence the law. That is not the purpose for which the Eucharist is given to us.

All in all, then, not a good day's work for His Eminence.

IMAGE SOURCES: The background image of Cardinal Pell used in the headline was sourced from news.spirithit.com. Clicking on the other images will take you to the original source. The background image used for the bottom quote was taken by Brian Coyne.

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Peregrinus can be contacted at: Peregrinus <peregrinus@catholica.com.au>

©2007 Peregrinus