Interim Special

Many feel they have done nothing wrong and have refused to quit the targeted groups.

For a year, Marilyn Seiker and others like her have continued to receive Holy Communion, despite a bishop’s demand that they quit groups such as Planned Parenthood or face excommunication.

“We thought it would be scandalous to our grandchildren to see us being refused Communion,” said Seiker, 64.

Under excommunication, Roman Catholics may attend Mass but cannot receive Holy Communion or other sacraments, such as marriage in the church.

Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz counted on people to follow the order because of their conscience, but many feel they have done nothing wrong and have refused to quit the groups he targeted or stop receiving Communion each Sunday.

Bruskewitz warned that public floating of the order – the only one of its kind in the United States – could draw more sanctions.

“I have made no decision about undertaking any further corrective action, but that option is open, and I think it should be,” he said.

Bruskewitz said the groups – including abortion- rights groups Planned Parenthood and Catholics for a Free Choice – contradict and imperil Catholic faith.

Randy Moody, a board member of blacklisted Planned Parent, attends the bishop’s own parish. “I’ve never been refused Communion there,” Moody said. “I don’t know anyone who has.”

Jim McShane of Call to Action, a dissident Catholic group that wants the church to discuss allowing woman and married men to become priests, said he knows people who have stopped receiving Holy Communion because of the order.

McShane refuses to say whether he still receives the sacrament.

No bishop in the country has followed Bruskewitz’s lead, and many theologians have said the order is too broad. Bruskewitz said the order is an opportunity for people to change their ways, not a punishment.

He said he has heard nothing negative from the Vatican or any other bishop or cardinal.

(Post Dispatch & Pulitzer Technologies via Pro-Life E News)