Sin & Scandal

As a priest, I have sometimes urged couples not to come up for communion because they are living in a situation which lends itself to scandal and because the sin is of such a serious nature that the Eucharist which should come for their salvation might be to their condemnation. After all, in traditional language, it would be called a sacrilege. Indeed, to be married while in serious sin also constitutes a sacrilege. It is the desecration of a holy mystery. The delicacy, is to encourage couples to frequent confession and to continue to attend the liturgy even if they are unable to receive communion.

I recall one young couple who had lived together and had shared sexual congress in all its forms, who had contracepted and aborted, and who had even toyed with sharing their bed with another. They kept claiming that they never really did anything wrong. I asked them to give me an example of something a person might do that was sexually wrong. They could not. They had reached that final ravine where there was virtually no human sexual activity which could be labeled as wrong or evil. The Church stands for such people as the ultimate sign of contradiction. There is a right and a wrong. It comes to us in revelation and through the testimony of the great Christian philosophers and theologians of the ages. It elevates the possibility that chastity is appropriate to both the single and married state, and that this and the even greater charism of celibacy for singles, religious, and priests, is attainable and worthwhile.