Non-Negotiables

Some issues allow for a diversity of opinion, and Catholics are permitted leeway in endorsing or opposing particular policies.  This is the case with the questions of when to go to war and when to apply the death penalty.  Though the Church urges caution regarding both of these issues, it acknowledges that the state has the right to employ them in some circumstances (CCC 2309, 2267).

Pope Benedict XVI, when he was still Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, spoke of this in a document dealing with when Catholics may receive Communion:

“Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia.  For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion.  While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment.  There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia” (WRHC 3).

The same is true of many other issues that are the subject of political debate: the best way to help the poor, to manage the economy, to protect the environment, to handle immigration, and to provide education, health care and retirement security.  Catholics may legitimately take different approaches to these issues while the same cannot be said for euthanasia and abortion, two actions which are always wrong no matter the circumstances.  The protection of innocent life always takes precedence to all other issues.  What good are all other rights if one does not have the right to life?

God Bless
Nathan

Ref: Catholic Answers, Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics, Catholic Answers Press, 16 pgs, 2016

Communion of Saints

In today’s second reading we find that there is a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us.  Reading Hebrews 11, the previous chapter of today’s reading, tells us that these witnesses are the Old Testament saints.

 

These ‘dead’ saints who are alive in Christ are aware of what’s happening to us.  Here are few verses to show this awareness of those in heaven of what is happening here on Earth.

 

Heb 12:1          “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

 

Mt 17:3            Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

 

(If Jesus didn’t want any contact between saints on earth and saints in heaven, why did our Lord make a special point of appearing to Peter, James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration in the company of Moses and Elijah, two ‘dead’ saints? (Patrick Madrid))

 

Rev 6:9-10       When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?

 

Luke 15:10       …There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents.

 

We have just learned that the ‘dead saints’ are indeed aware of earthly doings, but can they do anything about it?  Are there intercessory prayers effective?  Of course there are.  Prayers of the righteous availeth much (Jas 5:16).  Who are more righteous than those who have been made perfect (Mat 5:48) and in heaven?

 

I feel I must make clear that Jesus alone is our mediator, John Henry Cardinal Newman pointed out:

The Catholic Church allows no…Saint, not even the Blessed Virgin herself, to come between the soul and its Creator…The devotions then to angels and saints as little interfered with the incommunicable glory of the Eternal, as the love which we bear our friends and relations, our tender human sympathies, are inconsistent with that supreme homage of the heart to the Unseen.  (Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua, p.284-285)

 

We can therefore see that asking saints to pray for us (whether they are ‘living’ or ‘dead’) is acceptable, approved by God, and avails much. 

 

[Text adapted from http://www.catholicapologetics.org/ap070100.htm ]

Receiving Communion in a non-Catholic Service

Q.  Can Catholics receive communion in a non-Catholic ceremony?

  

R.     Catholics believe that the Eucharist is a sign of unity.  This is one of the reasons that Protestants can’t ordinarily receive Communion in Catholic churches.  The same holds true in the opposite direction:  For a Catholic to receive Protestant communion would not only give the impression that the Protestant version is valid, but it would also create a false sense of unity.  There is no true unity between us sadly and for us to receive communion in a Protestant church would be lying with our bodies.  Almost as if we would say yes by bobbing our heads up and down in the affirmative but saying no with our words.  We would be giving a mixed message, and a confusing one.  And therefore lend confusion as to what the Catholic Church actually teaches on the matter.

And that, my friend, is the main reason a Catholic Christian shouldn’t receive communion in a non-Catholic church.  The Catholic Church teaches in the True Presence of our Lord in the Eucharist, most other churches do not believe in this change.  For a Catholic to receive communion in a non-Catholic church would be saying to the other Christians of that church that he believes as they do.  The Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith.  Everything revolves around this fact, the fact that Jesus Christ is actually present in the consecrated bread and wine.  We would be doing a great disservice to those Christians by going along with their ideology.  We ought to provoke their thinking instead and to wake them up from their complacency by simply not partaking of communion and keeping to the truth.  In fact, we are not in full communion with each other yet and pretending that we are is not helpful for any member of His Church.

God Bless
Nathan