{"id":1420,"date":"2004-04-13T10:50:10","date_gmt":"2004-04-13T14:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2004\/04\/13\/a-reasoned-response-to-the-kerry-co"},"modified":"2004-04-13T10:50:10","modified_gmt":"2004-04-13T14:50:10","slug":"a-reasoned-response-to-the-kerry-communion-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2004\/04\/13\/a-reasoned-response-to-the-kerry-communion-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"A reasoned response to the Kerry Communion thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Senator Kerry showed up at BF’s parish on Sunday morning.  We knew
\nin advance (how good it is to know the priests!), so we stayed away
\nfrom a potential circus.<\/p>\n

Melissa Henneberger has a very excellent piece on this<\/a> in the electronic version of Newsweek.  A couple of quotes:<\/p>\n

…it was a relief to hear Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington
\nrespond with a pastoral voice on the Kerry issue. McCarrick is heading
\na U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops task force on how to handle
\nCatholic politicians who support abortion rights. In an empty meeting
\nroom at St. Matthew’s in downtown D.C., where the cardinal led a prayer
\nservice last Wednesday, he pulled a couple of dusty folding chairs down
\nfrom a stack so we’d have someplace to sit while we talked. When I
\nasked about Kerry’s standing, he seemed pained by the idea of turning
\nhim, or anyone else, away. “I would find it hard to use the Eucharist
\nas a sanction,” he said gently. “You don’t know what’s in anyone’s
\nheart when they come before you. It’s important that everyone know what
\nour principles are, but you’d have to be very sure someone had a
\nmalicious intent [before denying him communion.]” McCarrick is
\nsurprisingly humble, and a reluctant judge. “It’s between the person
\nand God,’’ he said….<\/p>\n

Though this attitude is sure to be criticized as more watered-down
\nCatholicism Lite, I don’t see it that way. At a less orthodox time in
\nmy own Catholic life, a nun in my parish in Northern California
\nimproved my understanding and appreciation of the sacraments through
\nthe underused—and doubtless desperate—strategy of working with me
\ninstead of turning me away. I had agreed to teach a parish Sunday
\nschool class for second-graders preparing to make their first
\ncommunion—until it dawned on me that I would also be expected to
\ninstruct them on the sacrament formerly known as confession. “I haven’t
\nbeen in a while myself,” I told her. “That’s fine,’’ she said briskly.
\n“Maybe you’ll go now.’’ Like her, McCarrick seems to feel that we only
\nget better if we stick around and practice.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senator Kerry showed up at BF’s parish on Sunday morning.  We knew in advance (how good it is to know the priests!), so we stayed away from a potential circus. Melissa Henneberger has a very excellent piece on this in the electronic version of Newsweek.  A couple of quotes: …it was a relief to hear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politicks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-mU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}