ROME — Progressive San Diego Cardinal Robert McElroy has doubled down in his defense of active homosexuality, asserting that gay sex is not necessarily a serious sin.
Individual conscience always trumps Catholic moral teaching, the cardinal asserts in a March 2 article in the Jesuit-run America magazine, so all those who think they should be receiving Holy Communion at Mass should be encouraged to do so, regardless of the objective evil of their moral choices.
While Catholic teaching has an essential role in moral decision-making, “it is conscience that has the privileged place,” he states.
The Catholic Church teaches that members of the faithful who are aware of having committed a grave sin should repent and seek forgiveness before receiving Communion, whereas Cardinal McElroy suggests that those who have committed objectively serious sins and intend to keep doing so should partake in Communion anyway.
The cardinal gets around this problem by suggesting that sodomy is not necessarily a serious sin, especially if a person’s conscience has no problem with it. One assumes that the same principle must apply in the case of other sins such as rape, theft, and the sexual abuse of children, as long as conscience has no problem with it and thinks Communion is a good idea.
McElroy also proposes that since all of us are sinners and no one is truly worthy of receiving Communion, those who commit grave sin should not have to abstain from the Eucharist.
He cites Pope Francis in saying that the Eucharist is “not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak,” and therefore even serious sinners need not repent and confess their sins before receiving Communion.
The cardinal does not cite Saint Thomas Aquinas, who dealt with this very issue. In his Summa Theologica, Aquinas responds to the objection that since the Eucharist is “spiritual medicine” given to the sick for their recovery, those in mortal sin should be invited to receive Communion.
“Every medicine does not suit every stage of sickness; because the tonic given to those who are recovering from fever would be hurtful to them if given while yet in their feverish condition,” Aquinas replies. “So likewise Baptism and Penance are as purgative medicines, given to take away the fever of sin; whereas this sacrament is a medicine given to strengthen, and it ought not to be given except to them who are quit of sin.”
Aquinas added that “whoever receives this sacrament while in mortal sin, is guilty of lying to this sacrament, and consequently of sacrilege, because he profanes the sacrament: and therefore he sins mortally.”
In a previous article, Cardinal McElroy had advocated scrubbing the traditional distinction between temptation and sin, asserting that those who resist their sinful inclinations are no different from those who give into them.
“The distinction between orientation and activity cannot be the principal focus for such a pastoral embrace because it inevitably suggests dividing the L.G.B.T. community into those who refrain from sexual activity and those who do not,” the cardinal declared, while advocating that both groups be invited to receive the Eucharist.
Last Tuesday, Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki accused Cardinal McElroy of “heresy” for his rejection of the basic Church teaching.
“Unfortunately, it is not uncommon today to hear Catholic leaders affirm unorthodox views that, not too long ago, would have been espoused only by heretics,” Bishop Paprocki stated.
It is “deeply troubling to consider the possibility that prelates holding the office of diocesan bishop in the Catholic Church may be separated or not in full communion because of heresy,” he wrote, because they “reject essential truths of the faith.”
Pope Francis elevated Bishop McElroy to the rank of cardinal in 2022, evoking praise from the leader of a dissident Catholic LGBT advocacy group who proclaimed McElroy “the kind of prelate our church needs.”
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