Cardinal Raymond Burke stands out as one of the few leaders in the Catholic Church today who’s not afraid to speak the truth on faith, morals and popular culture.
In doing so, he’s seen as a hero by many of the faithful and as an enemy by those who dissent from Church teaching, particularly in regard to abortion, artificial contraception, gender identity and governance of the Church.
The honesty and candor of the former prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura in Rome goes against the grain of a more progressive-minded Church hierarchy currently occupying key positions in the Vatican. As a result, the highly esteemed canon lawyer has served in a largely ceremonial role after his term as prefect ended in 2014, one year after Pope Francis replaced Pope Benedict XVI.
That hasn’t stopped the former bishop of La Crosse, Wisconsin, and archbishop of St. Louis from continuing to uphold authentic Catholic teaching on controversial issues. That’s clearly the case in his new book, Respecting the Body and Blood of the Lord with commentary from longtime associate Thomas McKenna, which is published by Sophia Institute Press.
In just 121 pages, Cardinal Burke articulates in an easy-to-digest manner the reasons for protecting the sanctity of the Holy Eucharist and when it’s appropriate to deny a person the privilege of receiving the precious Body and Blood of Jesus.
McKenna, executive director of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, provides a summary, commentary, key takeaways, application and personal points to ponder after each of the 11 chapters, which are no longer than eight pages.
Each chapter provides justification and evidence regarding the Church’s protection of the sanctity of the Blessed Sacrament.
Cardinal Burke starts the first chapter with a Biblical reference in St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians and Pope St. John Paul II’s Ecclesia de Eucharista encyclical. The cardinal follows with the writings of fathers of the Church and theologians, continues with canon law and declarations from various eras in Church history and includes declarations from the Church’s legislative texts.
The book explains in detail canon 915 of the Church’s 1983 Code of Canon Law. Canon 915 is defined as follows: “Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.”
The controversial issue of denying Holy Communion receives the most attention as it relates to politicians who show long-standing support for positions contrary to Church teaching while continuing to profess to be Catholics in good standing.
In the book’s introduction, Cardinal Burke points out the confusion even among bishops regarding canon 915, which, he writes, is not the imposition of a penalty, but it “articulates the responsibility of the minister of Holy Communion to deny Holy Communion to those who obstinately persevere in manifest grave sin.”
The cardinal explains why Holy Communion should be withheld to respect the holiness of the sacrament, to safeguard the salvation of the soul of the party presenting himself to receive Holy Communion and to avoid scandal.
In the United States and throughout the world, there is considerable debate on whether bishops should impose canon 915 against politicians who create scandal through their continuing support for abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage and other issues in opposition to the moral law.
Bishops in many parts of the world have shied away from enforcing canon 915. Some bishops have questioned the denial of the Eucharist, “asserting that the practice transforms the celebration of the Sacrament of unity into a theater of conflict.” The bishop who made that statement years ago was disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was laicized because of his sexual misconduct.
Some bishops have argued that canon 916 in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which states that individuals possess individual responsibility to refrain from Holy Communion if they believe they’re in grave sin, takes precedence over canon 915.
But Cardinal Burke writes that the two canons go together. He states that if an individual who creates public scandal by receiving Holy Communion is not willing to take individual responsibility for his actions as stipulated by canon 916, then canon 915 can be enforced against the person who continues to receive the Eucharist while publicly persisting in a grave sin.
For Catholics who believe the Church should not pass judgment on anyone, Cardinal Burke cites numerous references verifying that the intent is actually to protect souls from unworthily receiving Holy Communion and from setting an example that leads others to sin.
Among the references Cardinal Burke uses to help the faithful understand the Church’s constant teaching as it pertains to canon 915 and Holy Communion are:
• St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians: “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.”
• Ecclesia de Eucharista (“On the Eucharist in its relationship to the Church”): “The judgment of one’s state of grace obviously only belongs to the person involved, since it is a question of examining one’s conscience. However, in cases of outward conduct which is seriously, clearly and steadfastly contrary to the moral norm, the Church, in her pastoral concern for the good order of the community and out of respect for the sacrament cannot fail to be directly involved. The Code of Canon Law refers to the situation of a manifest lack of proper moral disposition when it states that those who ‘obstinately persist in manifest grave sin’ are not to be admitted to Eucharistic communion.”
• Pope Paul V’s Rituale Romanum (“Roman rituals”) published in 1614: “The publicly unworthy, which are the excommunicated, those under interdict, and the manifestly infamous, such as prostitutes, those cohabitating, usurers, sorcerers, fortune-tellers, blasphemers and other sinners of the public kind, are, however, to be prevented, unless their penitence and amendment has been established and they will have repaired the public scandal.”
• Pope Benedict XIV in an encyclical in 1756: “If the individual holds to the errors that endanger his or her eternal salvation, the Holy Father urges the minister of Holy Communion to point out that receiving the Body of Christ will not make him secure before the tribunal of Christ but rather guilty of a new and more detestable sin because he has eaten and drunk judgment on himself.”
• Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the U.S. bishops in a 2004 memorandum titled “Worthiness to receive Holy Communion”: “Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person’s formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.”
Cardinal Burke provides in his conclusion a reminder that “the discipline is not penal but has to do with the safeguarding of the objective and supreme sanctity of the Holy Eucharist, with caring for the faithful who would sin gravely against the Body and Blood of Christ, and for the faithful who would be led into error by such sinful reception of Holy Communion.”
“I am deeply aware of the difficulty which is involved in applying the discipline of canon 915,” the cardinal summarizes, adding, “but what is at stake for the Church demands the wisdom and courage of shepherds who will apply it.
“The United States of America is a thoroughly secularized society that canonizes radical individualism and relativism, even before the natural moral law. The application, therefore, is more necessary than ever, lest the faithful, led astray by the strong cultural trends of relativism, be deceived concerning the supreme good of the Holy Eucharist and the gravity of supporting publicly the commissioning of intrinsically evil acts.
“Catholics in public office bear an especially heavy burden of responsibility to uphold the moral law in the exercise of their office, which is exercised for the common good, especially the good of the innocent and defenseless. When they fail, they lead others – Catholics and non-Catholics alike – to be deceived regarding the evils of procured abortion and other attacks on innocent and defenseless human life, on the integrity of human procreation, and on the family.”