Politicizing the Eucharist

Deal Hudson

Marjorie, "Politicizing the Eucharist" is precisely what Speaker Pelosi is doing by including it in her 4-day celebration.

Yes, we should keep the issue before our bishops, but our bishops should be keeping the issue before our Catholic politicians, and in most cases, they are not. 

I argued about using the denial-of-communion issue against Kerry during the last campaign. I thought that it should have been publicly debated at some time and place other than a presidential campaign.

Now is a good time for that debate, a year before the Iowa Caucus, and a full two years before the 2008 election.

Speaker Pelosi is providing the perfect occasion to discuss the f0llowing: Should a pro-abortion Catholic politician go unchallenged if she (or he) uses the Mass as the occasion for a public, obviously political, event? 

My answer is "I don't think so." 

It's one thing for such a politician to go to Mass privately. It is quite another thing to say, "Hey America, I am becoming Speaker of the House of Representatives, and as part of the party celebrating my new responsibility I am going to go back to the Catholic university where I graduated and go to Mass." 

She will invite the media, including the TV cameras, and the whole country will watch as Pelosi celebrates her Italian Catholic roots, her Catholic education, and demonstrates her Catholic piety, including the reception ot the Eucharist. 

This, I think, is why we have Canon 915, to protect the Eucharist from this, as you put it, deliberate politicization.