In the military, one of the things they teach you in basic training is how you as a soldier are NOT to accept illegal orders from your superiors. This means, if you are told to do something that clearly violated military law, regardless of who gave you the order, you are not to obey that order. If you did accept and follow through with action on the illegal order, you are then liable to be prosecuted. Remember the illegal orders being carried out in Iraq against the prisoners, several people were prosecuted as a result even though they were simply following orders.
The church is the same thing, the timing of things is the toughest part to discern, dispensation is given by the priest under special circumstance, but only if allowed to flow through the proper channels and procedures. You did not have the luxury of going through the formal route, you had to act on the spot, this includes putting your own position in jeopardy. Were you more concerned with profaning the bread of life or keeping your position? I already know the answer to that one. You did absolutely nothing wrong in this particular case. The guy should have been escorted out of the place and enforcement of his excommunication should begin immediately, enforced by people preventing him from attending mass. Your priest should be made keenly aware of this individual, and he should take the initiative to follow through with terminating this persons involvement at your parish. If he does not, then he is in error and his superiors should be notified, if they do not follow through, then theirs should be, even if it means taking it up to the Vatican itself.
Sometimes you are forced to realize, the rules are on place for general procedure, they cannot be a blanket system that is blindly followed rigidly with no exception, and especially in today’s time, we as laypeople sometimes have to step in and enforce the spirit of it, even if the priest is not. Now, if you went around and decided this or that person, for what ever reason, and opted to deny them, you are then in error, for the law stands, and at the same time, the parish itself is in error, and it’s up to the priest to get to the bottom of it all.
Were the prophets merely following procedure and law, or were they breaking the powers that be into submission to the Lord? Same difference goes on here, and it’s an area clearly demonstrated by Jesus when he turned the tables in the temple. We must not blindly follow man’s authority, for we have a higher calling, less we repeat the mistakes of the past.
Luther was a good example of this, in spirit, (in application he took it too far), but clearly he pointed out where things were in error and was conveying this to the authorities within the church. Another example here, where regardless of the status quo, we are not to follow illegal orders…
