Former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke said this week that President Barack Obama’s nomination of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services “is the source of the greatest embarrassment because she has publicly and repeatedly betrayed her Catholic faith.” Burke, who is now the chief justice of the Vatican’s supreme court, was responding to questions from the president of a San Diego-based non-profit called Catholic Action for Faith and Family. Burke is on the group’s board, as is Post-Dispatch op-ed columnist Colleen Carroll Campbell.
Last week, Obama angered conservative Christians who oppose abortion rights by naming Sebelius, who has been chastised by Kansas City, Kan., Archbishop Joseph Naumann for her positions supporting abortion rights.
Naumann called Sebelius’ nomination this week “troubling.”
Burke told Catholic Action for Faith and Family that Sebelius,
has obstinately remained in her moral error after being admonished by, at least, three of her Bishops, including her present Bishop, Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas. Her position on the question of procured abortion is the source of the greatest scandal to Catholics and to all who uphold the natural moral law.
Burke has been one of the church’s most vocal proponents of Canon 915, especially as it pertains to Catholic politicians who legislate contrary to church law on abortion rights.
In January 2004, Burke told a Post-Dispatch reporter that he would deny Communion to Sen. John Kerry, at that time the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and a Roman Catholic. Kerry had been warned by his bishop not to receive Communion in Boston because of his public support for abortion rights.
“I would have to admonish him not to present himself for Communion,” Burke said. “I might give him a blessing or whatever, but if his archbishop has told him that he’s not to present himself for Communion, then he should not.”
In the fall of 2007, Burke told the Post-Dispatch he would deny Communion to Rudolph Giuliani, then running for the Republican presidential nomination, in the same hypothetical situation.
Earlier in 2007, Burke wrote a scholarly article in a prestigious Catholic legal journal in which he said that as long as the politician in question had been cautioned by a church authority not to receive Communion, and has refused to heed those warnings, any Catholics qualified to serve the Eucharist - and who knew of the warning - would be committing a mortal sin if they failed to deny Communion to that politician. That includes lay people, as well as those who are ordained.
In May (after reportedly counseling her multiple times on the issue), Naumann wrote a public letter asking Sebelius not to receive Holy Communion. Asked by Catholic Action for Faith and Family if Naumann had acted correctly, Burke answered:
Archbishop Naumann proceeded in perfect accord with Canon Law and the sound pastoral practice it embodies. He steadfastly tried to help Governor Sebelius recognize her grave error and to correct herself.
When she refused to do so, he had no choice but to remind her that the Church’s discipline requires that persons who publicly and obstinately remain in serious sin must be denied Holy Communion.
When the Governor did not respect the Archbishop’s instruction that she not present herself to receive Holy Communion, he was obliged to make it public that the Governor had been instructed not to present herself to receive Holy Communion.
Archbishop Naumann acted with exemplary pastoral charity in the matter, protecting the Body and Blood of Christ from unworthy reception, preventing the Governor from the commission of the most serious sin of sacrilege, and ending the great scandal caused by the Governor’s unworthy reception of the Body and Blood of Christ.
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(Source: PD)