May Caholic Supporters of Marriage Equality Receive Communion?
Posted: 04/16/2013 6:16 pm
Charles J. Reid, Jr..
Professor of Law, University of St. Thomas
Can a Catholic who upholds marriage equality receive Holy Communion? This was the question put to Archbishop Allen Vigneron of Detroit, who answered in the negative, declaring that Catholic supporters of marriage equality should refrain from the Eucharist. They "deny the revelation of Christ entrusted to the Church," the Archbishop said, and added: "This sort of behavior amounts to publicly rejecting one's integrity and logically bring[ing] shame for a double-dealing that is not unlike perjury."
On April 12, however, retired Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton contradicted Vigneron and reassured Catholics: "Don't stop going to Communion. You're okay."
So, in this Motor City clash, who is right? To resolve this question in absolute terms, we need to know more about what Archbishop Vigneron was thinking. It is possible that he meant only to address Catholics who believe that marriage equality is a settled matter of ecclesiastical law and doctrine. That is, he may have been speaking to Catholics who wish to have local parishes perform same-sex marriages as a matter of internal Church practice.
But it is more than likely he had something else in mind. And that was to speak to Catholics who believe that secular society should adopt an expansive understanding of marriage, embracing both heterosexual and homosexual unions so as to accommodate the needs of a rich and diverse nation. Clearly, one of the Archbishop's principal sources for his statement, the Detroit canonist Ed Peters, had this in mind when he wrote that "[t]he Catholic Church has the right and duty 'always and everywhere to announce moral principles, even about the social order, and to render judgment concerning any human affairs insofar as the fundamental rights of the human person or the salvation of souls requires it.'"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-j-reid-jr/may-catholic-supporters-of-marriage-equality-receive-communion_b_3094338.html
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