Douglas Kmiec, the Catholic legal scholar and former counsel to Republican presidents, reports that he was recently denied communion for publicly supporting pro-choice candidate Barack Obama. It’s getting more common for the Catholic church to instruct pro-choice politicians to refrain from receiving the sacrament–it happened to John Kerry in 2004 and, more recently, to Kansas Gov. Kathleeen Sebelius. The pro-choice Rudy Giuliani was recently reprimanded for taking communion.
The difference in this case is that Kmiec is a staunch pro-life advocate. Here’s his defense, published on Inside Catholic
Catholic instruction provides that “a well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals.”
That obviously would preclude a Catholic voter from supporting a referendum providing public funding for abortion, but what about a candidate like Obama who is not pro-abortion, but of the view that the civil law best leaves this question to the mother in consultation with their own clergyman and doctor?
Catholic voters in this circumstance are asked to consider what other social goods Obama represents and whether they can honestly and openly say that they are supporting him for that reason and not his stand on abortion.
The American bishops have put it this way: “A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion. . ., if the voter’s intent is to support that position. In such cases a Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil. At the same time, a voter should not use a candidate’s opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity.”
Are there “other important moral issues involving human life and dignity”? The list is long: the death and economic waste associated with an unjustified war in Iraq; failure to be good stewards of the environment; promoting a tax code that favors the wealthy and undermines a family wage; perpetuating an immigration system that divides families and overlooks the exploitation of labor and more.
Some of that “more” is also a candidate’s view toward adoption, which I again urge Senator Obama to address now in the shadow of NARAL’s endorsement so that he remains true to his method described on the Daily Kos of “making everyone uncomfortable.”
More than One Way to Be Pro-Life?
But there’s a deeper question: Are Catholics — indeed people of all faiths and no faith — who address the wrenching economic or social circumstances or misinformation that pressure a mother into believing she has no alternative but to take the life of her unborn, really pro-abortion?
I’m pretty sure Pope Benedict would not think so. In any event, Benedict’s predecessor several hundred times removed, St. Peter, reminded his apostles that they must be always “prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”
…whether or not you think me less pro-life (which I’m not) by my endorsement, it is important to both reaffirm civility and the related principles of religious freedom that refute gleeful crusades, at home or abroad, to single out supposed apostasy where none exists.
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posted May 17, 2008 at 8:38 am
I guess it is time for Catholics of good conscious to begin to deny the Church their contributions when the collection basket comes around.
posted May 17, 2008 at 11:03 am
I guess it is time for Catholics of good conscious…”
…to start living by the tenets of our faith, which include staunch opposition to abortion and birth control.
posted May 17, 2008 at 11:13 am
Considering that over 90% of Catholics are sacrilegiously receiving Communion because they use artificial birth control, this is a small step in the right direction.
posted May 17, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Well, if Obama wins, there goes the tax exemption.
posted May 18, 2008 at 12:18 am
I was heartened by Mr. Kmiec’s reasoned endorsement of Obama and disheartened by this refusal of communion. Hopefully it is merely this one priest who, as Mr. Kmiec has pointed out, does not understand Mr. Kmiec is perfectly within the Church’s teachings to support the Senator. My prayers go out to you Mr. Kmiec and to our Church.
posted May 18, 2008 at 12:22 am
“Considering that over 90% of Catholics are sacrilegiously receiving Communion because they use artificial birth control, this is a small step in the right direction.”
Yep…and when they start denying communion to the Congressional members who voted for the war in Iraq the church can legitimately say they are treating ALL of their members equally in the sight of God.
posted May 18, 2008 at 10:51 am
JC,
Are you saying that refusing Kmiec communion was a step in the right direction, or that Kmiec defending himself was?
Are you saying that “90% of Catholics” should be denied communion, or that such an approach is silly becuase it would effectively vanquish the Catholic church in this country?
posted May 27, 2008 at 12:06 am
I heard Obama speak in a faith and values forum hosted by CNN, and specifically mentioned that we as Americans need to do a better job of making adoption a known, accepted, encouraged, and viable option in the case of unplanned pregancy.
posted June 2, 2008 at 8:25 pm
I recently graduated from Pepperdine University School of Law and was privileged enough to have Doug Kmiec as a professor. I can say without hesitation that from my experience he is a heartfelt and thoughtful teacher, political figure, and believer. He attends mass near daily, and truly exudes the calm sincere spirit of Jesus. I pray that this is an isolated event, and wish my best to his family. I am proud to know a man that will think through issues fully and make decisions with an eye to his brain, his heart, and his Lord. I think if all our leaders did that, this country would be in a better place.
posted June 8, 2008 at 3:20 pm
I hope there are more priests like the one who denied communion to Kmiec (and some bishops and archbishops too). The likelihood that many Catholics receive communion each week while not in a state of grace is not especially relevant here, because they have not made a public defiance of the Church’s laws. Kmiec, on the other hand, did. Does he–and does everyone else–know that Obama holds extreme pro-choice positions? This is a man who prides himself in having voted against pro-life Supreme Court Justices Roberts and Alito; a man who, if elected, has pledged to appoint Justices with Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s values; a man who has promised to sign the so-called Freedom of Choice Act; and a man who, when in the Illinois state legislature, twice voted against a bill requiring medical personnel to give medical assistance to those newborns who against all odds survived abortion procedures, as detailed in http://www.ignatius.com/Magazines/CWR/kengor_june08.htm. When the US Senate (before Obama was a member), voted on a similar bill, even Ted Kennedy and NARAL supported it. But the same kind of legislation was too pro-life for Obama. Kmiec has opined that Obama might change his pro-choice position. But there is no evidence for this wishful thinking.
Kmiec and other nominal Catholics who support Obama on the frail grounds of “social justice” might remind themselves that massive anti-poverty programs costing trillions of dollars have been in effect since the 1960s, if not the 1930s. But we still have poverty. And while Jesus said almsgiving is our duty, the strange and incorrect notion that Catholics can trade opposition to abortion for “better social programs” or “a slightly shorter war” is, I submit, closely tied to the egos of those who see themselves remaking society according to their own collectivist utopian fantasies. Vanity of vanities, they are vanity.
Kmiec is a high profile Catholic layperson and as such his opinion might influence other Catholics. And his public endorsement of Barack Obama runs counter to the teaching of the Church. The USCCB policy cited (allowing votes for pro-choice candidates) is valid only so far as it does not conflict with the official teaching of the Church; one must assume that the majority of bishops inserted the allowance in order that Catholics might vote for a pro-choice candidate in an instance where his opponent advocated a policy such as genocide or nuclear war, or where both candidates are pro-choice. Otherwise, the official Catechism of the Church is quite clear. Section 2272 states that “Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life.” (The entire Catechism can be found on the USCCB and Vatican websites.) The Church considers those Catholics who endorse or vote for a pro-choice candidate without some exceptional reason to be cooperating in the commission of abortions, and logically so.
Catholics and non-Catholics alike may remember the adage “when you dine with the Devil, bring a long spoon”. When considering a vote for Barack Obama, the man who voted against requiring medical personnel to assist mutilated gasping newborns, no spoon is long enough. Alas, Douglas Kmiec and E.J. Dionne (who wrote a column in the Washington Post last week that portrayed Kmiec as some kind of victim) appear to be free for lunch—or out to lunch.