Active anti-life people should be denied communion. That is something with which I fully and completely agree. I agreed with it during the last election and I agree with it now. Let me carefully say that I am speaking only about people who are actively and directly involved in activities that are in murderous violation of pro-life standards. I am NOT talking about people who hold an anti-life opinion. They are mistaken; they are foolish; they give unwitting support to the Enemy; but they are not actively involved. But, for those who are actively involved in pregnancy termination clinics or who are actively involved in directly voting to support abortion, communion should be denied them.
But, now, let’s put in place some careful definitions because the problem is that some of our brethren are trying to broaden the principle of denying communion in order to accomplish some purely political ends. There is a reason why I said actively and directly involved. You see, in the debates over the healthcare bill, there were some clear lies being told. Some of them have been dropped because they were exposed. For instance, you do not hear much about death panels lately. But, some of the arguments are, at best, derivative. I have pointed out in previous posts that I agree with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops when they wrote the Congress that the healthcare bill needs some fixes.
But, I also pointed out that the Catholic bishops were not necessarily against the bill, but rather wanted to clarify some of the provisions of the bill because there were legitimate arguments that if those provisions were not clarified, they could end up being in support of abortion. And, on a subject like abortion, it is better to be sure. Nevertheless, in all of their statements they clearly and repeatedly confirm that the Catholic (and Orthodox) position is to be in favor of universal healthcare. This is a long way from the syllogisms (derivative arguments) that are used by too many of the brethren.
Rather than the careful writings of the Catholic bishops, they build arguments that remind me of the famous six degrees of separation. And, rather than advocating for universal healthcare, like the Catholic bishops say, the arguments of some in the pro-birth movement seem to be purely oriented towards finding a way to destroy the very universal healthcare that the bishops say is our moral duty. All too many of the arguments are in the nature of saying that this bill could possibly have monies that are used by the healthcare companies to possibly reimburse physicians who support abortion, and that therefore this bill supports abortion. This is claimed even if the reimbursement were to be for the treatment of pneumonia. The argument is that all monies go into the same pot and therefore it is an indirect support of abortion. But, given the consistent anti-government stand of all too many in the pro-birth movement, the derivative arguments appear to be more of a reason to try to justify an anti-healthcare stance than they seem to be out of a pure concern for a pro-birth stance.
This type of argumentation is a long way from active and direct support of abortion. But, this type of argumentation has been used in other areas that are also putatively related to pro-life. For instance, if you were to search for the word “euthanasia” on this website, you would read that some pro-birth people would also deny people dying in pain the surcease of strong sedatives on the grounds that if someone is falling asleep all the time before their death that this is somehow the same as being killed by euthanasia. As I pointed out, I suppose that this means that they must be fully awake and in pain until they die so that they may have a moral death. This type of case points out the problem of this type of argumentation. It goes from logic to allegory.
But, there is an additional problem. You see, using this type of argumentation, there is an additional set of people who ought to be denied communion as being anti-life. Unfortunately, many in the pro-birth movement would fit into this camp.
===MORE TO COME===
…”this means that they must be fully awake and in pain until they die so that they may have a moral death.”
Interesting in light of the early controversies surrounding the first discoveries of anasthetics. James Simpson, the discoverer of chloroform, had to defend its use scripturally against the clergy and doctors of his day. He cited the Genesis account of the creation of woman, noting the God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep in order to remove his rib!)
You’re getting radical in you’re old age! You speekee with forked tongue sometimes.
Nope, just talking through the implications of what people are really saying. My rhetoric is getting stronger because the rhetoric of some in the pro-birth movement is getting more radical.