Excommunication? Not gonna happen

It’s an election year, so we’re talking about whether a bishop should announce the excommunication of a prominent pro-abortion politician. We’ve been doing this since the 1980s.

And in all those years, how many times has a bishop pronounced an excommunication? Right: zero*. Relax, it’s not going to happen.

Don’t get me wrong: I wish it would happen. My sympathies are entirely with the pro-life activists calling for the excommunication of Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey. Boston’s Archbishop Henning would only be acknowledging what is already a fact: that Healey has separated herself from the communion of the Catholic faithful. But since it hasn’t happened with Mario Cuomo and Ted Kennedy and Geraldine Ferraro and John Kerry and Joe Biden, there’s no good reason to expect that it will happen now. Archbishop Henning has shown no signs of breaking with the pattern set by previous prelates.

As a matter of fact, if he had been inclined to excommunicate Catholic politicians for supporting legal abortion, Henning would have made the move months ago. Governor Healey has been remarkably consistent in her support of unrestricted legal abortion, and her determination to wipe out all resistance from the pro-life movement. Surely the archbishop was apprised of the governor’s aggressive campaign to shut down pregnancy-help centers, eliminating that “choice” for women in crisis pregnancies.

Moreover it would be unfair, really, for the archbishop to single out Healey for disciplinary action. The extreme legislation that she signed into law was enthusiastically supported by dozens of Massachusetts lawmakers who style themselves as Catholics. They too are a source of scandal in the Catholic community. For consistency’s sake, the archbishop would have to announce a long list of excommunications.

Perhaps you’re thinking: “Go ahead; do it!” I don’t disagree. I’m just saying it won’t happen.

Imagine the response if, against all expectations, Archbishop Henning did lower the ecclesiastical boom. Governor Healey would be delighted! Oh, no doubt she would profess to be hurt and saddened and outraged. But as a practical matter the publicity would be a bonanza for her campaign. Donations would pour in from abortion supporters all over the country. The media would portray Healey as the defenseless victim of the Catholic patriarchy. In deep-blue Massachusetts, politicians win votes by posturing as enemies of the Catholic Church.

Perhaps you’re still thinking: “Never mind. Do it anyway.” And now I heartily agree. If losing another election is the cost of purifying the Church, so be it. The Church has paid a heavy price, in terms of public influence, because so many prelates have trimmed their sails to the prevailing political winds. Far better that the Church should be consistent, and the faithful—if they are faithful—would hear a clear and uncompromising moral message.

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Maybe—not probably, not likely, but maybe—this will be a turning point. An image can be more powerful than an argument, and the photos of Healey signing the abortion bill, with a score of laughing women cheering in the background, has testified to the blood-lust of the abortion lobby more powerfully than a decade of cautious rhetoric.

No less an authority than Abraham Lincoln thought that the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin turned the tide of public opinion against toleration of slavery. Maybe the ghoulish images from the governor’s signing ceremony will stir the same sort of outrage, awakening the deadened consciences of Massachusetts voters. Maybe they will even rouse our bishops into action.

Correction: The statement as it stands is accurate: No politician has been excommunicated for public support of abortion. However in a few cases, bishops have made it known publicly that certain politicians must not receive the Eucharist. The most recent such case involved former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was instructed by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco that she was barred from Communion. Pelosi continued to receive Communion in Washington, DC, outside Cordileone’s jurisdiction, where she was welcomed.

Deal Hudson reminds me that in 1990, the late Bishop Rene Gracida excommunicated the director of an abortion clinic and a doctor who practiced there. In that case, however, they were excommunicated for direct participation in abortion, not for political support of the practice. The Code of Canon Law (#1397) explicitly states that abortion is the penalty for performing of procuring an abortion. The penalty for political support is not equally clear.