Greg Daly
Josepha Madigan Josepha Madigan’s decision to run a Eucharistic service in a priest’s absence invites serious questions, writes Greg Daly
The decision by Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Josepha Madigan to conduct an impromptu Eucharistic service with two other readers on a Saturday evening when the priest scheduled to say Mass failed to turn up has, predictably, invited a host of questions.
In fairness, one can understand how those with whom the priest would normally work in celebrating the liturgy would be confused by his unexplained absence, but why would they think they had the authority to hold an ad hoc Eucharistic liturgy instead?
Why not simply tell those gathered that the priest was unexpectedly unavailable, apologise and remind them of Mass times for the following day – Sunday proper – in that church, St Thérèse’s in Dublin’s Mount Merrion, and in other nearby churches?
Ritual
After all, Catholics cannot fulfil their obligation to attend Sunday Mass by attending a Eucharistic service. Was this pointed out? It’s not as though the 6pm Saturday evening service at St Therese’s was the only Mass for miles around and parishioners would miss their obligation if they just went home.
Ritual is important, obviously, but is there anyone who thinks the Mass is a less important ritual than sitting in the same spot at the same time each week?
To what extent did Ms Madigan understand what was going on in the service she apparently led? “I wouldn’t quite say ‘saying the Mass’, we obviously didn’t do any of the Sacrament of Transubstantiation or anything like that,” she said on RTÉ’s Today with Seán O’Rourke the following day, observing of the distribution of the Eucharist: “I believe the bread was blessed, obviously – again, there was no sacrament.”
And finally, of course, there’s the key question: how on earth could someone who led Fine Gael’s campaign to legalise abortion in Ireland feel entitled to stand up and preside over a Church liturgy?
It’s hard not to wonder how Ms Madigan squares her views with Church teaching, and especially what she thought during the readings that Saturday evening, set as they would have been for the Solemnity of the Nativity of John the Baptist.
There can hardly be a Massgoer who is not familiar with the story of the unborn John leaping in his mother’s womb as she was greeted by Mary, which should have been in the mind of anyone hearing, for example, the first reading.
From Isaiah, it featured such lines as “the Lord called me before I was born, from my mother’s womb he pronounced my name” and “now the Lord has spoken, he who formed me in the womb to be his servant”.
Responding to this, lest anyone miss the point about how even in the womb we are individuals, created and known by God with our own special tasks, the Psalm addressed God with the words “for it was you who created my being, knit me together in my mother’s womb”, and goes on to say: “Already you knew my soul, my body held no secret from you when I was being fashioned in secret and moulded in the depths of the earth.”
It is not for nothing, after all, that the Church has always opposed abortion.
We have, in ways, been here before, with Archbishop Eamon Martin, then the Coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh, warning in October 2013 that politicians who knowingly introduced legislation “aiding and abetting abortion” should not come forward for Communion.
“You cannot regard yourself as a person of Faith and support abortion,” he told the Sunday Times.
“If a legislator comes to me and says, ‘Can I be a faithful Catholic and support abortion?’ I would say no,” he continued. “Your communion is ruptured if you support abortion. You are excommunicating yourself. Any legislator who clearly and publicly states this should not approach looking for Communion.”
Dublin’s Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, it’s worth pointing out, responded to requests for comments on this by stressing that excommunication should not be seen as a life sentence, and saying that Communion “should not become a place of debate and contrast and be used for publicity reasons by anybody”.
Certainly, debates around this general issue have been common in recent decades, notably in the US where the issue has been a recurring one especially since 2004, when the then Archbishop of St Louis, Missouri, Raymond – now Cardinal – Burke, said he would deny Communion to presidential candidate Senator John Kerry, in part because of his position on abortion.
Sacrament
Three years later, then-Archbishop Burke also said that he would deny Communion to Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani because of his views on abortion, and that Giuliani should not seek the Sacrament. When Joe Biden was nominated as the Democrats’ vice-presidential candidate in the 2008 election, Bishop Joseph Martino of Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, said he would refuse Mr Biden Communion in that diocese because of his support for abortion.
In general, however, American bishops have preferred to take the line that while they would not politicise the Eucharist by barring pro-abortion legislators from it, they would urge such politicians to refrain from coming forward. Support for legalising abortion, they have said time and again, is incompatible with receiving Communion.
St John Paul II, it’s worth noting, gave Communion to such pro-choice figures as Tony Blair, and in 2008, noted pro-choice Catholic politicians Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Rudy Giuliani all received Communion at a New York Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI, though there has never been any suggestion that the then Pope condoned their actions.
The previous year, after all, when asked whether he agreed with a proposed excommunication of Mexican legislators who voted to legalise abortion, he had said such an action would be based on Church teaching. “It is based simply on the principle that the killing of an innocent human child is incompatible with going in Communion with the body of Christ,” he said.
Judgment
Indeed, in 2004, as head of the Church’s doctrinal watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he had issued the US bishops with a document entitled ‘Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion: General Principles’ in which he said the decision to present for Communion should be based on a reasoned judgment regarding one’s worthiness to do so, according to the Church’s objective criteria.
Catholic politicians who formally cooperate in the grave sin of abortion, by, for instance, consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion laws, should be instructed that they are not to present for Communion until “the objective situation of sin” is brought to an end, he said, adding that the Eucharist should be denied to them if they present for Communion after such instruction.
Pope Francis, it’s worth noting, has presided over but not personally distributed Communion at Masses where pro-choice Catholic politicians have been present and received Communion. A pointer to why can be found in his 2010 book On Heaven and Earth, speaking of his unwillingness to give Communion at Masses where those known to be living contrary to Church teaching might come forward.
“I stay back and I let the ministers give it because I do not want those people to come to me for the photo op,” he said, noting his reluctance to be lured into giving scandal by seeming to condone the “spiritual hypocrisy” of those who defy God’s justice and do not seek repentance.
If Popes and bishops are, then, united in holding that those politicians who support legal abortion should at the very least hold back from receiving Communion, what then of politicians who would preside over Church services while advocating a supposed right to abortion?
The answer to this question, at least, should be obvious.