Colo. Bishop Issues Warning to Voters
By ROBERT WELLER
Associated Press Writer
May 14, 2004, 5:34 PM EDT
newsday.com
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- The bishop of Colorado's second-largest Roman Catholic diocese issued a stark warning Friday, saying voters should not receive Communion if they back politicians who support abortion rights, stem-cell research, euthanasia and gay marriage.
Bishop Michael Sheridan said such voters may receive the sacrament only if they recant and repent in the confessional. While he noted that no one will enforce the rule in the Communion line, Sheridan said that Catholics shouldn't simply go to confession and think they could be absolved.
"It might take a public recantation," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. "There is no sin that is unforgivable" but Catholics shouldn't vote for candidates who support abortion rights and "then slip off into the confessional."
"This is a serious or mortal sin, like robbing a local store," he said.
While several U.S. bishops have issued similar warnings to Catholic lawmakers who defy church teaching in their policymaking, Sheridan is believed to be the first to expand that directive to voters this election year.
"He's pushed this farther than any other bishop in the country, much beyond what the other American bishops are doing and whatever has been done in Europe," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of the Jesuit magazine America, who opposes tying Communion to political views.
Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis has said he would not give Communion to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry because the senator backs abortion rights. Archbishop Alfred Hughes of New Orleans and Archbishop Sean O'Malley of Boston also say Catholic politicians who dissent from church teaching should not seek the sacrament.
Sheridan made his stance known in a May 1 pastoral letter published in the diocese's newspaper and sent to each parish. The diocese includes 125,000 Catholics in 10 counties.
In his letter, Sheridan said the separation of church and state does not mean the "well-formed consciences of religious people should not be brought to bear on their political choices."
"Any Catholic politicians who advocate for abortion, for illicit stem cell research or for any form of euthanasia ipso facto place themselves outside full communion with the church and so jeopardize their salvation," he said. "Any Catholics who vote for (such) candidates ... suffer the same fateful consequences."
In the interview, Sheridan said he would not deny Communion to someone he suspected of supporting abortion rights because he wouldn't know what was in the person's heart at the time. But his stance drew sharp criticism from some quarters.
"I think it is an outrageous intrusion into what is supposed to be the separation of church and state. It is frightening," said Michael Merrifield, a Democratic state lawmaker who is not Catholic but represents part of the heavily religious Colorado Springs area. "It goes against everything that we believe is important to democracy since we founded this country."
Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver has not taken a stand so far on whether defiant Catholic lawmakers should receive Communion, but he has criticized them, saying they offer a "dishonest public witness."
Several other bishops have said they would not be comfortable denying Communion to Catholic politicians.
Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, who met with Kerry recently, told the National Catholic Reporter he would not withhold Communion from the presidential candidate.
"It is up to the communicant to decide whether they are in a state of grace and worthy to receive the Eucharist," Mahony said. "I'm puzzled by people rattling sanctions at the moment. That has not been our tradition over the years."
A special panel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is developing guidelines for church leaders in their relationships with Catholic lawmakers. It is not clear whether any action will come before Election Day. |
