Isn’t sophistry deceptive? The sophist uses rhetoric to convince others to give them what they want because they want it. It’s bad faith, because they will make any argument they need to to get their way. The truth is not their aim.
You can decide you know that the Archbishop’s reasoning is being presented in bad faith. Perhaps it is. I can draw a different conclusion about the Archbishop’s intent. Either way, his intent matters in the question of sophistry. But I sense you’re trying very hard to say his intent doesn’t matter. There are moral schools of thought that might take that stance, but it’s not self-evident and I would reject it.
Imagine there’s a politician. She is sleeping with a lobbyist, and since the relationship started she has shown marked favoritism toward the lobbyist’s policy prescriptions, despite being against them in the past. The politician’s husband–who as it happens deeply believes that the lobbyist’s goals are bad for society–demands that she stop sleeping with the lobbyist. Is that a political act?
Is Nancy Pelosi sleeping with an abortion doctor/lobbyist?
That is a purely garbage analogy. The vows of fidelity in marriage have no analogue in the political sphere. Well, I take that back, I bet there are a lot of Americans who believe that politicians owe church leadership the same sort of permanent loyalty as spouses are supposed to have for each other. I have to retract my statement. It’s not a garbage analogy, it’s a perfect analogy for garbage people.
Pelosi’s position is that the government shouldn’t be involved in a medical decision between a woman and her doctor. She’s not driving women to abortion clinics or performing the procedures. She’s not taking an active role at all. I’m struggling to understand how that is a deadly sin. what action is she taking to violate Catholic dogma?
And of course nearly all(with probably some radtrad exception) Catholic politicians support the legality of acts which would disqualify the participants from communion. No politician is being barred because they support the government not prohibiting premarital sex.
It must in any case be clearly understood that whatever may be laid down by civil law in this matter, man can never obey a law which is in itself immoral, and such is the case of a law which would admit in principle the liceity of abortion. Nor can he take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it. Moreover, he may not collaborate in its application.
https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19741118_declaration-abortion_en.html
More sources here.
It would be a similar sin for a politician to attempt to repeal prohibitions on slavery, or to try to codify slavery into law. Likewise euthanasia. Or if a politician wanted to make rape legal. This doesn’t apply to everything that the law touches on, only to positions that are considered severe unalloyed violations of the common good, like those examples and also abortion.
Is Archbishop Cordileone her husband?
Scuzz
1725
No, he is in a “relationship” with a choirboy.
Gee, imagine if a politician tried to codify slavery into law. Imagine if there was a law that said that women have no right to control their own body and must use it as the State wants, under threat of imprisonment or death. How crazy would that be? What sort of extremist wacko would try to pass something like that?
On paper yes, but the paper is worthless because it’s just words words words. The catholics have a trillion words and can find some that excuse anything. They are a convenient paper shield to avoid having to confront evil. The comforting rationalizations that allow evildoers to sleep at night.
Actions count. The actions of the church right now are horrible. Any commentary on this topic that doesn’t start by acknowledging those problems is worthless.
Banzai
1728
And then consider that only 20% of the population agrees with the extremist wacko and you have the current state of american democracy in a nutshell.
Thrag
1729
Gonna have to bring up the death penalty again on this one. By this logic every politician who supports the death penalty and/or does not support its end must also be denied communion.
This would also imply that any politician against making each and every sin illegal must be denied communion.
Also being against using government force to compel women to give birth and potentially punishing those who do end their pregnancy is not a repeal of a prohibition. It’s a desire not to enact one. It’s a desire to let the law remain uninvolved.
RichVR
1730
The issue here. The real issue is that, sin doesn’t exist.
Timex
1732
Because he doesn’t go to church in the arch diocese of San Francisco.
Timex
1734
The archdiocese of Washington, or the archdiocese of Wilmington?
Matt_W
1736
That’s the real reason. These rules are enforced arbitrarily by local bishops.
It’s somewhat by design that the decision to do this is up to each bishop. They are obliged to try many different methods of correction before taking this kind of step (remember, Cordileone has been Pelosi’s bishop for ten years), and they may be at various places in that accompaniment in each case, and they have to make a judgment about what might be effective and what won’t.
Canon 915 doesn’t come up for your average layperson because it requires the person to be “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin.” So, it has to be very serious (grave), very public (manifest), and ongoing for a long time (obstinately persevering). If it’s not public and unambiguous, then a bishop or priest can’t really know with confidence the state of the person’s soul and it would be wrong to take a step like this. (Though you sometimes get jumpy priests making the choice themselves, like the one who denied Biden years ago. Probably got in some hot water for that.) So that’s why it’s really just politicians and sins related to making public policy that trigger canon 915. Maybe a Catholic journalist spreading grotesque lies on a regular basis and unrepentantly could qualify, something like that.
So Cordileone got to the tipping point with Pelosi. It looks like it was after she publicly said she supported codifying Roe in federal law. He seems to have tried to meet with her again, but he says she has been unresponsive. Biden’s bishops (in Delaware and Washington) clearly aren’t at the same place with him and/or prefer a different approach. (In fact, Cardinal Gregory in Washington has indicated he opposes this form of correction as “weaponizing the Eucharist.” The bishop of Arlington, Virginia has indicated he would follow Cordileone’s lead.)
So why doesn’t the Catholic Church just blanket prohibit any supporters of women’s rights to autonomy from eucharist?
Or are they just targeting political figures?
How many more people do the Catholics on SCOTUS have to vote to execute before they achieve this very clear standard, I wonder?
(To be clear, I don’t really wonder.)
