Today's NYT reports this most recent attempt to influence American Catholics, this time by rapping the knuckles of newly-elected NY governor Andrew Cuomo.

Edward N. Peters, a professor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, who last year was named by Pope Benedict XVI as a consultant to the Vatican court, the Apostolic Signatura, called the governor’s living situation “public concubinage” in his blog on Jan. 4, and said in a recent interview that Mr. Cuomo, who is Roman Catholic, must refrain from taking communion under canon law. 

It amazes me that this is happening in 2011, but in Benedict's  World, it's 1534-- when the pope ruled Henry VIII's  marriage to Anne Boleyn invalid, making future sovereign Elizabeth I a bastard. Henry, aka "Defender of the Faith" went his own way, creating the Church of England.  You'd think the Catholic Church, of which I am a lifetime member, would figure out that this is a strategy doomed to failure. Attacking prominent Catholics for their private and public behavior is counterproductive. John Kerry was similarly  threatened for his pro-choice politics. Good thing he married a widow, Teresa Heinz, but he, too, is once divorced. I guess the key is marriage, even though his marriage to Heinz is technically not valid either. Once again I am reminded of  Father Guido Sarducci (comedian Don Novello) commenting on  the pope and birth control: "He no playa the game, he no maka da rules." The arrogance of  the professor blogger suggests he was given the charge by the Vatican. The same people who decried the admirable practice of having young girls performing altar duties along with the boys. 

As a divorced Catholic and a feminist, I am outraged. "Public concubinage"? Poor Sandra Lee. I'm no "semi-homemade" fan, but really. Even her Kwanzaa Cake didn't merit such personal nastiness. All joking aside, denying any Catholic communion is such a serious step, akin to declaring one dead to the community, that it ought to be applied only in the rarest of occasions, if ever. And this is a naked attempt to embarrass the Cuomo family: consistently,  resolutely liberal and honest in representing the pro-choice politics of the majority of New Yorkers. Andrew's mother, Matilda, is my favorite Cuomo in an admirable family --  a staunch advocate of battered women while Mario was governor, and at a time when domestic abuse was not considered the serious crime it is today by the public and more important, law enforcement.  I was a domestic violence counselor in the 1980s and  it was routine to hear a client complain that the police asked her, "Lady, what did you do to make him hit you?" 

This is no way to reach America's Catholics, and shows how far apart Rome and America truly are. Andrew Cuomo's family life is of no importance to anyone but his own family circle. By these rules, I shouldn't be taking communion either, although I'm nobody's concubine, thank you very much.  Divorce is a fact of life, and the Church will only lose supporters by these ham-handed methods.