O
otjm
Guest
First off, you have not shown that anyone is ignoring doctrine or Canon law.
To begin with, Canon law is actually a bit more complicated than you seem to understand. No bishop, if they are following the law, is suddenly going to get up and say publicly, “You, (Politician So and So) are forbidden to receive Communion in my diocese!”
There is a process they need to go through, and it essentially starts with private communication between the bishop and the individual. And that is likely to take some extensive time. The steps that need to be taken are not public, and only after all have been taken and still no change is the bishop able to publicly exclude the individual.
And contrary to what many believe, there is an issue of prudential judgment. The bishop has to weigh some factors that are going to impact him (and others) no matter what he does. If he publicly excludes someone, that individual is impacted. So, additionally, are all the priests within that diocese, as any one of them could be the ones who would be required to actually enforce the issue. In such circumstance, to some if not many in that parish, the bishop is the bad guy, but the priest is the messenger, and messengers are notorious for being shot. So the bishop now has the issue of one, or possibly multiple parishes being torn apart because of his choice.
He also has the possibility of one or more priests publicly refusing to carry out his specific orders, and the chaos that ensues from that.
Then there is the issue of the response from the public at large. Most people - including a whole lot of Catholics - would see that as a political act. The bishop, and the Catholic press can spend all day trying to defuse that one, and that is going to fly like a lead balloon. If you want an example, look at the aftermath of Ferguson. A grand jury, including women and including blacks, spent months taking testimony, going over physical evidence, reviewing notes, and decided what was and what was not believable. Todqy, we have demonstrations across the United States, and even in Europe, some turning to near riots.
In short, people have their own version of what occurred in Ferguson, and they have their own world view and don’t give a tinker’s dam what reality says. Reality now is whatever they say it is, and the people who actually reviewed the evidence are simply dismissed, along with their findings.
And a bishop, particularly one who might take on a very national figure, is facing the same issues. No matter the truth, people will take the issue and make it into what it is not.
The bishop needs to weigh the scandal which Catholics, understand and accept the Eucharist, might have, against the scandal to those Catholics who have a much more tenuous grasp on the faith. He is responsible for both; however, the former are far less likely to lose their faith than the latter. And he ahs a duty to both.
That is where prudential judgment come in, and God has graciously blessed most of us with not having to make such decisions.
And not to make too fine a point of it, but Rome has yet to keel haul any bishops over the issue, which, if anyone is actually paying any attention, ahs been going on now for three papacies. 3 Popes have not said “You must”. If Rome has allowed prudential judgment in the matter, then it is not for us to accuse the bishops for exercising it.
And I recall a politician from a well known political family, who went over to the Episcopalian side. Supposedly that was over a matter of marriage; but none of us were privy to any discussions which might have been had between that person’s bishop and that person concerning other matters. It may well have been only a matter of the marriage; or it may have been other matters. That is none of our business.
