Hell hath no fury than a Lesbian Woman scorned! This is a letter from Barbara Johnson to the priest who denied her Holy Communion at her mother's Requiem:“You brought your politics, not your God into that Church yesterday, and you will pay dearly on the day of judgment for judging me,” she wrote in a letter to Guarnizo. “I will pray for your soul, but first I will do everything in my power to see that you are removed from parish life so that you will not be permitted to harm any more families.”
Somehow in reading the article in the Washington Post concerning this story, I missed the following:
"Family members said the priest left the altar while Johnson, 51, was delivering a eulogy and did not attend the burial or find another priest to be there."
Well, I've gotten upset at Mass at something that occurred, (especially funeral Masses) but I don't think I've ever left a funeral Mass before it was actually over and missed the "Rite of Committal" without finding a replacement for me which is the actual conclusion to the Funeral Mass, I mean, Requiem Mass.
So this raises a number of issues in my mind about "anger" issues that this priest might harbor and fails to control in a way that is mature.
Then the Archdiocese issues this apology to the woman and her family which you can read in it entirety by pressing HERE!
An excerpt from that official archdiocesan letter as described in the Washington Post Article goes like this, "the Rev. Barry Knestout, one of the archdiocese’s highest-ranking administrators, who said the lack of “kindness” she and her family received “is a cause of great concern and personal regret to me.”
“I am sorry that what should have been a celebration of your mother’s life, in light of her faith in Jesus Christ, was overshadowed by a lack of pastoral sensitivity,”
Okay, let's hold hands and have a meditation on this from my solemn held point of view which is merely my opinion:
1. The Requiem Mass is not a Celebration of Life, it is the Church's highest form of prayer for the deceased person commending them to Almighty God and His Divine Mercy and purifying love! It is nothing else but that! It has nothing to do with the merits of the person being "funeralized" but everything to do with the merits of Jesus Christ and His passion, death and resurrection which we celebrate at every Mass.
2. A Celebration of Life should take place after the Vigil for the Deceased or beforehand or after the Rite of Committal if such a celebration is desired by family or friends and that should be organized by family and friends and independent of the institutional Church.
3. The unfortunate desire now to eulogize deceased Catholics either during the homily or after Holy Communion (and in the case of the latter, by one or more lay people, family or friends) should be expunged from the Liturgical Books for Requiems. These should take place outside of the Church building either at a social hall, funeral home or the home of a family member or friend. These should not take place during the sacred rites!
I've had disaster after disaster with these so-called eulogies after Holy Communion. I once had a family member who unbeknownst to me had left the Church and was an evangelical minister get up and negate everything I said in the homily and asked people "to close their eyes and raise their hands if they were saved and if they weren't they needed to accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior right then and there or they would not be assured of salvation. Nothing that Catholics were doing in praying for the person who had died would save that person if they weren't already saved to begin with"
4. The priest at a funeral or wedding Mass should state somewhere before the time of Holy Communion the following: "We can only invite those Catholics in full Communion with the Church, meaning the pope, the bishops in union with him and the moral and doctrinal teachings of the Church and who are in a state of grace to come forward to receive Holy Communion. All others should make a 'spiritual communion' as they meditate on God's merciful love" or something to that effect.
5. If there is any question about the suitability of someone to receive Holy Communion and this is known before Mass, the priest should indicate to that person that they should come forward and simply receive a blessing. Decisions about denying someone Holy Communion should not be made spontaneously or at the moment of Holy Communion based upon a "judgement" of their state of grace or suitability.
I reassert my argument below that Canon 915, "Those upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to holy communion"should be made clear by the bishop himself to all diocesan and religious clergy and applied equally in all situations, but the manner of its application must be made clear--there is a time and place for everything and there is a time and place not to do something.
13 comments:
Keep in mind we are just hearing one side of this story: we don't know what the priest's version of this is. Perhaps the requirements for denial of Communion had been met, etc. It is a shame the bishop was so quick to sell out this priest who was presumably trying to do the right thing...
It is my understanding that the Eatern Orthodox Church regularly denies Communion to those who have not been to a confession recently. This even necessitates priests "vouching" for congregants who are traveling. Obviously, Catholic parishes are much larger generally speaking, but we can't fail to see some connection between the way the world is and the presumably rampant sacrilegious reception of Holy Communion.
Marc
Oh, and now that everyone in the world knows this lady is a sinner, that makes her a public sinner under Canon 915. Therefore, how long will we wait for the bishop's proclamation that she should be henceforth denied Holy Communion until her public repentance?
Marc
This priest may have made a "battlefied decision" too hastily, but he was trying to protect the integrity of the sacrament and should, at very least, be commended for that. It seems as though most Catholics do not know that "sacrilege" means and nobody (in authority) wants to talk about it.
This priest did, indeed, judge. He did not judge this woman's eternal soul, he judged the ACTIONS of her very public lifestyle that is is in complete contradiction to the way a Catholic in a state of grace should live. If he made any mistake at all, it was not having more information before deciding what to do. But no one can deny now that the woman in question is certainly living in open defiance of Church teaching.
The only thing that offends me about this story is the spectacle of the archdiocese slobbering and pandering all over the offended parties to avert a PR disaster. Why must the Church apologize to the very people who despise Her, defy Her and wish to strip Her of Her moral authority?
Interesting charge she makes. I would argue that she, more than the priest, brought her politics into the Church. The priest appears only to have interpreted the Canons in a difficult situation, whereas she was, in my view, brazenly announcing specifics of her relationship which few heterosexuals would do, in a similar situation.
If, as the article mentions, she introduced her companion as her "lover" to Fr. Marcel, it appears she had an agenda from the start. This indicates her own sad intentions at her mother's Funeral Mass.
I fear the Archdiocese's apology sends mixed signals to an already confused laity.
The whole story remains to be heard.
"Actually it was her Funeral Mass, what I like to call The Requiem Mass."
Of course, the reason for this controversy is the vast difference in common Catholic understanding today, between a "Funeral Mass"--for celebration of the life of the deceased and for consolation of the bereaved--and a "Requiem Mass" whose purpose is prayer AND sacrifice for the eternal soul of the deceased. All the difference between Heaven (requiem) and Earth (funeral).
I understand that in the Eastern Orthodox rite of ordination, the priest takes upon his own soul the responsibility for any sacrilege resulting from his ever giving Holy Communion to an unworthy recipient.
This is the reason for the alleged practice of a priest refusing communion to anyone whom he does recognize as having confessed--usually at the previous evening's Vespers--or is not otherwise vouched for.
Most every Catholic priest I know well enough for him to level on this, says he worries that sacrilege occurs regularly in his giving of communion.
A famous saying in legal circles is "Hard cases make bad law." Based on the reports--and as anon. said, we don't know the whole story and those reports are probably biased--this is a hard case. On the one hand, the canon is perfectly clear and admits of no exception. On the other, this woman was clearly emotionally vulnerable with her mother having just died. A fight with such a person at such a time isn't going to produce anything positive for anybody. I will guarantee that when all is said and done, the Church is going to be savaged for this in public opinion, however the rightness of its position.
Pastorally, some of the questions that arise are 1) Did Johnson publicly call attention to her lesbian relationship during the Mass prior to presenting herself for Communion? 2) If so, was she doing so to throw down a gauntlet? 3) If she did call attention to the relationship, was there any opportunity for the priest to tell her privately beforehand that he couldn't give her Communion? 4) Did the priest deny her Communion to protect her from receiving unworthily or because HE wanted to throw down a gauntlet--i.e. was his intention charitable or not?
Marc makes an excellent point: now that the emotionally charged moment of the Mass is over, will the diocese publicly announce that she is to be denied Communion in future? If not, then behold, the Church caves again. Want to bet what happens here?
Final point: this could have been avoided if the Church hadn't ignored Canon 915 and handed out Communion like candy for fifty years, as well as indulging in Canonization Masses for everyone rather than Requiem Masses. Just as it has with the HHS crisis, the Church painted itself into this particular corner, and now it, and we, are going to get bashed for the Johnson episode. Had the Church done its job properly, this episode should never have happened. By allowing this "hard case" to arise, the Church has let itself be lured onto enemy ground--a ground populated by a hostile media and hostile public opinion.
Henry, I think part of the problem with many in the Church today is an over-correction of what in the past would have been called "Liturgical Scrupulosity." That's not today's problem because we have embraced wholeheartedly "Liturgical Unscruplosity!" Somehow I think being scrupulous is a morally more appealing than be "unscrupulous" no?
Maybe this priest was not so scrupulous as some of his accusers are saying. Barbara Johnson and her partner are both militant lesbians and in a very public way. Click the link to this article and you will see that these women are unapologetically entrenched in their "lifestyle". Particularly unnerving is the closing comment about "mindblowing sex". Thank goodness at least one priest had enough integrity to put his foot down.
Never mind the first "mindblowing sex" comment, the one that follows is worse: "Sometimes with each other."
So they are proudly Lesbian and proudly unfaithful. Publicly so. With all possible respect to Dr. Peters and to the bishop, it would appear that the priest was entirely correct in his action.
And if a canonist declares to the contrary, then we have identified another grave problem in the Church, because to knowingly give Communion to someone who is in grave sin, and obstinate about it is clearly a violation of Canon 915.
Your third point could have helped the situation immensely. I suppose the priest may not have known about the daughter before she approached, but it seems prudent to, as you say, 'brief' the attendees that only practicing Catholics should approach for communion. They could have then adjourned to another location and allowed a complete orgy, if that is how they want to remember the mother.
I suspect the Bishop cowed because he wanted to avoid a legal suit that could have led to a court ruling on who is allowed to receive the hosts.
rcg
Dr. Peters? The jokes just write themselves...LOL!
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