We all need the spirit of St. Tarcisius today

The fanatically pro-abortion "Catholic" politician Nancy Pelosi has said, "I fully intend to receive Communion, one way or the other." But instead of popping off like that, she and the hierachy and clergy who idolize and abet her should listen to these words:

"By steadfastly choosing to be pro-choice [i.e., pro-abortion], a Catholic -- politician or not -- excludes himself or herself from communion."

So wrote Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli of Paterson, N.J., in his diocesan newspaper The Beacon on June 7 (click on this post's title). He preceded that sentence with this:

"...the [U.S.] bishops [have] said, “If a Catholic in his or her personal or professional life were knowingly and obstinately to reject the defined doctrines of the Church, or knowingly and obstinately to repudiate her definitive teaching on moral issues, however, he or she would seriously diminish his or her Communion with the Church. Reception of Holy Communion in such a situation would not accord with the nature of the Eucharistic celebration, so that he or she should refrain” (Happy Are Those Who Are Called to His Supper, 4).

Wow -- he says no "Catholic" pro-aborts, not just politicians, should receive Communion.

However, our U.S. bishops should do some listening of their own -- to Cardinal Arinze, head of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, who declared in 2004 that, “A pro-abortion politician is not fit to receive Communion. If they should not receive, then they should not be given.”

Our bishops need to stop giving Communion to the pro-aborts. But don't hold your breath waiting for that.

We all need the spirit of St. Tarcisius. Father John T. Zuhlsdorf last year quoted the following passage from the Martyrologium Romanum (Roman Martyrology) for August 15:

2. Romae in coemeterio Callisti via Appia, commemoratio sancti Tarcisii, martyris, qui, Christi defendens sacratissimam Eucharistiam, quam insana gentilium turba profanare conabatur, lapidibus usque ad mortem mactari maluit quam sacra prodere canibus.

At Rome in the cemetery of Callistus on the Via Appia, the commemoration of Saint Tarcisius, martyr, who while defending the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, which a raging gang of gentiles was trying to profane, preferred to be slaughtered by being stoned to death rather than that sacred things be given to dogs.
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