Your article (NCR, Jan. 23) that Bishop Raymond L. Burke of La Crosse, Wis., denies Communion to politicians who support abortion and euthanasia makes one wonder about the charity of the bishop. If the legislators are wrong, receiving the Eucharist might help them have a conversion of heart.
I feel in my bones the Rep. David Obey gave an appropriate answer for someone living in a democracy. Bishop Burke [now archbishop of St. Louis] has the right of instruction and the right to lobby and vote, but he crosses the line when he tells a Catholic how the power of the law should be applied in a pluralistic democracy. Taken to its extreme, under Burke’s law, only right-wing Catholics could stand for election.
Burke goes on to say that “they will stand with us against capital punishment, but not against procured abortion or euthanasia.” Has Burke written against capital punishment? Has he told the legislators who sponsor state murder they can no longer go to Communion? Has he taken a stand against our unilateral invasion of Iraq as Pope John Paul II has time and again?
Yes, abortion is morally unacceptable. Rep. Obey and most non-Catholics would agree, but is the alternative of “back alley -- sweep it under the poverty rug” a moral alternative? If it is, let’s get the funding
Every act of contraception is a potential abortion. Where does the now archbishop stand on that? Will he deny Communion to the 90 percent who ignore Humanae Vitae?
JAMES LEAHY Ridgefield, Conn.
Not much surprise here....I guess no one has read the Bishop's Pastoral Letter.
My suggestion to these people who don't seem to uinderstand- read the catechism if your priest are deficient in teaching the faith to you.
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