Russell Shaw: There are three types of bishops...

... when it comes to the issue of pro-abortion Catholic politicians receiving Holy Communion. Via Religion News Service:

Russell Shaw, former director of communications for the USSCB, said the bishops could basically be divided into three camps: the "hardliners," who want to deny Communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, and possibly those who vote for them; the "compromisers" who want to reach an agreement with politicians; and a large majority in the middle who "don't like messy unpleasant situations like this and are just hoping it will go away."

The bishops should have agreed on a policy when Catholic Sen. John Kerry, who also supports abortion rights, made a serious run at the presidency four years ago, said Shaw, author of the recent book "Nothing to Hide: Secrecy, Communication and Communion in the Catholic Church."

Instead, the bishops decided to let each prelate determine his own policy.

"The failure to face up to serious questions has come home to roost," Shaw said.

Deal Hudson, a conservative Catholic activist and author, is among those pushing for the prelates to amend "Faithful Citizenship."

"Catholic supporters of Obama have cherry-picked it for loopholes" said Hudson. "The bishops should have anticipated the kinds of abuse a complex document like that would undergo."

Myers said the problem lies not with "Faithful Citizenship" but with its interpreters.

"It's kind of like Vatican II," the archbishop said, referring to the seminal conclave of the 1960s that lead to wide reforms in the church. "Very clearly there are some, like Senator Biden, who are saying the church for centuries did not have a clear position on abortion and have gone all over the ballpark in making up their own positions."

Read the entire article.

Learn more about Shaw's book,  Nothing to Hide: Secrecy, Communication, and Communion in the Catholic Church . Also, read Shaw's article, "Does the Church Have too Many Secrets?", published in the April 2008 issue of This Rock.

Comments

[Frank Gibbons]

I'm sure that Deal Hudson has repented for his trangressions (taking advantage of a troubled Fordham co-ed) and I know the Lord has forgiven him. But he should not be functioning as a spokesperson, consultant, pontificator, or moralist regading the Catholic scene in America. And you guys in the Catholic press need to stop siting him as an expert. Repentance should be accompanied with humility.

[Robert Miller]

There is a great deal of discussion going on about how (somehow) Obama's election enables African-Americans to stop being hyphenated Americans. I don't think that's a gain for them -- but go figure, at least it's understandable.

Actually, I think it would be more correct to say that his election, and the circumstances surrounding it, have made all of us hyphenated Americans.

And I say hooray for this one "silver lining".

Maybe the 46% of Catholic-Americans who followed the 50 or so bishops who stood up to be counted will now start being Catholic Americans in a lot of interesting ways (e.g., by embracing their Hispanic brothers and sisters who have been abused by both political parties).

[Nick]

I've been thinking about this SAME issue since the election. There are bishops who are standing up and taking a hard line (which is what we need, there are bishops who only speak out after others have spoken out yet state they will NOT deny Communion or take Ecclesiastical disciplinary measures (which is what Pelosi and Biden's bishops have basically done, making a mockery of the Church's teaching), and there is a 'silent majority' who hasn't really spoken out and basically done nothing (which is just as scandalous as the second group). Cardinal Egan of the huge New York City diocese hosted a charity dinner which was all over the media and tv, yet at the dinner he sat between Obama and McCain and laughed and dined and had a good time as if the nation would be EQUALLY lucky if we elected EITHER candidate. It was very scandalous because many people saw that as the Church not wanting to get involved with politics.

[Matthew]

Frank, I guess we can thank God that St. Peter and St. Paul did NOT take your advice.
Matthew

[Dan Deeny]

We need a good historian to compare the actions of the bishops in Nazi Germany with the actions of our bishops now. In his great book The History of Christianity, Paul Johnson said the Catholic Church in Nazi Germany was pusillanimous. What can one say now?

[Robert Miller]

Actually, at this remove, the German bishops (and their mentors, Pius XI and Pacelli) look remarkably gutsy.

One big difference between us now and them then is that the German Catholic people were a "state within a state" -- i.e., a self-conscious people with flourishing institutions, liturgy and devotion, and communal solidarity outside the four walls of the church. They had been getting the short end of the stick for centuries, but they retained their own public character and identity (cf., Ratzinger's reminiscences in his 1977 memoirs).To be sure, Hitler and his crew made deep inroads into this Catholic consciousness (most of them were, after all, renegades from the Catholic faith and public thing). But the German bishops' courage prevented him from creating a folkish Catholic Church on the German Protestant model and enabled German Catholicism to re-emerge after the war as the soul of the nation during the 1950s. They also probably saved not a few lives in the process.

The 50 or so US bishops who stood up this year have made an invaluable beginning. The question now is: "beginning of what?" Clearly, something more than advocacy is required in the days ahead. What is needed are strategies to create practical and tangible solidarity within the US Catholic community. The existence of that kind of solidarity saw the German Catholic community through Germany's darkest times.

More later, if anyone's interested...