By: Gregory C. Sisk and Charles J. Reid, Jr.
Our primary purpose is . . . to enable the general reader to
better appreciate the nature of the controversy[, abortion and
admission to the Eucharist], to provide scriptural, historical, and
canon law context on the Church’s solicitude for innocent human
life, on the duty of bishops to instruct and protect their flocks,
on the obligations of Catholic lay faithful in public life and
particularly of those with political power, on the preparation for
and proper attitude of those who present themselves for communion,
and on the meaning of communion including the appropriate
circumstances in which the Eucharistic sacrament may or should be
withheld. . . . We conclude that those bishops who determine in
light of pastoral circumstances in their dioceses that the
Eucharist should be withheld from a particular person or that
political leaders with certain attitudes should be directed to
voluntarily refrain from approaching the altar have acted
comfortably within church tradition and ecclesial authority. . .
. At the same time, we acknowledge that other bishops may
determine that withholding of this sacrament is not the appropriate
pastoral or prudential response to different circumstances and
people in their dioceses, instead being committed to other
affirmative actions or expressions as better-suited to promote the
Church’s witness to life. . . . Passive silence, in the face
of contemptuous and public disregard by those exercising political
power for Church teaching on the fundamental matter of innocent
human life, is not a moral or pastoral option. . . . First, .
. . [e]ach of us need once again to undertake, as we did at the
time of our Confirmation, that rigorous examination of our own
consciences toward the end of being drawn ever more deeply into
full communion with the Church through Reconciliation as
appropriate and then our due reception of the Body and Blood of
Christ at the Lord’s Supper. . . . Second, the Church and its
leaders in the United States must candidly acknowledge the painful
truth that too many of those sitting in the pews, including those
congregants who hold public office, have not been adequately
catechized and have not developed a fully formed conscience on
fundamental matters of human life. . . . Third, . . . by
preaching from the pulpit, by counseling in the pastoral office, by
building stronger relationships with public officials, by
provocation through prophetic messages in the public arena, or,
yes, by appropriate exercise of ecclesial discipline, the bishops
need to more productively engage with those who exercise political
power and influence in our society, lest another generation, of the
born and the unborn, be lost.