My parish gave communion to a pro-choice Catholic

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giuseppe96

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I’ve recently discovered that my parish allowed a pro-choice Catholic politician to receive communion a few years ago. This is very disheartening to me as I love this parish and have always admired how traditional and reverent it is. I realize that I might be acting scrupulous, but should I consider changing parishes? Would it be a sin to remain there?
 
Unless the Catholic is known to be excommunicated, Communion must offered. Yet, your post is proof that such a matter produces scandal.
 
Well it’s not as though they can mind read or do lie detector tests on the congregation before mass.
 
Maybe the parish was under a different priest then the current one or perhaps the priest did not know that this particular person held that point of view. There are many obscure details that might make a difference between it being a sacrilege or not.
 
Don’t worry about it. It happened several years ago, and you had no part in it: no reason it should concern you now.
 
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I can’t give names because it would give away the identity of the parish. But this politician is a well known pro-choice “Catholic”.
 
This is the practical difficulty in enforcement of Communion. It is not practical to refuse a communicant who comes up for Communion. I am sure it happens but I have yet to see where a communicant is being refused Communion. Perhaps our parish is just too big where communicants are vetted or parishioners are just too general it is nearly impossible to pick on anyone individually to really be certain of their spiritual background.

The responsibility lies more on the individual Catholic in whether to receive Communion or not. He/she will be accountable to God if he/she receive Communion unworthily.

God bless.
 
giuseppe96 said:
I’ve recently discovered that my parish allowed a pro-choice Catholic politician to receive communion a few years ago. This is very disheartening to me
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  1. Someone else’s communion, especially where the person is not your family member or close friend, is really not your business. You do not know for example if the person had been to confession or what they confessed or what they were told by their confessor.
  2. If this happened several years ago, you’re not even going to be able to know the full circumstances of what occurred (like did the priest even know who the person was, etc.)
  3. As another poster said, the Church is not supposed to be screening people for communion as they go up to receive, and from a practical standpoint this would be very difficult to do in a large church. If the person receiving made an unworthy communion, then that is his sin, between him and God, and again not your business. You should be focusing on your own sins and your own worthiness to receive Communion.
  4. There are many Catholics, including many politicians, who hold some political view that is at odds with a Church position. It is not always on abortion; someone could be pro-life, but oppose the Church position on capital punishment or refugees, etc. On the other hand, somebody could strongly support many Church positions on social justice, but oppose the Church position on abortion or contraception.
It would be very difficult to go through every issue on which the Church holds a position and see if a political candidate, much less an ordinary person, agrees with every position taken by the Church, and picking out one single issue like abortion to decide on and ignoring the rest of the issues could be seen as saying that those other issues aren’t really important. In the USA generally, unless the person has been excommunicated by name, they are not barred from receiving communion.

Overall, my advice to you would be to focus on taking the plank out of your own eye and not be looking at what other Catholics do, especially when it happened years ago and you don’t personally know the person involved.
 
Are you serious? I am SERIOUSLY considering being Catholic, but things like this turn me away from it…
I am a Democrat and am pro-choice. I personally would never get an abortion, but I do know there are circumstances when an abortion Is necessary or the best choice.

The political nature of the Church really turns me off.
 
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wantthetruth5 said:
Some people are drug addicts, bad parents, etc. does the kid really deserve to deal with that life?
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I don’t want to make this thread an abortion debate, but by that logic, should we start gassing suffering orphans on the streets of Cambodia? After all, does the kid really deserve to deal with that life? Why not recognize that their life is likely to be one of suffering, abuse, and neglect and just painlessly put them out of their misery?

Hopefully you recognize that would be barbaric. But why is it different that the kid happens to be in the womb versus wandering the streets of Phnom Penh?
 
wantthetruth5 said:
The political nature of the Church really turns me off.
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“The Church” is not the one having the issue here; the person who supported pro-choice received Communion.

It’s one individual poster who’s having the issue.

However, if you have a general problem with the fact that the Church teaches strongly against abortion and that many of its members are also anti-abortion, then it’s hard for me to see how you “seriously” considered becoming Catholic, because this is very common knowledge and has gone on for years.

The Church does not change its moral positions because somebody in the congregation, or potential congregation, is “turned off”.
 
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The poster said it was a pro-choice politician. Perhaps well known and recognizable.
 
giuseppe96 said:
I can’t give names because it would give away the identity of the parish. But this politician is a well known pro-choice “Catholic”.
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No, do not give out names.
We all know of high profile pro-choice Catholics who regularly receive the Eucharist at Mass. I guess it is up to the
priest.
 
wantthetruth5 said:
The political nature of the Church really turns me off.
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There is too much we don’t know about this situation to say it was “political.” Actually, we don’t even know for certain that it happened; the OP did not witness it, only heard about it. So there’s nothing here to turn you away from the Church.
 
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If this was your parish’s regular priest and the politician’s pro-choice view is well known, she should not have been receiving and the priest should have refused to give her Holy Communion.

You do not need to leave the parish you love so much. It is between the one who wrongly received, the priest who wrongly allowed her to receive and God.
 
wantthetruth5 said:
I am a Democrat and am pro-choice. I personally would never get an abortion, but I do know there are circumstances when an abortion Is necessary or the best choice.
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As you continue toward the Catholic Church, you continue to pray about this and learn more about the church’s position. We cannot be “pro choice”. Abortion is a great evil.

This is not political. This is a moral truth of the church.

It is wrong to kill babies, always. we need to help mothers who find themselves in bad situations, not kill their children.

Continue to learn, talk to your local priest, but The idea of being “personally opposed” and yet pro-choice, is untenable When one truly embraces the dignity of human life at every stage from conception to natural death.
 
Six years go is not something that you or anyone else can do a thing about

Scruples will kill your soul.
Talk to your pastor about this, make an appointment.
No one online can help you with this.
 
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