Is the Church Getting Tougher on Heretics?

Over the years many Catholics have gotten away with rejecting the Church's teachings in public forums with little or no formal opposition from the Church. Heretics in the Church have been able to get away with doing whatever they want despite the Church's clear teaching on such issues as abortion, contraception and woman's ordination. One lady however had a rude awakening before she recently lost her battle with cancer. Janine Denomme of Chicago is reported to have been ordained against the Church's clear teaching on the matter, and as a result she was refused a Catholic burial. This has caused an apparent uproar in the media. Yet would the media make a big deal out of a lady being kicked out of a Mosque for not wearing her head covering? I seriously doubt it. This exercise in authority is something we have not seen the Catholic Church do very often in recent times. This however should send out a clear message to those who think they can betray the Church to her face and expect to be given all of the privileges the Church offers.

An excerpt from the article reads,

"Archdiocese Canon lawyer Smilanic said the Cardinal had no choice. Janine knew that when she took her vows a month before she died. Her longtime partner, Nancy Katz, said that Janine was also aware that she risked being denied a formal church funeral.

"I don't think she believed the church would lack a pastoral sensibility," said Katz. "And what she said to me as we talked about her funeral wishes, 'I can't imagine having my funeral anywhere but my parish.' And yet she knew that there was a risk involved with heeding her call for ordination."

Here we see that she knew the risk she was taking in betraying the Church. Even someone who was this close to death still stood firm in their opposition to the Church, and went ahead with being "ordained" despite the Church's repeated warnings and pleadings to those who seek to do such things. It is apparent that being buried in good standing with the Church was not as important to her as her personal crusade to push the impossibility of woman's ordination. It is plain that the pastoral thing to do here is to not allow people to openly defy the Church and not receive the consequences that come with it. Hopefully it will cause others to think twice about doing this sort of thing, so their souls will not be put at risk of eternal damnation. We can only hope Janine's soul was not lost because of this obstinate rejection of Church teaching.

Unfortunately this kind of response should have been applied to many heretics who have betrayed the Church by openly defying her teachings and moral commandments. We all know that Ted Kennedy should have not been allowed to be buried in the Catholic Church after publicly spitting in the face of the Church for decades over crucial moral questions such as the support of abortion. There are countless others who have gotten away with open dissent to the detriment of other souls who imitated their behavior. Hopefully this will set a new trend with other bishops throughout the world.