Note: The following is a press release from The Dignitatis Humanae Institute
Rome,
03 October 2013
Commentating
on the heated debate on whether Holy Communion should be withheld
from Catholic politicians who support abortion or euthanasia
legislation, Luca Volontè, a Catholic Italian statesman with 20
years of experience affirmed: "It
is simply a falsehood to believe one can readily divorce one's faith
from personal involvement in public policy. To do so is to fail both
God and one's neighbour, and stand complicit in grave sin. The Church
teaches that pro-abortion politicians have already automatically
excommunicated themselves ("latae sententiae"). It is
therefore an act of false charity not to make this situation publicly
manifest, because it deprives the person of receiving the most
serious warning that they need to correct their behaviour, thus
leading him/her into the erroneous belief that the Church might
tacitly support such legislation."
The
comments follow an interview from His Eminence Cardinal Burke,
Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the
highest court position in the Vatican. In the interview with The
Wanderer,
the Vatican's most senior American spoke of the inability to
reconcile pro-abortion Catholic politicians with their worthiness to
receive Holy Communion: "it
is a contradiction, it is wrong, it is a scandal, and it must stop!
We live in a culture with a false sense of dialogue - which has also
crept into the Church - where we pretend to dialogue about open and
egregious violations of the moral law."
Despite
vociferous criticism from the liberal commentariat of this dogmatic
approach, Cardinal Burke, who also serves as the President of the
Advisory Board of the Dignitatis
Humanae Institute,
simply reiterates Church teaching as found in Canon Law and outlined
by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith by the then Cardinal
Ratzinger in Worthiness
to Receive Holy Communion: General Principles.
The memorandum states: "Regarding
the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person's formal
cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic
politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive
abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him,
instructing him about the Church's teaching, informing him that he is
not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end
the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will
otherwise be denied the Eucharist."
In
Ireland, the Catholic priests who have followed the memorandum's
directives in response to the recent legislation sanctioning abortion
have been met with howls of outrage from culpable Irish politicians
who seek to divest themselves of their faith and moral responsibility
whilst engaged in politics. Mr Volontè noted, "As
Catholics in public office, often faced with the seemingly
overwhelming pressure to submit ourselves to the party whip, we
should in that moment seek inspiration from St Thomas More, the
patron saint of politicians, who demonstrated with his life that God
and morality cannot be separated from man and politics; "man
is created by God, and therefore human rights have their origin in
God, are based upon the design of creation and form part of the plan
of redemption. One might even dare to say that the rights of man are
also the rights of God." "
The Dignitatis Humanae Institute aims to uphold human dignity based on the anthropological truth that man is born in the image and likeness of God and therefore has an innate human dignity of infinite worth to be upheld. The Institute promotes this understanding by supporting Christians in public life, assisting them to present effective and coherent responses to increasing efforts to silence the Christian voice in the public square.
