A Sound of Sheer Silence

"So, what do you think about the bishops wanting to deny Biden Communion?" I've gotten that question a lot. There are a number of ways to approach this issue that I think are interesting on their own merits, but not ultimately the heart of the conversation.  For example, the lawyer in me is fascinated by the applicability of Canon 1405 p.1 , which states that "[i]n the cases mentioned in Canon 1401 [which includes ecclesiastical penalties such as denying Communion], the Roman Pontiff alone has the right to judge . . . Heads of State."  That seems pretty black and white to me--the U.S. Bishops' Conference has no jurisdiction over Biden so long as he is the President.  And, if you think through the "legislative history" of this Canon, it was surely written to prevent local bishops from mucking around with the Pope's broader diplomatic and spiritual initiatives.  In other words, exactly the kind of scenario we have right now.   Along those lines, ...

Previous two posts: Part 1 Part 2 *************** In Unclean , Richard Beck explores the psychological basis behind purity and exclusion, and looks at texts in the New Testament in which Jesus and Paul look to transcend these mechanisms.  What then does this mean for the Eucharist? First off, Matthew 9 and 1 Corinthians 11 (and other, similar texts) should always prompt us to ask the question--who are the marginalized, the tax collectors and sinners, of our day?  Who are the people that our instincts tell us that we should be keeping out?  Because the psychological research Beck references alerts us to the fact that all of us have an in-born tendency to look to police boundaries and practice exclusion on that basis--what theologian Miroslav Volf calls the "will to purity."  We are all under the influence of this gravitational pull, and Jesus and Paul make it clear that we have to try to fight that pull and undertake a "will to embrace."  These two notion...

The lynchpin of Unclean , in many ways, is Beck's analysis of Matthew 9:9-13.  Here it is: As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him "Follow me."  And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples.  When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"  But when he heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  Go learn what this means 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'  For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners." In a podcast I was listening to, Beck and Rob Bell make the observation that Jesus spends a lot of time eating dinner in the Gospels.  There are a number incidents of the same type.   Peter's encounter with Cornelius the centurion is basically the ...

It seems pretty clear that divorced people are going to be the defining issue of the upcoming Synod of Bishops in October.   Five hundred British priests signed a letter encouraging the Synod to "stand firm" on the questio n.   The Germans seem to be willing to walk over the question .  It's a big deal. But here's the thing.  While the motivating force behind these issues is sexuality, the locus of these issues--the place where the abstract doctrines become concrete--is the Communion line.  If you are divorced and remarried without a proper annulment, (in principle) you are forbidden to walk up into that line and receive the Eucharist.  Likewise, if you are in a non-celibate same-sex relationship, or any one of a host of delineated situations (sexual or non-sexual), the official doctrine of the Catholic Church is that you are forbidden from joining that line.  The base-line Eucharistic theology of the Catholic Church is that some people, those who me...