Denying Communion and Funeral Rites to Pro-LGBT Politicians

by Michael Jones · 2009-09-22 05:19:00 UTC
Topics:

Eucharist

And just like that, the Catholic Church takes another leap toward the fringe elements of society. This time it comes in the form of former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke -- now Prefect of the Vatican's Apostolic Signatura, which is essentially like serving on the Vatican's high court -- gave an address where he openly proposed that Catholic officials should deny both communion and funeral rites to politicians who support same-sex marriage.

Looks like Burke is trying to take a potshot at the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Conservative Catholics were up in arms that Boston's Archbishop attended the funeral for Sen. Kennedy, despite Kennedy's support for equal rights. But for Burke to suggest this is another sign that the Catholic Church is becoming an increasingly scary institution under its current U.S. and global leadership.

Burke told his audience, "neither Holy Communion nor funeral rites should be administered to politicians who support abortion or same-sex marriage. To deny these is not a judgment of the soul, but a recognition of the scandal and its effects."

Good grief. What about denying communion to Catholic officials who hide allegations of sexual abuse, or who fail to show up for the debate about U.S. health care while funneling illegal money into Maine to take away equal rights?

Rhetoric like this -- especially from someone like Burke, who all-too-gladly took to the national spotlight in 2004 for threatening to ban communion for Sen. John Kerry -- isn't terribly surprising. But if the Catholic Church needed to take one more step in the process of alienating progressives, this just might be it. Are they now proposing a litmus test for not only who can receive communion, but who can die as well?

There's a reason "Jesus weeps" is such an easily remembered passage from the Bible. It must be because, in the wake of tools like Archbishop Burke making comments like this in his name, what else is Jesus left to do?

(Photo courtesy of HouseofSims' photostream on Flickr.)

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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