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Paul Martin’s Parish Priest will not Refuse Communion no Matter What Rome Says

COMMENTARY

LASALLE, October 5, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The effervescent Fr. John Walsh continues to bubble up into the pages of a Canadian media ever eager to highlight the divisions in the Catholic Church. According to a Canadian Press story, Fr.Walsh, still preaching his dogmas of tolerance and love for homosexuality and sacrilege on his weekly phone-in show on CJAD radio, said that no matter what the authorities in Rome may decide, Prime Minister Paul Martin is welcome to receive communion in his Christian Community.

One of the many issues being discussed at the international bishops’ synod in Rome that is making headlines is a possible decision to refuse Communion to what the 1983 Code of Canon Law calls “manifest grave” sinners, including politicians who support abortion, gay “marriage” and other Catholic non-negotiables.

As Paul Martin’s occasional parish priest at St. Jean de Brebeuf “Christian Community” (known to Catholics as a “parish,”) Fr. Walsh garners much attention for his periodic and very public declarations of dissent from Roman Catholic teaching, particularly in his displays of affection for the homosexual political agenda.

 “We can't use the Eucharist as a time . . . to judge a person's conscience by refusing them communion,” Rev. John Walsh told CJAD radio.

According to the Catholic Church, however, it is precisely the duty of a parish priest to make such judgments to avoid sacrilege and scandal. Fr. James Buckley, a consultant to American Life League said, “Prior to Vatican II priests were more conscious that the obligation of preventing public sinners from receiving communion rested on them. Today they hesitate.”

Fr. Buckley said, “Further, Canon Law 915 clearly prohibits public sinners from taking the Eucharist. Priests are not disciplining pro-abortion legislators when they enforce this Canon law; they are protecting the Eucharist from sacrilege.”

Archbishop William J. Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the recently appointed head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, has asked the synod bishops to consider what steps ought to be taken to deal with the problem of politicians who vote contrary to the moral law. Levada quoted the synod’s working document, “Some Catholics do not understand why it might be a sin to support a political candidate who is openly in favor of abortion or other serious acts against life, justice and peace.”

However, Fr. Walsh has a more liberal view of things. “I think that we must look at the situation and say, ‘Are we respecting a person's conscience?’” asked Walsh, precisely following the logic of the Canadian bishops’ flawed 1968 Winnipeg Statement theology. That revolutionary statement, which elevated the status of personal conscience above a Christian’s obligation to act according to absolute truths as taught by the Church, has led many Canadian Catholics to justifty being involved, and often as leaders at all levels, in the spread of abortion, sexual liberation and just about everything else in the past few decades’ moral decline of the nation.

When Fr. Walsh announced in February that he was considering “marrying” homosexual partners, LifeSiteNews.com received a terse, “no comment” and dismissal from officials of the Montreal diocese. The diocese moreover has made no public statement or correction of Fr. Walsh regarding his public rejection of the Church's teaching on same-sex unions.

Read previous LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Canadian Prime Minister’s Parish Priest says he is Considering “Marrying” Gay Partners
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/feb/05021005.html

Prime Minister’s “Catholic” Pastor in Support of Gay Marriage Agenda
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jan/05013105.html

Leading Evangelical Minister Reminds Canadian Prime Minister to Abstain from Communion at Pope's Funeral
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/apr/05040801.html

St. John Brébeuf Parish
7777 George Street,
LaSalle, Québec
H8P 1C8
Telephone: (514) 366.0131
Fax: (514) 366.7469
Email:

Contact Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte

(514) 931-7311
(514) 931-3432 Fax
2000, rue Sherbrooke ouest
Montréal (Québec)
H3H 1G4

Canadian Tolerance of Gay Agenda Traced to Failure of Canadian Catholic Hierarchy
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/apr/04042705.html

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