Via de Cristo Church, Scottsdale, AZ
Some things must be universally available if we aspire to spiritual and civic virtue. Access to decent health care, and access to the bread of life and the wine of salvation, should be available no matter where you are on the continuum of economic status, moral goodness, or religious affiliation.
I am privileged to have wonderful friendships and collegial relationships with many Catholic Christians. So it grieves me when their leaders make a hash of their church's reputation.
Such was the case at the funeral of my mother-in-law. She converted to the faith after her marriage to her husband, who dropped out of Jesuit seminary and went on to have 13 kids with her. (Another way to be very Catholic.) She was a faithful church-goer long after his death. But at her memorial mass, one would never have known from the platitudinous words of the priest that this woman had anything to do with the parish she so faithfully attended - in a wheelchair - for years.
And when my dear wife, Roberta, baptized and confirmed as a Catholic, went to receive the host to show respect for her mom, the priest would not give it to her. All he offered was a weak blessing. The priest knew nothing about Roberta. He could not have known that she was a lapsed Catholic. There was nothing about her that would have suggested it. But somehow he divined that she wasn't "eucharist-ready". One more nail in the coffin of Catholicism for her and her 12 siblings, only one of whom still identifies with the faith.
Communion isn't just for perfect moral, spiritual, or religious people. It is for all of us flawed humans who want to draw closer, body and soul, to the Love that is God.
I believe in Communion for All. Universal Single-Payer (that would be Jesus) Spiritual Health Assurance. Thus on several occasions I have approached the altar and received the wafer from priests in Catholic churches, though by their rules I am ineligible. (I don't do this in Catholic parishes where folks know who I am: I don't want to cause personal offense or discomfort.) If I am breaking their rules, that's not my problem. It's certainly not Jesus' problem.
Just being male makes me less obviously unqualified to partake. I can't be suspected of having had an abortion. Can't be questioned about whether or not I consume birth control pills. I am old, bald, and appear much more solemn than I really am. Put me in the right vestments and I could pass for a Catholic priest. So it is easy for me to do what was not for my beloved wife, who though bereft of formal religiosity is purer of heart than I.
Not that purity of heart should be a consideration in whether or not a person is worthy to taste the bread and wine of Christian communion. The current president, depraved as he is, is no less worthy of the wafer than my wife. Nor of myself.
The same can be said of health care. Its availability should be, as Peter said of God in the book of Acts, "no respecter of persons"... not based on socio-economic rank.
In a word, this is the current president's plan for health care in America: eugenics. If you have lots of money, if you can afford to pay for health care even if you have pre-existing conditions, you must be worthy of living. If you don't have lots of money, you must be an inferior person. So access to good health care would be wasted on you. You should die young so you won't pollute the gene pool.
As St Paul said in Romans 3, "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God". We're moral equals as fallen creatures. But we are far from equals in just how far we fall. For taking communion, for going to the doctor, this moral difference should not matter. But for candidacy for elected office, it ought to count for a great deal.
Obama mis-spoke, once - so why fuss about the current president lying? Hillary lied a few times, so what's the big deal about the current president doing the same? At the altar, it is - or should be - a level praying field. Same with health care. Relatively good people, morally middling people, and downright bad people should get to go the doctor regardless of their ability to pay, and be treated equally.
But in public life, one's place on the moral continuum matters hugely. There is no comparison between the rare non-factual utterances of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, for which they apologized, and the stupendous volume of daily blatant lies of the current president, for which he is unabashedly unapologetic. There's no immoral equivalence. Our current president is not just a garden-variety sinner like Barack and Hillary and most of the rest of us. His behavior is really bad. For his soul's sake, and for the sake of preserving our democracy, he should resign and then repent.
But even if he doesn't straighten out, there's still room for him at the Table of the Lord.
What doesn't matter at the altar rail or in a doctor's office really should matter in a job interview. Let's stay aware of this as we consider the future of health care in this country... and begin to consider the plethora of candidates running for the presidency.
