Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Cardinal Egan, Rudy Giuliani and Holy Communion

I was unable to post it yesterday, but one of the hottest stories on the web involves Rudy Giuliani's reception of Holy Communion at a Papal Mass in NY. There was an outcry in the blogosphere, even before these Masses, once it became known that pro-choice Catholic pols would be at these Masses.

In an unexpected move, Cardinal Egan has issued a public statement, as follows:


“ The Catholic Church clearly teaches that abortion is a grave offense against the will of God. 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.”

This statement came on the heels of a strong op-ed piece by Robert Novak in which he asserted that the archbishops of New York and Washington were disobedient to Pope Benedict.

This has created more discussion. Tom Peters at AmP has a single post that collects some comments and excerpts from around the web in the first link below. I'm adding some additional links for more commentary and combox reading.

Other articles and posts:



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