The Pope's New Encyclical: No Communion for Economic Sinners?
Tuesday July 7, 2009
Were any of the Wall Street scam artists and greed mongers who led our country and world into economic meltdown Roman Catholics? If so, will they receive communion? The New York Times reports on the Encyclical Letter Caritas in...
Filed Under: American Catholic bishops, Catholic bishops, Catholic business leaders, catholic economic teachings., catholics and politics, economic crisis, encyclical letter caritas in Veritate, pope and American nuns, pro-choice catholics, Roman Catholic
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Advertisement
Advertisement
Search This Blog
About Progressive Revival
Diana Butler Bass and Paul Raushenbush both stand firmly within the Mainline Protestant tradition and, along with guest bloggers of all religious backgrounds are dedicated to the revival of religious progressivism and its influence in American politics.
Contributors
Diana Butler BassDiana Butler Bass is a commentator and scholar in American religion. She is the author of seven books including A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story (HarperOne, 2009).
» Posts by Diana Butler Bass
Paul RaushenbushModerator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University.
» Posts by Paul Raushenbush
Subscribe
Recent Posts
Most Popular Posts
- Psalm 109:8--A Prayer for Obama or Ourselves?:
- New Catholic Hardball: Trading the Poor for Doctrinal Purity:
- The Fort Hood Shootings and the White Privilege of Disassociation :
- The Stupak Amendment and why the Post Card Campaign would make it easy to Hate Catholics Right Now:
- Election 2009 Mixed Blessings:
- Burn In Hell Halloween:
- Pro-Football, Injury, and Clear Christian Conscience :
- All Saints Day: A Progressive Call to Remember:
- Halloween 2009 vs All Saints Day (Eternally):
- Sarah Palin - Flawed, Human:
Amen to that. For too long the RC Church in America has been a one note wonder. It was all about being against abortion. You could be a warmonger, a plundering capitalist or divorced 10 times and as long as you were for overturning Roe vs Wade you were A-OK in their book. Let's hope and pray that the Bishops here in the US wake up and start taking on other issues that Jesus definitely would have been concerned about--poverty, the war, oppression, etc. Let's see them start denying communion to those who advocate for war!
The Bishops tried in the 80s and were laughed out of the argument. I would imagine a Papal encyclical will just have all those good Baptist businessmen (and other non-Catholics) just shaking in their shoes fearing eternal damnation.
Fear of eternal damnation as a result of withholding Communion might change behavior at a very basic level, but that is what laws are for, not the Church. Withholding Communion does nothing to improve the holiness of people's *thoughts* which is what Jesus was concerned about. Jesus told us to forgive not just seven times, but seven times seven. We are also told "Vengeance is mind, saith the Lord" meaning we are not given free rein to decide how to take vengeance on anyone; the Lord will determine how to handle it with His infinite wisdom.
Lastly, Jesus told us to give to God what is God's and give to Caesar what is Caesar's -- why would the Church become involved in financial matters if Jesus was completely unconcerned about them? Shouldn't the role of the Church be to focus on our souls and not our wallets?
The withholding of communion is based on canon law. A papal encyclical doesn't establish new canon law, only a formal change in the code does. I'd suggest you become familiar with the process before commenting on it,
Your rhetorical cheap shot about the nuns doesn't make sense. And if the issue is degree of harm, I suggest abortion easily trumps financial shenanigans
"heterodoxy of thought, actions that do not cause actual harm to people"
If what they differ on is what type of habit to wear, you're right, no harm done.
If, for example, an order was preaching against an established doctrine of the faith, by denying it or twisting it around, then that's what we call "impugning the truth", and that's one of the 6 sins against the Holy Spirit. Intentionally misleading someone regarding the truth does, in fact, do people much harm.
But getting back to "economic sins", if Madoff was Catholic and refused -- quite publicly -- to acknowledge that what he did was evil, then yes, he would be denied Holy Communion until he reconciled himself with the truth.
But Madoff isn't Catholic; he's Jewish. So let's ask what the Jewish community is going to do about "economic sinning" instead of picking another senseless fight with the RCC simply because it makes for lots of extra blog traffic.
what about all those greedy folks out there who bit off more than they can chew. deny them communion also?
What about the Vatican. They are one of the biggest capitalist entities around. Deny all those connected to it. I think not. That where it would end.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.