I'm still in processing mode this morning--in this case, continuing to process the ongoing discussion of when, where, under what conditions a pastor might validly deny communion to a fellow Christian (or, for that matter, anyone). As I keep thinking about these issues, it occurs to me that in the rather heated discussion that ensued here after I blogged about the Father Guarnizo story again on Sunday, there's a strong theological warrant informing my own thinking that I may not have put on the table as clearly as possible when I responded to various readers commenting on Sunday's posting.
This warrant is clearly articulated in theologian Mary Hunt's response to the story of the denial of communion to Barbara Johnson, to which I linked several days ago. The theological warrant (which functions as a bottom line for me in the discussion) is as follows:
The sacraments belong to the people of God, and not to the clerical sector of the church. Underlying the claim that priests have the "right" or obligation to withhold the sacraments from members of the body of Christ under certain conditions is the assumption, it seems to me, that clerics own the sacraments.
And I want to contest that claim, because it seems clear to me, as I read the documents of Vatican II (among other theological and magisterial documents) in light of the gospels, that the sacraments belong first and foremost to the people of God. Not to priests, bishops, or the Pope.
And in celebrating the sacraments in a communal context with the people of God, the priest officiating at the celebration represents and stands with--not over or above or apart from--the people of God. One of the reasons that I keep pushing against the idea that a priest may validly deny communion to a daughter at her mother's funeral after having just met the person to whom he's denying communion is that I don't see any pastor as having the right to exercise that kind of ownership of the sacraments.
As Mary Hunt notes, the claim that priests own the sacraments and have the right to deny the sacraments to the people of God is embedded in a magical understanding of sacramental life and of the clerical role in sacramental life that Vatican II began to dismantle. To a great extent, the reactionary impulse that has dominated the Catholic church under the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict has been all about trying to reassert a magical way of thinking which sees the clerical elite as indispensable to the salvation of lay Catholics.
Once a great many lay Catholics began to understand with Vatican II (and the gospels, and the whole of Christian scripture) that the church belongs to us, however--indeed, that the church is us--that magical way of understanding the sacraments and the clerical caste began to vanish within Catholic culture, and not even the fiercest reaction is going to bring it back again. This is true a fortiori the more things fall apart in the Catholic church--and, since the institution shows every sign of continuing to fall apart as we learn more about what's going on inside the Vatican, about the deep corruption evidenced in the abuse crisis, etc., there's even less chance these days that the old clerical magic is going to reassert itself through determined and concerted reactionary effort on the part of the governing structures of the church.
On the part of the governing structures of the church that are producing the very falling apart of the institution which is causing larger and larger numbers of Catholics to distance ourselves decisively from the institution . . . . So that, as Father Thomas Reese recently noted, many of us are now looking at ways to do church on our own, without resorting to the magical clericalist system.
As perhaps we ought to have been doing all along after Vatican II, since that's what Vatican II told us to do. (And see Robert McClory on the recent statement of the International Theological Commission entitled Theology Today: Perspectives, Principles, and Criteria, and what that document has to say about the role of the sensus fidelium in theological reflection.)
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