Ecclesia reformada

Posted on May 14, 2004 in Morals & Ethics

Ecclesia reformata, ecclesia semper reformada*.

The comments on this photograph at Le Pretre Noir have led me to realize a fundamental problem with the stand of certain Catholic bishops on the matter of who gets communion.

Get this: a priest can rape a child, perjure, steal, lie, break his vow of celibacy, murder, kill, etc. and yet this does not affect the validity of the sacrament as long as his secret keeps. Nonetheless, if a laymen speaks his mind on the abortion issue (and only on abortion and issues related to the womb — no call for advocacy of the death penalty, torture, or the war in Iraq) s/he can be denied this sacrament.

Long ago I came to a grim decision: I excommunicated the Catholic Church from giving me sacraments. The Church is free to do what it likes, of course, but as a man of conscience, I cannot abide in its attempt to control the portals to the Greater Universe and ruin good-intentioned men and women on the Left and the Center because of their belief that abortion should not be a crime that the State prosecutes, especially when they do nothing to those who promote war and the death penalty.

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*The reformed Church is the Church ever in need of reform.