Monday, April 26, 2004
You just can't win
Kerry had opined that, since only a cardinal, and not the Pope, had said he can't receive communion, it wasn't really all that important. Well, kaching.
Cardinal Francis Arinze, a top Vatican official who said Friday that Roman Catholic lawmakers who support abortion rights should not receive Holy Communion, was speaking for the pope, local Catholic leaders said yesterday.
"He is the highest-ranking person in the whole chain under the pope with regard to the sacraments," said the Rev. Joseph Koterski, head of the philosophy department at Fordham University.
Pope John Paul II said virtually the same thing in an encyclical fairly recently, he added.
Cardinal Francis Arinze, a top Vatican official who said Friday that Roman Catholic lawmakers who support abortion rights should not receive Holy Communion, was speaking for the pope, local Catholic leaders said yesterday.
"He is the highest-ranking person in the whole chain under the pope with regard to the sacraments," said the Rev. Joseph Koterski, head of the philosophy department at Fordham University.
Pope John Paul II said virtually the same thing in an encyclical fairly recently, he added.
