Trust. But verify.

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Aug 10, 2004

Bishop F. Joseph Gossman of Raleigh, North Carolina has responded to the statement in which 3 other bishops from nearby dioceses announced that pro-abortion Catholic politicians would be barred from Communion.

In his own weighty statement on the question, Bishop Gossman proclaims:

The Church does not engage in political activity. Its primary responsibility in the political arena is one of being educated—of being aware of the moral implications of political issues in order to provide guidance concerning the rightness or wrongness of a specific issue to those who will listen.

If you can translate that second sentence into English, you're a better man than I am. But when you see that the Church's responsibility is "being educated" (by whom, I wonder?), you can sense what's coming. And sure enough, here it comes:

If individuals are not properly disposed, for whatever reason, they are obliged to refrain from receiving Holy Communion. This is not a new practice in the Church and I trust that those who receive the Body and Blood of Christ in this diocese have fulfilled this obligation and believe that they are free of grave sin.

Of course. And since mugging has been against the law in my town for many years, I trust that the half-dozen teenagers who just emerged from an alleyway, wearing gangsta outfits and carrying switchblades, are taking orders for Girl Scout cookies.