Contra Kaiser | National Catholic Reporter

Contra Kaiser | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Whether the Heizer's action is illicit is beyond doubt - it was.  Whether it was invalid is a more open question, although a non-community Eucharist misses something profound.  Still, unless you partake with them, there is know way of knowing the truth (same as going to an Episcopalian Eucharist, a Presbyterian one or a Baptist one - which in my experience is yes, yes and very much no - illicit for me to do so, mostly, but I am the judge of validity and only I can be).  The other matter is the lazy bishop simply declaring that they made themselves excommunicate.  With that logic, they should be able to go to Mass and be declared no longer excommunicate.  Even if that were the case, their right would be to have at least been confronted by their parish priest with the instruction to stay silent as well as to stop - and with the bishop doing the same thing.  There are procedures for public excommunication and they involve much due process in Canon Law.  Legalism is not a one sided thing - it involves the rights of every member of the Church to contest what the hierarchy maintains before the issue goes public.  Of course, this bishop is a coward - what if they were correct on the validity of their celebration.  Stating so would take more moral courage than this bishop likely has.  It takes none to say someone is self-excommunicate.  By the way - the same can be said for Bishop Olmsted and what was likely a necessary though indirect abortion in Arizona.  He also treated Sister Margaret shabbily and in the same way.