Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani should not have received communion at a Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI because the former presidential candidate supports abortion rights, New York Cardinal Edward Egan said Monday.
Issuing a rare public rebuke of a Catholic politician by name, Egan said that he had “an understanding” with Giuliani that the politician was not to present himself for the sacrament. Besides supporting both abortion and gay rights, Giuliani has been married three times, and his last marriage to Donna Hanover has not been annulled by the Catholic Church.
Egan posted a statement on the Archdiocese of New York web site on the same day that conservative columnist Robert Novak excoriated him and Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl for disobeying the pope. Novak blasted the church leaders for inviting Giuliani and other abortion-rights supporters, including Sen. John Kerry and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to papal events, implying they cared more about ‘muckety’ than about the teachings of the Catholic magisterium. “Given choice seats, they took Communion hosts as a matter of course,” Novak wrote of the politicians.
Egan’s statement seemed to go to pains to rebut that criticism.
Throughout my years as Archbishop of New York, I have repeated this teaching in sermons, articles, addresses, and interviews without hesitation or compromise of any kind.
Thus it was that I had an understanding with Mr. Rudolph Giuliani, when I became Archbishop of New York, and he was serving as Mayor of New York, that he was not to receive the Eucharist because of his well-known support of abortion. I deeply regret that Mr. Giuliani received the Eucharist during the Papal visit here in New York, and I will be seeking a meeting with him to insist that he abide by our understanding.
A spokeswoman for Giuliani, Sunny Mindel, told the New York Times that the former mayor was willing to meet with the cardinal, but insisted his faith “is a deeply personal matter and should remain confidential.”
Commonweal Magazine blogger David Gibson doesn’t think Egan’s action signals a new approach by the U.S. bishops, and wonders whether Giuliani may have felt justified in taking communion because he went to confession beforehand. He notes that Giuliani’s spiritual confidante is longtime friend Msgr. Alan Placa, a Long Island priest who was suspended on allegations that he inappropriately touched adolescent boys. Giuliani gave Placa a job at his consulting firm when Placa was put on administrative leave. In any case, Gibson places the onus on Giuliani for ‘in-your-face’ behavior.
For all of Egan’s bad press, he was never one to pick a public fight with public figures. Indeed, he often said he counted people like Giuliani and Hillary Clinton as “friends,” an embrace that angered many in the church. But Rudy left him no choice here. He apparently abrogated a very judicious and pastoral private agreement with his bishop, and did so in front of Egan’s boss and under the full glare of the media klieg lights.
For his part, Washington Cardinal Wuerl declined to admonish anyone who took Communion at the papal Mass at Nationals Park, which was attended by 47,000 people.
“The guidelines for receiving Communion are printed in all programs for major liturgies held in the Archdiocese of Washington,” said spokeswoman Susan Gibbs. “The Mass with the Holy Father was no exception. The presence of these instructions is particularly important at liturgies attended by thousands of people to ensure each person has the information to make an informed decision about whether to approach for the Eucharist given his or her own situation.”
Wuerl is a longtime friend of Teresa Heinz Kerry, having served as a deacon at her wedding to the late John Heinz III in 1966.
Four years ago, amid questions over whether then-presidential candidate Kerry should receive the sacrament, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote that it could be withheld in certain circumstances, such as “obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin.” One example of such sin, he said, “was consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws.”
Ratzinger’s letter did not mention Kerry by name, and in any case, he recommended a pastoral, rather than prosecutorial approach — talking to the individual in private before turning them away in church.
Click here to sign up for the Muckety Newsletter
0 Comments
There are no comments yet, be the first by filling in the form below.
Leave a Comment