The Catholic Church Has a Duty to Correct the Powerful on Abortion

Regarding Father James Martin’s “Abortion and the Grumbling Crowd” (Houses of Worship, July 22): The heinousness of abortion—intentional killing of the most defenseless and vulnerable among us—prompted the bishops of this country to identify it as the pre-eminent moral issue of our time. The Catholic Church identifies abortion as intrinsically evil, meaning that it is always wrong by its nature; no circumstances could ever justify it.

Many progressives risk diminishing the unique evil of abortion through false equivalences. A favorite, cited by Fr. Martin, is the death penalty. The church has always taught that the state has the inherent right to carry out capital punishment. How and when is a matter for debate. The last three popes have sought to limit its application, and Pope Francis has declared it “inadmissible.” The designation is something of a theological unicorn: The pope says that capital punishment should never actually take place. But that’s not the same as saying it is wrong in itself. To say that would be to contradict the apostolic faith of the church.

Another issue often cited is poverty. No one of good will wants people to remain poor, but how best to relieve poverty is a matter for prudential judgment. Give a man a fish or teach a man to fish?

Church leaders have a responsibility to correct those who use the powers of their public offices to promote, facilitate and expand access to the unique evil of abortion. Denying a public official communion should be a last resort, reserved for the most egregious violations of justice. Enabling the killing of unborn children far exceeds that threshold.

The sad irony is that Fr. Martin’s approach is the true “weaponization” of the Eucharist: Every reception of communion wounds that public official’s soul and deepens its alienation from God. Withholding communion from someone in manifest, public, grave sin is not an act of unkindness, but one of love and mercy. Sometimes medicine has to sting before it can heal. When the church sees souls jeopardizing their salvation through sacrilegious communions, she would be derelict not to intervene.

Rev. Brian A. Graebe, S.T.D.

New York

Fr. Graebe is pastor of the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral.

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