ARTICLES

Some May Call It Prudence

Should Bishop Weigand Excommunicate Governor Davis?

By George Neumayr

Does canon law permit bishops to deny communion to the likes of pro-abortion Governor Gray Davis? If so, should they? "Yes and yes," responds Charles Wilson, director of the St. Joseph Foundation, a Texas-based group which specializes in canon law.

"Davis is being openly contemptuous of the teachings of the Catholic Church," said Wilson. Canonical penalties, which range from denial of communion to excommunication, exist for just such an occasion, Wilson argued. "That's why the penalties are listed in canon law, to repair breaches of order in the Church like this one."

But Sacramento Bishop William Weigand, who in January publicly told Governor Gray Davis and other pro-abortion politicians that they should refrain from receiving communion, appears to have ruled out any canonical penalties against them. In an interview with National Catholic Register reporter Tim Drake, Weigand said that he will not deny communion to Davis. "Some people thought I was 'considering formally forbidding the [governor] from receiving Communion.' I did not intimate that I had any such thing in mind, nor that we would refuse Communion to someone that approaches," he said. "Some people thought that there must inevitably follow a further step, namely to excommunicate Governor Davis. But there are no inevitable consequences to my action. After instructing people, we respect them and strive to treat them as adults. We prefer to trust in their sincerity and goodwill. That is why I stated that a person of integrity should 'choose of his own volition to abstain from receiving Holy Communion until he has a change of heart.'"

Wilson said that Weigand's statement is "absurd." Bishops have a "responsibility" to hold Davis and other pro-abortion politicians accountable to canon law, he said. "Imagine the outrage if George Bush said after the Enron scandal, 'we won't punish these guys. We will just treat them like adults.'"

Father Charles McDermott, a spokesman for Bishop Weigand, said Wilson's view is "just one opinion." Father McDermott said Weigand isn't "contemplating" further action against Davis. Asked why, McDermott couldn't formulate a reason, except to say vaguely that there are "variables" which determine whether a bishop should use canonical penalties against an offender. McDermott seemed eager to minimize the Davis controversy. When I mentioned that Davis had said that he will disregard the bishop's earlier remarks, McDermott challenged the accuracy of the report. "I don't know if that is true. Reports are not always precise or accurate," he said. Has the Sacramento diocese ever used canonical penalties against an openly disobedient Catholic? I asked him. "Not in my time that I know of," he replied.

Weigand is hardly alone in resisting the use of canonical penalties, and he deserves praise for at least saying that pro-abortion Catholic politicians should not go to communion. But if this statement isn't backed up with canonical penalties, can he really expect Davis to take it seriously?

Dust has gathered on the canon law books of bishops across the country, said Wilson. "The bishops haven't used the Church's penal system in years," despite obvious and serious canonical infractions, he said.

Disorder permeates the Catholic Church in America for this reason. If repeated breaches of the Church's order go unaddressed -- except for we-wish-you-wouldn't-do-that appeals -- the Church's authority naturally diminishes.

"Davis and other pro-abortion politicians will not take the bishops seriously until they use canonical penalties against them," said one Church insider. "They will keep coming to communion and openly dissenting from Church teaching. How can the bishops permit that scandal and sacrilege? A pro-abortion politician who is receiving Communion is committing sacrilege. By giving Communion to pro-abortion politicians, they are allowing pro-abortion politicians to misuse the sacraments and present themselves as being in full communion with the Church, when they are not."

Weigand's first step is not the last step envisioned by canon law. Canon law states that bishops should not admit an open sinner to communion. Canon law 915 reads: "those upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to holy communion." Davis has said repeatedly said that he will not alter his pro-abortion views. Does this not constitute "obstinately persisting in manifest grave sin"? Canon law says such an offender should receive a warning. And Davis has. Yet he remains resolutely pro-abortion, and he continues to receive communion.

According to canon law, a bishop has not only the right, but the duty to stop a grave sinner from committing sacrilege and scandal. Canon 1369 tells bishops: "A person is to be punished with a just penalty, who, at a public event or assembly, or in a published writing, or by otherwise using the means of social communication, utters blasphemy, or gravely harms public morals, or rails at or excites hatred of or contempt for religion or the Church." This canon law might as well have an accompanying picture of Gray Davis.

In recent church history, bishops have, without violating canon law, threatened pro-abortion politicians and other open sinners with excommunication or other penalties. Mexican cardinal Norberto Rivera, in 1999, said, "anyone who promotes or practices abortion, including legislators and governors, will be excommunicated by the Church." Colombia's bishops have also discussed excommunication for pro-abortion politicians. In 2001, the archbishop of Lima and primate of Peru, Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, instructed his pastors to deny communion to politicians if they refuse to abandon their pro-abortion views. The instruction read: "the pastor who has a parishioner in this condition can deny him or her holy Communion in public, after warning him or her in private."

Archbishop Isaias Duarte Cancino of Cali, Colombia, excommunicated members of the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerilla group. He excommunicated them in response to the ELN's refusal to release 40 hostages. "This is what we want: to send them a message that what they have done is wrong, and that is the reason why they are being separated from the communion of the Church," Archbishop Duarte explained.

In 1989, San Diego Bishop Leo Maher told pro-abortion Democratic assemblywoman Lucy Killea that she was banned from receiving communion. Canon lawyers said Maher had the canonical right to issue that ban under canon 915. Weigand could have done the same to Davis.

Of course, Maher received no support from his fellow bishops. Francis Quinn, the Sacramento bishop at the time, made a point of welcoming Killea to communion. "No priest in this diocese will ever refuse to give you communion," he said. Frances Kissling, head of the pro-abortion Catholics for Free Choice, rejoiced in Quinn's snub of Maher.

Kissling expressed delight that most bishops would not withhold communion from "Catholics who merely favor -- as opposed to practice -- legal abortion, or Catholics who believe subjectively that in certain circumstances abortion can be a morally correct decision." She also noted happily that when "New York auxiliary bishop Austin Vaughan, at a 1989 meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops," suggested that pro-abortion politicians receive canonical penalties, "the other bishops declined to act. The National Council of Catholic Bishops' president at the time, Bishop John May of St. Louis, cautioned that such severe penalties would be counterproductive."

Is it counterproductive to stop scandal and sacrilege? This is the Church's duty, according to canon law. Canon 1311 reads: "the Church has its own inherent right to constrain with penal sanctions Christ's faithful who commit offences." Canon 392 says bishops must stop sacrilege at communion: "since the Bishop must defend the unity of the universal Church, he is bound to foster the discipline which is common to the whole Church, and so press for the observance of all ecclesiastical laws. He is to ensure that abuses do not creep into ecclesiastical discipline, especially concerning the ministry of the word, the celebration of the sacraments and sacramentals, the worship of God and the cult of the saints, and the administration of goods."

Davis's constant trumpeting of "abortion rights" is as blatant a violation of canon 1369 as one could find. While most canonists argue that his support for state financing of abortion does not meet the precise definition of formal cooperation with an abortion -- if it did, he would incur automatic excommunication -- no one can deny that he is committing punishable offenses under canon law.

Canon 915 allows bishops to deny communion to Davis without a canonical trial. Indeed, even a parish priest under canon law could withhold communion from him. (Monsignor Edward Kavanaugh, the Sacramento priest whose opposition to Davis' pro-abortion views inspired Weigand's remarks, said to me that pro-abortion politicians "wouldn't come anywhere near" his communion line.

But Charles Wilson said bishops could use a canonical trial to resolve the Davis controversy. For the sake of scrupulous fairness, the Church "prefers trials," he said. Wilson emphasized that excommunication is not the only penalty canon law considers for an offender like Davis. He said a canonical trial could result in an "interdict," which would deny the sacraments to Davis until he returned to full communion with the Church. "It is perfectly understandable that Catholics call for the excommunication of pro-abortion Catholics running for or holding elective office," he said. But canon law, while it doesn't exclude excommunication, doesn't mandate it either. It does however mandate that some "just penalty" be imposed, both for the sake of the offender's good and the common good of the Church.

Weigand's comment about treating offenders "as adults" is contrary to the mind of the Church, said Wilson. The Church stands as a "mother to her children," he said. "The venerable metaphorical expression of the relationship of the Church to the faithful is that of a mother to her children. It is within this context that the infliction of penalties on those members of the faithful who manifestly reject the Church's teaching should be viewed." Parents know that "proper discipline is motivated by love and must sometimes be reinforced by punishment," and that children "who grow up without proper discipline often do harm to themselves as well as to the community."

For decades the American bishops have treated pro-abortion politicians like "adults," and they have behaved like children. Might the existence of hundreds of pro-abortion Catholic politicians have something to do with the fact that bishops never use canonical sanctions against them? Would their numbers be so high if they were denied communion and faced other penalties?

A bishop once said to me that Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, one of the few American bishops to use canonical sanctions against pro-abortion Catholics (again, no canon lawyer said he broke canon law), was an "embarrassment." This bishop, however, wasn't embarrassed that pro-abortion politicians were breaking Church law with impunity. Nor was he embarrassed that passive bishops allowed open sacrilege and scandal to occur on their watch.

Does the bishops' lack of interest in canonical penalties ultimately signify a lack of interest in protecting souls? It is not that canon law forbids the use of penalties against Davis or other pro-abortion politicians. It is that the bishops lack the will to use them. This is deemed "prudence," but is it not precisely the sort of worldly prudence that has led to the high volume of scandal and heresy in the Church?

"Bishops treated sexually molesting priests as 'adults' too," said Wilson. Look where that led, he said.

Wilson can understand, at least at one level, Weigand's reluctance to use canonical sanctions against Davis. He says such a move would roil the bishops' club: "Weigand's fellow bishops would say, 'How dare you embarrass me like this. Now I have to do something about the pro-abortion politicians in my diocese.'"

But bishops shouldn't allow scandal and sacrilege in their diocese simply because other bishops permit it. A bishop is "dodging responsibility if he doesn't use the authority canon law gives him," Wilson says.

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