Should bishops get involved in political issues? Joseph Rummel thought so. The Archbishop of New Orleans voiced his opposition to segregation in the late 1940s and began desegregating churches and schools within the archdiocese a few years later.
“Racial segregation as such is morally wrong and sinful because it is a denial of the unity and solidarity of the human race as conceived by God,” he wrote.
He didn’t just disprove of segregation in private institutions but segregation laws themselves. Catholic legislators were warned that if they worked to perpetuate such laws, they risked excommunication, the church’s severest censure. When three prominent church members organized protests against the archdiocese, they received letters of “paternal admonition” and having disregarded them, were excommunicated. Two of the individuals publically recanted their opposition to desegregation and were reinstated as church members.
Earlier this month, Archbishop of Denver Samuel J. Aquila, Bishop of Pueblo Stephen J. Berg, Bishop of Colorado Springs James R. Golka, and Auxiliary Bishop of Denver Jorge H. Rodriguez took a similar action concerning Catholic legislators who supported House Bill 1279, the Reproductive Health Equity Act (RHEA), which codifies the ability to choose life or death for a preborn baby for any reason from conception until birth.
Colorado bishops reached out privately to 14 Catholic lawmakers on the issue of communion and abortion in fall of last year and spring of this year but none of the 10 Catholics who voted for RHEA were receptive.
Early this month, in an open letter to lawmakers, bishops asked, “Catholic legislators who live or worship in Colorado and who have voted for RHEA, to voluntarily refrain from receiving Holy Communion” until “public repentance takes place and sacramental absolution is received in Confession.”
For Catholics, Holy Communion is a sacramental meal of hosts bread and wine that become the real Body and Blood of Christ eaten together in anamnesis, which means to make past actions real in the present, publicly professing Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.
Before participating, Catholics are asked to examine their consciences, lest they take communion in an unworthy manner and bring judgment on themselves. This is true for all Christians who participate in communion.
There have been times that I have not taken communion at my Lutheran church because I was struggling with doubt or anger and was not yet ready to reconcile with God or another person I had wronged.
Pope Francis has stated that those who advocate for abortion have put themselves out of communion with the Catholic Church. As shepherds of their diocese, bishops may determine among themselves how best to help congregants live faithfully to the scriptures and church teaching.
The bishops of Colorado are concerned about the babies and mothers impacted by House Bill 1279 and the spiritual well-being of the lawmakers who supported it. Their actions are courageous, compassionate, and well within the tradition of the universal Christian faith.
Two thousand years ago members of that nascent faith opposed abortion and infanticide, both of which were common, acceptable practices across the Roman Empire. Christians spoke out in public and in their congregations against abortion and infanticide, provided support for needy women, and rescued abandoned infants.
Early theologians like Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine wrote in opposition to abortion and Christians secured legal protections for babies and their mothers.
The Catholic Church and many other Protestant and Orthodox Christian denominations remain faithful to this tradition of reverence for human life. “If the bishops, as shepherds of the church, did not make every effort to privately and publicly affirm the preciousness of human life and oppose the evil of abortion they would be failing to fulfill their vocation,” Brittany Vessely, executive director of the Colorado Catholic Conference, told me.
Some have asked why the church has not taken similar actions regarding the death penalty which the church also opposes. The issues do not differ in essence — all human life is precious — but in magnitude and circumstance; since the mid-seventies, 1,548 people have died by execution and 50 million people from abortion. Also, a child is innocent, but the death penalty is sentenced to someone who has committed murder.
Life starts at conception not just in humans but all animals that reproduce sexually and abortion extinguishes that life.
Whether the child’s life, or anyone’s life, should be protected by law is a political issue decided in legislatures and courts of law. As with other human rights issues, bishops have not just the right but the moral obligation to weigh in.
Krista L. Kafer is a weekly Denver Post columnist. Follow her on Twitter: @kristakafer.
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