State Legislators Should Serve Constituents, Not Priests and Mullahs

When I was 13, Jack Kennedy was running for President. As a fan, I didn’t understand why his Catholicism was a big deal; but many U.S. citizens feared that their Commander-in-Chief would be secretly taking orders from the Pope.

We are the U.S., not Iran. Separation of church and state is essential to our form of government.

Some religions are unkind to women: Catholics oppose women’s freedom of choice, but also would deny women contraceptives. (Go figure!) Islamic states often won’t let women drive, show their faces, or be educated. Some societies even mutilate girls’ genitals in childhood. In the U.S., public decision-makers should act for the public good, not obey priests’ or mullahs’ orders.

Pope Francis appears to understand this, as do most clergy. But some U.S. bishops (who insist popes are infallible except when they disagree with a pope) are punishing politicians who honor their oaths of office. Joe Biden (in South Carolina) and our own State Senator Joe Cervantes (by the local Catholic diocese) were recently denied communion. These Catholic prelates are attacking not just Joe and Joe, but our system of government.

Bishop Peter Baldacchino’s account is close to a confession of criminal behavior. New Mexico law defines extortion as “communication or transmission of any threat . . . to wrongfully compel the person threatened to do or refrain from doing any act against his will.” I don’t say the Bishop committed extortion; but extortion isn’t just “Pay me or I’ll break your legs!” For example, threatening criminal prosecution when trying to settle a civil dispute can qualify. To a devout Catholic, receiving communion might matter more than avoiding jail.

The Diocese says it repeatedly warned Cervantes that he could be denied communion.

Cervantes says he’s being refused communion because of his office. (The Church says the denial is punishment for Joe’s vote; but logic supports the Senator.) As chair of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, Cervantes can singlehandedly kill a bill. On a bill passing with a comfortable margin, his vote means little; but using his power to veto a bill is huge. (Note that devout Catholic and committed progressive Micaela Lara Cadena reportedly has received no such threat). The Diocese’s official statement may be masking the seriousness of this incident, if the Diocese told Cervantes to do all he could to stop the bill. (And did the threat concern only the abortion criminal law or also the bill allowing terminally ill patients to end their lives?)

The Church complains that Cervantes didn’t call back. Given the relevant laws, I wonder if that failure kept the Diocese from stumbling into some clearer criminal conduct.

I hope the Bishop rethinks this. Consults the Church’s lawyer and ensures his conduct conforms to the law; consults the Bible, which never mentions abortion but does say that if you accidentally cause a woman to miscarry, you can be made to pay damages – to her husband; and, for some local perspective, consults other New Mexico Catholics, who’ve been here long enough to know and understand this place.

Even if having or performing an abortion is a mortal sin, Cervantes did neither. He merely allowed this state, as a majority wished, to avoid jailing women for abortions.

The Bishop ain’t answering my questions, but I wonder what Baldacchino would have done if Joe had done something really anti-Catholic, like claiming (as did Galileo) that the Earth went round the Sun.

                                               - 30 -

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 1 August 2021, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and KTAL-LP. (101.5 FM – http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will presently be available on demand on KRWG’s site.]

[A newspaper column isn’t long enough to articulate all that’s wrong with Bishop Baldacchino’s conduct there. As mentioned, one could reasonably argue that threatening a devout Catholic with loss of communion if he votes his conscience on legislative bills amounts to the crime of extortion. Whether or not the conduct was criminal, it was inappropriate and anti-majoritarian. Further, there’s hypocrisy in (a) inserting yourself into a public legislative decision but (b) refusing to answer questions because “it’s a pastoral matter.” I have some reasonable questions: when the church says it was only concerned about Cervantes’s vote, not is power as Senate Judiciary Committee Chair to veto the bill, is the church trying to mislead us? When it says it only objected to rescinding the old criminal abortion law, is it lying? It is if its misconduct also concerned the Elizabeth Whitfield Death with Dignity Act. I’d urge the Bishop or the Senator to provide news media copies of the relevant correspondence. (Or maybe the AG will look into this.)]

[Let me be clear on this: I don’t accuse Baldacchino of criminal extortion. I merely note that his conduct fits the basic definition and that a lot of conduct we don’t commonly think of as extortion actually is criminal extortion legally. If it weren’t verboten to investigate a Catholic Bishop for a crime (except, nowadays, pedophilia), investigating whether or not this conduct constituted a crime would be a very reasonable course. It’d be automatic if the alleged perpetrator was a Mafia Don or drug dealer threatening a public official.]

[The Catholic Church as an institution has accomplished a lot over time, but also would have a lot to answer for if it were a person and had to face St. Peter at Heaven’s Gate.

Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino said that this incident was particularly sad because, “The Church has a wonderful history of social justice.” He added that a devout member “is in effect being read out of the core sacrament of our faith.” He added that “nothing in the Catholic faith authorizes this. Jesus did not exclude people,” but invited “all of you” to partake of his body and blood and thereby unite with him.” He said this sort of thing separates people, adding that Jesus didn’t limit his love and help. “None of us is worthy.”

He also called the Bishop’s action “primitive. If what the Bishop wants is all that important, then he should explain and convince,” not try to force a public official to do his bidding.

It’s worth reiterating that this Bishop’s action is not the Catholic Church’s action. Pope Francis has discouraged Catholic clergy from doing such things, and the Archbishop of Santa Fe is reportedly not sending Catholic legislators nasty notes. It’s sad, for Catholics and the wider community, that after two such fine bishops as Bishop Ricardo Ramírez and Bishop Oscar Cantú, . . .]

[By the way, my friend and colleague Walt Rubel also opined on this matter in his column this week.]