What More Could Be Expected of The Post?

To this point I have resisted commenting on this situation, but I can do it no longer. In their March 17th story Denying Communion: A priest and a lesbian set off a Catholic culture clash,   Michael S. Rosenwald and Michelle Boorstein seem to go to great lengths to paint Father Marcel Guarnizo as some sort of right-wing extremist and to paint Ms. Johnson as a victim.

Here are some of my observations:

1. Ms. Johnson, as the story duly noted, was raised Catholic and should be expected to know the Church's 2000-plus year-old teaching on homosexuality. The Church's teaching doesn't change because you disagree with it.

2. Ms. Johnson, however it was done (giving some leeway here due to the difference in Father Guarnizo's and Ms. Johnson's recollection of events), made Father aware of the fact that she was an actively practicing Lesbian in the moments immediately before her mother's funeral Mass.

3. Ms. Johnson then presented herself for Communion to Father Guarnizo. She could have easily and without any fear of rejection, presented herself to one of the Extraordinary Ministers.

4. The point is, Ms. Johnson, if she were truly a Catholic, should not have presented herself for Communion in the first place.

5. Does the number of "Catholics" who disagree with or ignore Church teaching in any way change Church teaching? See Pope Benedict's quote at the top of my blog please.

6. It seems to me that Ms. Johnson could have avoided all of these issues if she had not confronted Father Guarnizo before the Mass. Therefore, it can easily be concluded that she intended a confrontation in the first place.

7. Does Father Guarnizo's past matter any more than Ms. Johnson's? So it seems to the Post...

8. Are Rosenwald and Boorstein seriously expecting us to take the "testimony" of LeRoy Carhart, a "physician" who makes money doing late-term abortions, about Father Guarnizo seriously?

9. This is not a conservative/liberal discussion. This is a orthodox/heterodox discussion; and from that standpoint the ground Ms. Johnson is standing on seems, at best, very shaky.