Ranting to /dev/null

I'm a little surprised to see you taking this position. If the pope genuinely believes that guff about being Christ's vicar on earth he doesn't really have much choice. Church law seems to require excommunication in these instances; choosing not to enforce it would suggest a lack of confidence in the validity of his own institution. And though it impinges on the political realm, this is hardly an illegitimate intrusion. The church believes that abortion is de facto infanticide. Surely you wouldn't encourage it to countenance parishioners taking communion after passing laws which it believes to be morally indistinguishable from licensing whimsical post-birth killing?

And while this new approach will excite howls of indignation from the New Yorker, the NYT, and Andrew Sullivan, it's not like Ratzy had much hope of winning their support anyway. In any case, I'll appreciate the measure if it cleans some of the canting religiosity out of American politics: we shouldn't have to endure hearing folks like the Kennedys described as Catholics.

To adapt a common defense of most wasteful legislative proposals, if it eliminates just one creeping Jesus, it'll have been worth it.

My objection has nothing to do with the pope's stance on abortion. It has everything to do with the pope's stand on the pope. I agree with most of the Catholic teachings on abortion (though as I use different premises there are some different conclusions). I even probably agree with the conclusion that politicians who enact abortion laws should be excommunicated. But I disagree with most--if not all--of the Catholic teachings on the Magisterium. So any exercise of papal authority is likely to annoy me.

In other words, this is a procedural, not a substantive objection.

Would you support a Protestant pastor of a church asking a practicing abortionist not to take communion?

yeah, i think i'm with becca. what's the difference?

Again, procedural objection, not substantive. I do believe that the church has the authority to give instructions to its members. I don't believe the pope has such authority.

I'm pretty sure that however this authority is to be exerted it needs to be in the context of a member of the clergy who is actively in a pastoral relationship with the person being disciplined. Dictates from the pontiff are hardly that.

For the record, I wouldn't have any inherent problem with a local Catholic parish priest saying exactly the same thing to a parishoner. My objection is not to the church giving instructions, but to Catholic ecclesiology.

A bit random and late of me, but given that I can see St. Peter's from my roof, I should chime in:

Ryan, I'm honestly surprised that your general perspective on this issue would keep you from engaging closely with the text you yourself provided. This is not Benedict XVI threatening to do the excommunication: rather, he said "he supported Mexican Church leaders threatening to excommunicate" the politicans, *when a reporter asked him his stance in order to create a story.* All he said was that he thought they were being good pastors.
It's the principle of subsidiarity, which we hold explicitly in our social teaching: only bring in higher-ups when the local authorities cannot deal with a situation on their own. The Vatican (withprobablyafewbutnottoomanyexceptions) does not get involved in intranational politics.

Furthermore, while I understand your concerns about the Church getting involved in politics, I do not think abortion crosses the line here. JPII was against the Iraq war, and said so - but he never would have excommunicated anyone, nor expected local bishops to do so. Same with the death penalty, or immigration, or the overwhelming majority of hot-button issues.

Abortion is an exception because it is such a public, heinous, mortal sin (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2270). And so as Benedict said, "[Excommunication is] based simply on the principle that the killing of an innocent human child is incompatible with going in Communion with the body of Christ. Thus, they (the bishops) didn't do anything new or anything surprising. Or arbitrary." If a local bishop formally excommunicates the pols, all that happens is that what the politicans have already done by their votes is publicly acknowledged: they have cut themselves out from their membership in the Body of Christ. All Christians, not just us Papists, should be up in arms against such politicans, because we're all equally part of that Body.
(Of course you'll disagree that the Church has the authority to say which sins kick you out of 'the faithful' - and that the theology is wrong to begin with; if you're *really* one of God's People, he'll bring you home no matter what (which I don't entirely disagree with - the Book of Life is real, and people can be re-communicated to the faith). But in the meanwhile, what does that mean for our ability to confront such horrific evils? - Does it mean that we will passively sit by while they endure for decades? A bit of rhetorical overreaching, but about 1.6 million abortions happen in our country each year, and Pope Benedict quite rightly does not want the same to begin in Brazil.)

I personally think that the Pope's willingness to be blunt about so many things (e.g. his comments about the colonization of Brazil) at times isn't helpful - too easy to cast him as the bogeyman. But then again, in the long run and on this issue, your friend Julian is right.