An Irish pro-abortion politician was refused Holy Communion by a Catholic priest during a funeral service.
Father Gabriel Burke denied Communion to Fine Gael Minister Colm Burke during a Requiem Mass at St. Patrick’s Church in Whitechurch, a village close to Cork City, on July 12. Father Burke told local news outlet Corkbeo that he denied Burke Communion because of his support for abortion and that any politician who votes for pro-abortion laws is “participating in evil.”
The priest said, “He [Minister Colm Burke] put out his hand, and I gave him a blessing, and I told him that nobody was entitled to receive [C]ommunion. I then gave him to the count of three to move on before I went to the next person.”
“He as a senator voted the abortion legislation in – he didn’t have to, he chose to vote for abortion. He didn’t do it in any way to lessen the demand for abortion in Ireland. He could have done differently as a Catholic.”
Father Burke also said this was the third time that Colm Burke was refused Communion in the diocese.
According to the Irish Times, the minister said that Fr. Burke told him, “You have been excommunicated” when he presented himself for Holy Communion.
“I have been in contact with the Cloyne Diocesan Office and I intend writing to Bishop Crean seeking clarification as to my status in attending future Church ceremonies in the Diocese,” the politician said.
Diocese spokesman Fr. Jim Moore confirmed to the Irish Times that Minister Burke had contacted them and that Bishop William Crean would contact the minister the following week.
“As a senator, Colm Burke voted for abortion after the 2018 referendum, and he knows the teaching of the Church that any politician who voted abortion cannot receive [C]ommunion – Archbishop Eamon Martin made that very clear before the vote on abortion,” Fr. Burke told the Irish Times.
“Archbishop Martin said that any politician that voted for abortion in Dáil Éireann [Lower House of Irish Parliament] was ‘co-operating with evil’ and should not present for [C]ommunion and Colm Burke knew that because he was here twice before, and he’s been refused communion on both those occasions,” the priest added.
Mr. Burke claimed that he was unaware of the archbishop’s statement and said, “My understanding is that Canon Law, in fact, doesn’t give him the authority to refuse to give Holy Communion to anyone.”
Contrary to the pro-abortion politician’s understanding, canon law requires priests to deny Holy Communion to “[t]hose who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin.” (Can. 915)
Since supporting the murder of the unborn constitutes a grave sin, politicians who vote in favor of pro-abortion laws without repenting must be denied Communion.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the time and would become Pope Benedict XVI a year later, explained in a 2004 memo:
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.
The cardinal added that when these measures were not effective or not possible and the person persists in sin and “still presents himself to receive the Holy Eucharist, ‘the minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it’ (cf. Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts Declaration “’Holy Communion and Divorced, Civilly Remarried Catholics’ [2002], nos. 3-4).”
Cardinal Ratzinger stressed that this denial “is not a sanction or a penalty” but a response “to the person’s public unworthiness to receive Holy Communion due to an objective situation of sin.”
The Catholic Church has always taught that receiving the Holy Eucharist unworthily is a grave sin. In First Corinthians 11:29, Saint Paul writes: “For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.”