Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave--More on Father Guarnizo

Let’s take a break today from the struggle between the bad guys in the Vatican and the good Sisters and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and go back to the saga of Father Marcel Guarnizo—the priest who refused communion to Barbara Johnson, a woman who is a partner in a same-sex relationship, at her mother’s funeral.  I have been intrigued by Guarnizo because he seems to have such extraordinary talent and connections that I couldn’t  figure out why he was working as a parochial vicar (associate pastor) at a parish in Gaithersburg Maryland.  Guarnizo was born in Columbia, raised in Northern Virginia, educated in Rome, and ordained for the Archdiocese of Moscow.  Why was he in Gaithersburg? 

     In doing some background work on Father Guarnizo, I found this December 2009 article:  

Father Marcel Guarnizo is founder and chairman of the Vienna-based organization Educational Initiative for Central and Eastern Europe (EICEE), which hosted a conference earlier this month to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and to reflect on lessons learned from the rise and fall of communism.
EICEE hosted its conference in Zagreb, Croatia, and featured speakers included Robin Harris, former advisor to Margaret Thatcher, and John O'Sullivan, executive editor of Radio Free Europe in Prague.
The keynote speaker was Noble Peace Prize Laureate Lech Walesa, former leader of the Polish Solidarity Movement and former president of Poland. Walesa's address was titled "1989-2009: Lessons Learned from the Fall of Communism."
ZENIT recently caught up with Father Guarnizo at the foundation's headquarters in the Castle Neuwaldegg in Vienna, to talk about the conference, the role of the Church in the demise of communism in Europe, as well as the biggest challenges facing EICEE in its efforts to rebuild the nations of Central and Eastern Europe, which were shackled under communist regimes only one generation ago.

     Vienna based organization.  Castle Neuwaldegg.  Conference in Zagreb.  Radio Free Europe.  Former Advisor to Margaret Thatcher.  Keynote speaker Lech Walesa. Efforts to rebuild the nations of Central and Eastern Europe. wow!

      Further investigation shows that Guarnizo is linked to AID TO THE CHURCH IN RUSSIA.  This organization is responsible, according to its website, for numerous projects helping rebuild the Catholic Church in the former Soviet Union.  Its work is endorsed by a 2001 letter from the then Archbishop of Moscow, Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz.  And this Guarnizo isn’t in the Vatican Diplomatic Corps but associate pastor in one of Gaithersburg Maryland’s three Catholic parishes? As my Yiddish grandmother used to say: Go figure!   

       I’m a historian, not a private detective but…well, historians are always doing detective work though usually about dead people.  I made a few phone calls, several of which weren’t returned.  I did some web searches.  I spoke with a few people “in the know.”  I spent some time with a research librarian.  Well, as near as I can make out, EICEE isn’t based in Castle Neuwaldegg in Vienna but in a rather mundane office building on North Fairfax Drive in Arlington VA.  Educational Initiative for the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe seems to be—and I can only say seems to be—an autonomous organization that is one of a network of independent institutes and organizations that includes the prestigious Neuwaldegg Institute of Vienna.  While the Neuwaldegg Institute does sponsor a number of impressive programs, I can’t find anything equivalent for its American counterpart, Guarnizo’s EICEE.  EICEE does have an impressive “Board of Advisors” including Damian von Stauffenberg, a German financier who comes from one of the most aristocratic of  European Catholic families.  While von Staufenberg is supposedly “President” of EICEE’s board of Advisors, I can’t find anything on any other website than EICEE’s that links him to this organization.  Another advisor is (or was) Vaclav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic and distinguished Czech poet.  Mr. Havel died last December but according to the EICEE website he is still listed on the “Board of Advisors.”  Frank Shakespeare, former US ambassador to Portugal and to the Holy See is also listed on the “Board of Advisors.”  Presumably he is able to give more advice than the Late President Havel, but I am curious about such a distinguished board for an organization that seems little more than an empty office and telephone machine in Arlington VA.  According to the EICEE website, wire transfers, checks, and PayPal all enable you to support the “work” of EICEE.  Of course, but precisely what work?   
       Aid to the Church in Russia is even a bit more, hmmm, shall we say “shadowy?”  It is located in the same office as EICEE and when you call Aid to the Church in Russia, the EICEE machine picks up the call.  Its website shows no activity for about seven years now, but still assures you that that the more you contribute the higher percentage of your contribution goes to the actual work of the organization rather than to administration. In addition to various programs for planned giving ( I am avoiding the word “schemes” lest it give the wrong connotation) such as annuities, charitable remainder trusts, real estate, life insurance and bequests, Aid to the Church in Russia is prepared to accept cash gifts, depreciated property, securities, stocks, tangible personal property, and land.  And again—the more you give, the more goes to charity and the less to “administrative costs.”  Hmm. Sounds somewhat fishy, n’est pas?  I would say something is rotten in the State of Denmark but I think it is actually in the State of Virginia. 
         I suspect that Father Guarnizo isn’t all that he is cracked up to be—or perhaps more than he admits to being.  Now, don’t get me wrong, this could all be legitimate and at least he doesn’t seem to be involved in the Colombian Drug Traffic, but this might explain his being placed on administrative leave more than his refusal to give Ms. Johnson communion. 

      Now I know the various DC area websites—Renew DC Catholicism, Les Femmes, An Archdiocese of DC Catholic—all have been defending Guarnizo’s actions and going after that mean ol’ Cardinal Wuerl and his evil lackey, Bishop Knestout for the unfair way they have treated this loyal and obedient priest.  But suddenly it makes sense.  Administrative leave is exactly the sort of discipline you use to put some distance between the organization and a person who may—or may not—be involved in something that is how shall we say it, “criminal?”  Ouch, that’s harsh.  Let’s just say “not by the books.”  A cop is put on “administrative leave” after he shoots someone until the investigation assures us that he acted appropriately.  A teacher who is accused of misconduct is placed on administrative leave until the investigation determines whether he did something wrong.  Perhaps Father Guarnizo has acted legitimately in these organizations of his, or negligently at the worst.  There is nothing wrong with putting him on administrative leave until you check it out and make sure that he isn’t going to bring down more negative attention on the Church. 

      This is somewhat like the “Father Haley” case.  James Haley is a priest from the diocese of Arlington whom, according to his defenders, has been unjustly defrocked and excommunicated. Guarnizo’s defenders are telling you one side of the story as have Haley’s.  Perhaps that is all they know.  In the Haley case the Bishop of Arlington isn’t telling the rest of the story any more than the Archdiocese of Washington is telling you their reasons for treating Father Guarnizo as they have.  I know it is hard to believe that priests who are as pious as Father Guarnizo or ex-Father Haley could be up to something wrong, but history shows us that men go right from the altar to the most shocking of crimes just as others go from the most vile of sins to great acts of charity.  In the end we are all inextricable mixtures of sin and grace.  As Blessed John Henry Newman once said: none of us are as bad as we could be or as good as we should be." That’s why I believe in original sin.  I can recognize it in others because I know it in myself. And I supposed the reason that God doesn’t need a television is that he can get enough drama watching us.

This Story Just Won't Go Away

Father Marcel Guarnizo

We are getting to watch an interesting chapter in the history of the Church in the United States unfold as the precise meaning of Canon 915 gets argued out, but frankly this particular story is getting old--and weird.  The communion battle triggered by a priest’s refusal of Holy Communion to a lesbian at her mother’s funeral rages on.  As mentioned in several previous posts, (February 28, March 1, 2) the Reverend Marcel Guarnizo, a priest of the Archdiocese of the Mother of God (Moscow, Russia) but who was raised in Northern Virginia and is currently serving in the Archdiocese of Washington DC refused communion on February 25^th to Barbara Johnson at the funeral mass for Ms. Johnson’s mother at Saint John Neumann Catholic Church in Gaithersburg MD.  Over this weekend the Archdiocese of Washington withdrew Guarnizo from priestly ministry pending an investigation of charges that he has “intimidated” parish staff members these past two weeks as the story has unfolded.  Specific charges and names are lacking in the public account, but this is normal protocol to prevent those making the allegations and witnesses to the alleged acts from being intimidated.  Given the tone of several local bloggers, notably “An Archdiocese of Washington DC Catholic,”  “Restore DC Catholicism” and the ubiquitous Mary Ann Kreitzer of “Les Femmes: Women of Truth” this is a more than reasonable discretion.  Ms. Kreitzer, despite her claim to be a “woman of truth” has a local reputation for spreading calumny against anyone to whom she takes exception from her much beleaguered bishop (of whom she has spread the story that he was “living with a man”—his secretary, a religious brother, now deceased) to various priests, religious, and prominent laity for a variety of charges from witchcraft to heresy to ogling “altar babes” (one of her terms for girls who are permitted to serve at Mass.)  Any hope for sane conversation in this matter can be eliminated from the blogosphere and belongs in the appropriate canonical chambers where the investigation will be conducted. 

      Do I think Father Guarnizo will get a fair hearing?  Absolutely.  I trust the canonical procedures.  First of all, as Gaurnizo is not a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, his being put on leave (which is not the same as being suspended a divinis) applies only to the jurisdiction of the Washington Archdiocese.  He is free to return to his own diocese and resume ministry.  Moreover, he is free to go to any other diocese in the country—or the world—and, with the permission of the local ordinary, assume ministry.  The Washington Archdiocese investigation will only determine whether or not he will work in that Archdiocese.  Of course, if the allegations are substantiated, his own bishop can act upon them though, frankly, it would be unlikely that allegations of intimidating people would be much of a problem in the Moscow Archdiocese.  Moreover, I doubt that his having refused communion to an individual whatever the circumstances would be a problem in the Moscow Archdiocese.  I would expect there to be a very different set of cultural expectations on the authority of a priest in Russia than in the United States.  This would have nothing to do with doctrine, much less an issue of the place of Gay people in the Church.  It would simply be a matter of priestly authority and how it is used.  In the United States we labor under the disadvantage of a democratic mentality; the Russians have never had this heresy.  They have long embraced autocracy. 

      As for the procedure itself I have seen enough of canonical inquiries to trust that the investigation will be scrupulously fair.   The Archdiocese will not want to give sufficient reason for this to go either to the civil courts or on appeal to the Holy See.  That being said, I don’t think the Archdiocese would take this step of an investigation unless they thought that the allegations were credible.  Given that Father Guarnizo is not a priest of the Archdiocese, no reason has to be given that his services “are no longer required, thank you very much.”  He could simply be told to leave and his assignment be withdrawn. 

      I mentioned in an earlier entry (March 2^nd) that I found Father Guarnizo’s account of the events “fishy.”  The story was not stable.  It keeps evolving.  First Father Guarnizo encountered Ms. Johnson’s partner who told him of their relationship.  Then the story came out that Ms. Johnson herself confronted the priest in the sacristy informing him that this other woman was her “lover.”  Father supposedly then instructed her not to come to communion but she stormed out before he could have any “pastoral conversation” with her.  Since then stories have made the blogosphere that Barbara Johnson writes gay porn for a living and that she is an apostate who has forsaken the Church for Buddhism.  The story from Guarnizo supporters keeps growing.  How much is true?  Is any of it true?  Family members deny it; funeral home employees don’t support it.  I wasn’t there.  I don’t know.  Several priests have expressed their opinion that the stories don’t ring true—family members usually are met at the door of the Church when the body arrives, not in the sacristy before the Mass.  Priests usually have some encounter with the family before the morning of the funeral where “delicate” pastoral situations are made evident to the priest.  Funeral home personnel or parish bereavement team members warn the priest about “irregularities” they may need to know.  Frankly, I am left wondering if these charges of “intimidating” behavior by Guarnizo haven’t resulted from his attempts to force parish staff members to support his account of events against what they saw or heard that day.  I am only wondering, but until someone comes up with another explanation, I can’t think of a more plausible one. 

       Let’s give Father Guarnizo a pass for his judgment (bad or good) to refuse Ms. Johnson communion.  What if, after Bishop Knestout’s statement and reprimand, Guarnizo had simply swallowed his pride and said: “I made a poor judgment,” (not even “I was wrong”) “and I apologize to the Johnson Family (not even the individual refused communion) for any hurt my poor judgment caused.  I hope I can learn from this experience so that others are not put through this sort of pain in the future.”  There would not even be an admission of error here. (Again, I said poor judgment, not bad judgment.)  All it would take would be some humility.  Do you think this issue would have ballooned into this tragedy?  I don’t know a single priest (and I know many) who agree with Guarnizo’s judgment here.  No, I think there is much more to this story than we are getting from the anti-Wuerl bloggers and I am willing to give the Archdiocese the benefit of the doubt.        

     

Attempts to Justify--More on Saga of the Priest Who Refused Communion

Cardinal Donald Wuerl,
Archbishop of Washington

The saga of Marcel Guarnizo, the priest who last Saturday, February 25, refused communion to a woman at her mother’s funeral because the woman is living in a same-sex relationship continues to unfold.  It began to appear on the internet on Monday and in the newspapers on Tuesday.  The Archdiocese was quick in damage control and hung the priest out to dry, claiming that he acted contrary to diocesan policy.  (He did—that was very clear, as Cardinal Wuerl has made a point that people are not to be refused communion during Mass for any foreseeable reason.)   By Wednesday the story was circulating that the woman’s partner had encountered the priest in the Church before the Mass as she was preparing a reading and the priest asked who she was.  She supposedly identified herself as the partner of Barbara Johnson, the daughter of the deceased.  That is what gave Guarnizo a heads-up that Johnson was in a relationship that is outside the bounds of Catholic morality.  Following on this information, Guarnizo then refused Johnson communion at the Mass saying “I cannot give you communion because you live with a woman and that is a sin according to the Church.”  By Wednesday evening the story had evolved that Johnson had confronted the priest in the sacristy before Mass, introducing the other woman as her “Lover.”  Well what was a priest to do when challenged like this?  One account has it that he then “warned” Johnson that she should not come up for communion due to this sinful relationship, but she confronted him by appearing first in line for Holy Communion.  In another version Johnson stormed out of the sacristy before the priest could warn her that she should not receive.  Whichever version—if either—being true, Guarnizo felt that under the circumstances he was justified in his decision as Johnson had been duly warned that her living situation removed her from active participation in the Sacraments.  He was only doing his duty.  
I would have more confidence in the story if the versions put out by the priest’s supporters were consistent but details seem to be added with each round to bolster his case.  And I am not saying that the account isn’t true, but frankly it doesn’t wash.  Priest friends of mine say that Guarnizo’s version of the story “sounds fishy.” The usual protocol at a funeral is that the family arrives at the Church accompanying the body just in time for the funeral Mass.  One priest said: “I’m not saying that it couldn’t happen, but in thirty-five years of priesthood  I don’t ever recall a family member being in the sacristy before the funeral.  I invariably meet them at the door of the Church when the undertaker brings in the casket.”   Others who know Ms. Johnson say that she is frank about her relationship but not “in your face” and couldn’t imagine her using the term “Lover” in those circumstances.  Her family and guests at the funeral supports her version of the story that the refusal of Holy Communion was unprovoked.
       Another priest friend of mine said that he could not imagine this happening as it was recounted to him.  He said that in his parish he always visits with the family at least once before the funeral to ascertain their needs and then he attends the wake or vigil service before the funeral to meet the family again and see how they are handling the death.  He said that he would know if there was some “irregularity” in the family situation long before the funeral Mass.  A third priest I spoke with said that the local funeral director always tips him off about family situations when the details are being arranged with the Church.  Both priests thought that if Guarnizo didn’t know the situation before the funeral he should have.  Then a parishioner from the parish said: “Father may seem soft-spoken and quiet, but he is a scrappy little fellow, quick to fight over what he thinks is right.”  But does all this address the issue of his “right” to refuse the woman communion? 
     If the (Arch)bishop has a policy regarding Holy Communion—or any other question about public worship and administration of the sacraments, is an individual minister of the Eucharist, priest or lay, free to take the decision into his own hands?  One canon lawyer said: “Absolutely not!  Look at it from the other side: can you imagine if a priest in Saint Louis had given communion to Senator Kerry after (then Archbishop) Cardinal Burke had said he was not to be given the Eucharist?   The bishop sets the policy, not any Tom, Dick, or Harry who happens to be giving out Holy Communion.”  Another said: “This is not the situation for which canon 915 applies. That canon is for manifest public sinners and the decision about how it is to be implemented rests with the Ordinary (the Bishop).  This woman’s sin—and it is a sinful situation—this woman’s sin is considered in the private realm and not public even though friends and family would be aware of her relationship.  Public sin would refer to something like criminal behavior—heading up a Mafia family, being a racketeer, publicly known to be operating a house of prostitution or an illegal gambling establishment.  It could be applied to the owner of an abortion mill or its physicians if they were publicly identified with it.  Moreover it not only has to be a matter of public knowledge—as distinguished from common knowledge—but the person has to obdurately persevere in the sinful activity.  That is they need to be publicly admonished and remain in the sinful situation after and in spite of the public admonishment.  The case of Ms. Johnson clearly falls under private and not public sin.  Even a first year canon-law student would know this.”  
       But the crazies still clamor for blood—and not Marcel Guarnizo’s.  Local bloggers Restore DC Catholicism and An Archdiocese of Washington DC Catholic have been joined by Les Femmes—a one woman band from the hills of the Shenandoah—and her ties to the Catholic Media Coalition will spread it through the Catholic neo-con network in an attempt to bring down Cardinal Wuerl and his policy of not refusing people Holy Communion.  She has long been critical of Wuerl, his predecessors, Cardinals McCarrick and Hickey, and her own bishop, Paul Loverde of Arlington.  I suspect the publicity will run out of fuel before it achieves its goals of having Cardinal Wuerl or Bishop Loverde “corrected” by Rome, but it is a fascinating picture of the struggle over who determines Church policy.  This—the struggle for controlling Church authority—is an increasingly interesting issue as it puts the religious right into the role of rebellious and unfaithful Catholics, a role with which they are usually most uncomfortable.  We have to do a posting on that topic.

Fr. Guarnizo, Communion Controversy, and Janssens Redivivus

Cornelius Janssens, 1585-1638, Bishop of

Ypres and the theologian who gave us

Jansenism

I am a big Saint Augustine fan.  I get kidded about this all the time, but then so is Benedict XVI.  Most conservative church people are disciples of Thomas Aquinas but Saint Thomas is just far too liberal for either the Pope or myself.  I always hear people complain that Augustine is just too “obsessed with sin,” like there’s something wrong with talking about sin.  Pop Theologians like Matthew Fox—whom I shudder referring to as a “theologian,” even a”pop” one, make that claim all the time.   I wonder if they have ever read Augustine—I mean other than a quck glance through the Confessions.  I will admit that at first read, the Confessions does sound pretty negative—but only at first read.  (I had to read the Confessions for five different courses in grad school—and that was at a secular university!   That just shows to go you how influential Augustine is for Western Thought!  Think about that you ‘Religion on Tap’ people.)  But when you read Augustine in depth—really get to what he is saying—he is not talking about sin at all.  Augustine is the Doctor Gratiae—the Doctor of Grace.  Augustine is obsessed with Grace and he talks about sin only because sin is the foil against which grace is visible.  You can never understand God’s Mercy and Love if you don’t give serious consideration to the subject of sin.  All of which is prelude to the ongoing debacle of Marcel Guarnizo, the suburban DC priest who refused communion to a woman because she is, according to him, “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin.”  (That is a quote from the infamous canon 915 which is used (or abused) to justify withholding communion from a variety of people ranging from those who vote for pro-choice politicians to grieving lesbians.) 

      Cornelius Janssens (1585-1638) was the Flemish bishop of Ypres in the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium).  Janssens was of an easily irritable personality, given to fits of temper and moodiness.  He was withdrawn and suspicious by nature, inclined to see the negative side of things.  In other words, he wasn’t a lot of fun at parties, not that he tried to be or would even go them if he could help it. (I know some of my friends are going to say: “hmmm. We know someone like that"; ‘curmudgeonly’ is the word one friend in particular uses.)   Janssens despised the Jesuits and their scholastic theology (yes, in the old days Jesuits were conservative Thomists) preferring the patristic approach, and he was particularly fond of Saint Augustine. (Well, yes, the shoe may fit, though I am by no means the scholar.)  In any event, Janssens wrote his magnum opus,  Augustinus, a summary of Augustinian thought.  Now, nobody ever has been able to write a summary of Augustine’s thought—even Augustine (who tried).  Augustine was a prolific writer and his thought was constantly evolving.  At the end of his life he wrote his Retractions to try to systematize his thought, but even he failed.  His work is simply too broad both in volume and scope to be put in a nice coherent and consistent précis.  What Janssens did was to write a brilliant theological work reflecting his (Janssens’) thought with references to the great Doctor of the Western Church.  Unfortunately he went a bit overboard on some of his ideas and the work was condemned and put on the Index of Forbidden Books.  But that is not to say that it didn’t have influence.  It had huge influence as one might expect a forbidden book to have.  Without wanting to oversimplify, Janssens basically devised a Catholic variation on Calvin.  It was certainly not what Janssens intended to do, but his anthropology was so negative, that is to say that his understanding of human nature was so depraved, that it basically reduced the human person to a pawn in the hand of a Sovereign God who might or might not choose to save it with no regard to the individual’s will.   

     Janssens’ name was lent to a heresy that in all truth has gone even far beyond what the dyspeptic bishop would ever have taught.  It attracted notable adherents, not least of all Blaise Pascal,  Angelique Arnauld and the nuns of Port-Royal-des-Champs, the Abbé de Saint Cyran, and others.  The Jesuits were the opponents of this heresy.  Though condemned by the Pope in 1653, Jansenism persisted to infect French seminaries and religious establishments up through the time of the Revolution.  And it came to America—not with the Irish of the mid-nineteenth century as is commonly said (though the Irish Church indeed was, and is, infected with the heresy) but with many (I am not saying all) the French émigré priests who fled the Revolution in 1789 and helped build the American Church.  It is often said that the American home of this heresy is Mount Saint Mary’s, Emmitsburg, which was founded by émigré priests.  While this is a great over simplification, many priests of the Diocese of Arlington VA, a diocese known for (some) clergy with a very narrow and not necessarily authentic interpretation of Church teaching, have been educated there.  Many Washington priests also have studied there, though whether Marcel Guarnizo is an alumnus or not I do now know.  And—to be balanced—many really fine priests who are knowledgeable in the faith and pastorally sensitive men have studied there.  

       One of the keys to understanding the basic flaw in Jansenism is that it does not see the world—and its inhabitants—as existing within the love of God.  The world is seen as fallen and not redeemed—those whom God has chosen for salvation are saved out of the world, not in it.  Creation is fatally flawed and anything to do with creation is an impediment to grace.  This leaves us with a negative understanding of human sexuality.  Sexual relations, even within marriage, are tainted by human concupiscence. Jansenism would say that marriage gives a permissible forum for sexual relations if they are restricted to narrow conditions—they must, for example, be used (only for) procreation.  All sexual acts must be open to the possibility of procreation.  The unitive element of sexual relations—increasing the intimacy of the spouses through the mutual exchange of physical pleasure—is not a constitutive part of the marriage act—for Jansenists—and indeed is sinful other than as a byproduct of the procreative element.  And even as a byproduct of the procreative element, the taking of pleasure in sex is wrong.  This will give us a very distorted view of marriage—certainly one incompatible with the scriptural roots of our Christian faith, especially those found in the Hebrew (Old Testament) tradition.

       Given such a “theology” of human sexuality we can see why Jansenists and Catholics influenced by the Jansenist heresy, would believe that those who forgo marriage for remaining single (and, of course, chaste), and especially those who consecrate themselves to a celibate lifestyle, are spiritually superior to those who must accommodate themselves to the married life.  Thus the religious and the clergy are “higher” than the married laity in the hierarchy of holiness.  This delusion is particularly dangerous as we have seen in the recent sex-abuse crisis, not that there is anything wrong in celibacy but rather that such an attitude encourages a psychological state in which human sexuality is buried away in the remote corners of one’s self-awareness, leaving an individual open to a denial of reality.  (See Blog Entry: History in the Making, Sex Abuse Crisis—Let’s Stop Telling Lies,  5/20/2011)

The idea that a priest has a responsibility to “safeguard” the Eucharist against an unworthy reception is not of itself a Jansenist doctrine though it does reflect a Jansenist view of the state of a soul.  Jansenists were preoccupied with making those sorts of judgments about both themselves and others whereas the mainline mystical tradition in Catholicism takes a more moderate approach.  I am teaching a course on Saint Teresa of Avila this semester and I am struck by how often Teresa speaks of being “unworthy,” but also what role that unworthiness plays in her spiritual life.   A consistent theme in Saint Teresa is humility and  by humility Teresa explains that the more advanced a soul is in grace, the more aware it is of its own unworthiness of God’s favor, yet this unworthiness does not make it back off from God but only approach God with deeper gratitude.  Teresa would not approve of a person receiving Holy Communion in what our Catholic Tradition calls Mortal Sin but neither is she hung up on “worthiness” and “unworthiness” in approaching Christ.  In fact, Teresa would be deeply grieved by a person in serious sin rather than preoccupied about their receiving Holy Communion.  This is what I find disconcerting in the current question.  Aside from the priest’s spiritual attitudes in refusing Holy Communion, what is the spiritual condition of those who are so anxious to keep others whom they judge—wisely or not—to be “unworthy” of the Eucharist from receiving?  The priest in this case might not be ("might" being the operative word) infected by Jansenism, but the howling chorus of those justifying his actions would certainly seem to be.  When I read the local blogs—“An Archdiocese of Washington DC Catholic” and “Restore DC Catholicism”—I pick up a sense of Jansenist infection—not just in this question but looking back through their archives.  These “Catholic Bloggers”  remind me of Henri Brémond's judgment of the Jansenists: "Before penetrating into the depth of the mind Jansenism ruins the peace, condition of all true religion.  Before making converts it makes partisans, sectarians, whom it fatally severs from the mystical currents of their time."