Tonight was our last RCIA session of the year and, as per usual with this group, we ran off into some rather interesting topics and some pretty deep water. In what was supposed to be initially a discussion about prayer we spent the first half hour talking about the abortion case in Phoenix and how excommunication works and what it is. It quickly digressed to a discussion based largely on nuance and detail. This has been making me think – in an age of Twitter and soundbite journalism are people really ready for nuance and fine details?
One question though really struck me as symbolic – “how can someone get excommunicated?” It’s a question with seemingly a thousand answers, all different and all correct. But yet saying “it’s complicated” seems to translate into “it’s an arcane holdover without an ounce of Christian charity”. Somehow there needs to be a way to answer questions like this without delving into heavy theological and ecclesiological issues. I think in many ways it’s the inability to provide these Baltimore Catechism-style answers to common questions that has helped put the Church into the corner it finds itself trying to fight out of modern days. What do you think?
