[Practicing, Poorly Catechized] Lesbian Denied Communion at Mother's Funeral

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PaulinVA said:
If someone came to you before Mass and basically admitted to an irregular marriage or were committing adultery and showed up with their lover or something analogous to the situation we are discussing, would you give them Holy Communion?
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For someone in an irregular marriage I would advise them to not present themselves for communion if I have that appropriate opportunity. If they came forward despite being told not to I’d have to make a judgment call as to what kind of scene might ensue on the spot if I refused.
If its someone committing adultery, if the adultery is not publicly/generally known then the sin is not manifest and thus canon 915 can’t apply.
Doesn’t scandal ensue while you try to determine “obstinance”
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Not necessarily. It would be chaos if the priest were allowed to always individually determine on the spot each person’s worthiness to receive at that moment. The Church’s penalties are always medicinal in purpose. The idea is to bring the person back to the truth, not drive them away.
Scandal is that which might lead others into sin or loss of faith. In this specific case it could be argued that the last minute refusal of communion has caused a scandal to those who thought it was inappropriate.
It would also be a scandal if a priest was misinformed about about a person’s situation and publicly refused them communion thus publicly sullying their good name.
 
hudson said:
Give Father the benefit of the doubt. He isn’t the one living in sin with his same sex sexual partner. Sounds like a setup from the get go imo.
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Indeed, we all sometimes stumble when trying to do the right thing.
 
NewEnglandPriest said:
For someone in an irregular marriage I would advise them to not present themselves for communion if I have that appropriate opportunity. If they came forward despite being told not to I’d have to make a judgment call as to what kind of scene might ensue on the spot if I refused.
If its someone committing adultery, if the adultery is not publicly/generally known then the sin is not manifest and thus canon 915 can’t apply.

Not necessarily. It would be chaos if the priest were allowed to always individually determine on the spot each person’s worthiness to receive at that moment. The Church’s penalties are always medicinal in purpose. The idea is to bring the person back to the truth, not drive them away.
Scandal is that which might lead others into sin or loss of faith. In this specific case it could be argued that the last minute refusal of communion has caused a scandal to those who thought it was inappropriate.
It would also be a scandal if a priest was misinformed about about a person’s situation and publicly refused them communion thus publicly sullying their good name.
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But father,what good name are you talking about? The woman is living with her lesbian partner and actually introduces her to THE PRIEST!!! as her lover!!! Is that a woman whose “good name” you can sully by denying communion? I say I would be very scandalized (and not just me!) if a person engaged in an active and public homosexual lifestyle received communion with her partner there with her in the church!! What kind of people would be turned away by this denial except those same ones who wouldn’t care one wit about the church anyway?
 
NewEnglandPriest said:
Not necessarily. It would be chaos if the priest were allowed to always individually determine on the spot each person’s worthiness to receive at that moment. The Church’s penalties are always medicinal in purpose. The idea is to bring the person back to the truth, not drive them away.
Scandal is that which might lead others into sin or loss of faith. In this specific case it could be argued that the last minute refusal of communion has caused a scandal to those who thought it was inappropriate.
It would also be a scandal if a priest was misinformed about about a person’s situation and publicly refused them communion thus publicly sullying their good name.
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Thank you for your reply. I have a framed saying on my desk, “If you think the solution is simple, you don’t understand the problem”. That is certainly the case here.

As a normal run-of-the-mill pew potato, I have to say that I am glad that God is merciful to me, but at the same time recognize that 30% of Catholic women are sterilized and 30% more practice artificial birth control, but yet everyone gets up every Sunday to go to Holy Communion. 🤷
 
Rich_Olszewski said:
How do you presume to know the state of that woman’s soul? She may have gone to confession with another priest. Same with an adulterer. How does the priest know that a person hadn’t gone to confession? 😦
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Good point. Another option, he could have simply given her a blessing and waited for her to move on.
 
Marybeloved said:
But father,what good name are you talking about? The woman is living with her lesbian partner and actually introduces her to THE PRIEST!!! as her lover!!! Is that a woman whose “good name” you can sully by denying communion?
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Please note that I was not referring to that situation when I made that statement. I was specifically referring to possible scenarios where the priest is misinformed about the situation at hand.
Secondly, according to the news articles posted in this thread the priest asked a woman who she was and she responded that she was the daughter’s “partner.” Technically for all we know they live together chastely.
I say I would be very scandalized (and not just me!) if a person engaged in an active and public homosexual lifestyle received communion with her partner there with her in the church!!
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Well, the fact the partner is there is irrelevant.
What kind of people would be turned away by this denial except those same ones who wouldn’t care one wit about the church anyway?
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I’m not sure what you’re trying to say there…
 
PaulinVA said:
… but at the same time recognize that 30% of Catholic women are sterilized and 30% more practice artificial birth control, but yet everyone gets up every Sunday to go to Holy Communion. 🤷
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And we don’t know if they’ve been to Confession, nor do we know why they’ve been prescribed ABC, which is why us pew potatoes need to mind our own business.

Luna
 
PaulinVA said:
but yet everyone gets up every Sunday to go to Holy Communion. 🤷
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I made my First Communion in 1947, and back then and for decades, there’d be lines for Confession and not the entire church going up for Communion. Now, I sometimes deliberately don’t receive lest I be confused with the mob who go up every Sunday at every Mass. Are all those people such saints these days? I don’t understand it. It cheapens the Sacrament if it’s simply doled out like cookies. 😦
 
Luna_Lovecraft said:
And we don’t know if they’ve been to Confession, nor do we know why they’ve been prescribed ABC, which is why us pew potatoes need to mind our own business.

Luna
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You totally miss the entire point of my post.

Read the polls. Catholic women use ABC for contraception. Men get vasectomies. There are irregular marriages. I go to confession regularly. The lines do not contain even 5% of the parish.

So, the issue is that obviously, in general, there are an awful lot of people in obstinate sin presenting themselves for Holy Communion. The Church doesn’t seem to care, and that is a shame.
 
PaulinVA said:
You totally miss the entire point of my post.

Read the polls. Catholic women use ABC for contraception. Men get vasectomies. There are irregular marriages. I go to confession regularly. The lines do not contain even 5% of the parish.

So, the issue is that obviously, in general, there are an awful lot of people in obstinate sin presenting themselves for Holy Communion. The Church doesn’t seem to care, and that is a shame.
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I don’t know about anyone else, but I guess that sorrow for my own sins occupy all of my attention and I am, therefore, unable to notice and speculate on the people receiving Communion.
 
I know this woman personally, as she was my art teacher in high school.

I do not even see why she went up for Communion in the first place.

Not just because of the grave sin, but this woman is BUDDHIST.

I know her story. She was baptized Catholic, but I don’t recall her saying that she received the Blessed Sacrament of Confirmation. I do remember her saying that she got into many spats with her parish priest as a teenager. She turned away from the Roman Catholic faith at an early age. She knows all the precepts. Especially the one where non-Catholics cannot receive Communion. And yet she goes up there, conscious of grave sin. The priest should have talked to her privately, but since she knows these things and is not a Catholic, I don’t see why she went up in the first place.
 
jwinch2 said:
I don’t believe it was insensitive to handle the communion situation in the fashion that he did. I do question the need to leave during the eulogy and not riding with the family to the burial.
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We would need to ask the priest but it may be that this woman was one who would make a scene about it and make trouble for him at the cemetary so he allowed another priest to take over.

I am wondering just who is concerned about her mother and her funeral. It certainly is not the place to promote the gay agenda.
 
Rich_Olszewski said:
How do you presume to know the state of that woman’s soul? She may have gone to confession with another priest. Same with an adulterer. How does the priest know that a person hadn’t gone to confession? 😦
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Well who knows what went on between this woman and the priest inm the past. She may have gone to confession to him and denounced the church. The issue is no one knows about this case that was done in private. Confession is private so she can claim one thing and the priest is forbidden to tell his side,

That is the important issue----we just do not know so let us not judge.
 
oneofmany said:
Well who knows what went on between this woman and the priest inm the past. She may have gone to confession to him and denounced the church. The issue is no one knows about this case that was done in private. Confession is private so she can claim one thing and the priest is forbidden to tell his side,

That is the important issue----we just do not know so let us not judge.
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^These are well-said words from the both of you. However, I know this woman personally.

She does not believe in confession, as she is Buddhist.

She was my art teacher in high school, and repeatedly told us that she has rejected all things to do with the Catholic Church, despite being baptized. She did not receive the Blessed Sacrament of Confirmation, because she had rejected the Church.
 
As a Catholic, how do you defend Church Teaching on the reception of the Eucharist when this goofball immediately runs to the anti-Catholic press for their ear?

When I was away from the Church, I stupidly asked the priest if I could receive at a friend’s wedding. The answer was an unequivocal “NO”. Did I “feel” bad? Yup. Did I get mad at the priest? Nope. But the event pricked my conscience and, about a year later, came back to the Church and now fully understand why I couldn’t receive.

Canon lawyers, like theologians, seem to be a dime a dozen these days. The Magisterium and St. Paul in 1 Cor. 11 are pretty clear on this and I’ll rely on infallibility rather than opinion.

Perhaps if we had more priests out there to “prick our consciences” more often, we would have fewer of these public eruptions and souls would be saved instead of damned.
 
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