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Bishop: Communion to be Denied to Gay "Marriage" Supporters and All "Notorious Public Sinners"

OTTAWA, June 8, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a revealing exchange in the House of Commons committee on the gay 'marriage' bill C-38 Monday, Calgary Bishop Fred Henry was grilled by openly homosexual MP Bill Siksay.

Siksay was the MP chosen to replace disgraced gay activist MP, Svend Robinson in his Burnaby-Douglas riding in Vancouver BC. Siksay has been vigorously supporting the proposed legislation and in committee hearings has made no secret of his contempt for religious arguments. Bishop Henry, however, stressed that he had made no reference to religious reasoning but had argued purely from the Natural Law philosophy common to people of any religion or none.

He said, "I specifically decided not to talk about sacramentality. I haven't quoted scripture, not one verse. I'm simply saying, let's look at this from the vantage point of philosophy, of reason, and natural law."

Despite this, Siksay persisted in pursuing the issue of religion asking, "Can you be a devout Catholic and still support same-sex marriage? Are there any dissenting Catholic voices?"

Bishop Henry responded: "There are some who call themselves Catholic, but then it gets to be questionable as to whether or not they ought to go parading under that label of devout Catholic. For example, if they were in my diocese, they were a public official, they would be refused communion."

The exchange continued:

Siksay: So you would take action to do that?

Bishop Henry: Absolutely.

Siksay: Do you do that on other issues as well?

Bishop Henry: Yes, there are some issues, that if you're a notorious public sinner, you're refused communion also.

Siksay: Can you give me some examples of what those would be?

Bishop Henry: I would say, I have told some people, for example, that have acknowledged that they are in abusive relationships that they are not to receive communion until these matters have been dealt with forthright.

Some time later Conservative MP Jason Kenney asked Bishop Henry jokingly, "Your Grace, it might comfort Mr. Siksay, from the NDP, to know that one nickname the media has given you in the past--if I may--is "Red Fred". Is that not correct?"  To which Bishop Henry replied, "Yes, Ted Byfield gave me that one when I got a little too far to the left on some social issues."

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