The Criminality of Mildred Edwards

Lucio Mascarenhas.
Orthopapism II/Michaelinum | Index of Articles

See also:
  1. Judge's Actions Are Direct Attack on First Amendment and Rights of Religious Believers

  2. Sodomites Proclaim "Judge" Edwards' Crime A GREAT VICTORY!
John Hixson on Traditional Catholics Club. Message # 800. Sat Feb 1, 2003

Judge Apologizes To Sodomites On Behalf Of Church
Refuses To Sentence

WASHINGTON, DC, Jan 31, 03 (CWNews.com) — A judge in Washington declined to sentence three gay activists for disrupting a meeting of the US bishops' conference last November, saying that the Church had done "tremendous violence" to them by denying them the Eucharist.

The three activists from the group Soulforce said they went to hotel in the District of Columbia where the bishops were meeting on November 12 to demand that they be given Communion and an explanation of why they were refused Communion the day before during Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. They were arrested for refusing to leave the private building.

In the nonjury trial, Judge Mildred Edwards, who identified herself as Catholic, agreed that the activists had broken the law by refusing to leave the hotel's lobby when requested by police and hotel officials. Although prosecutors had requested a sentence of time served — the 30 hours they spend in jail — Edwards said even that sentence was too harsh and did something she said hadn't done in 15 years on the bench: she dispensed with a sentence.

"Tremendous violence was done to you . . . when the Body of Christ was denied to you," Edwards said, referring to the contention of the three that refusal of Communion had prompted their actions. "As a member of your Church, I ask you to forgive the Church."

A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Washington said the three activists were denied the Eucharist at the November 11 Mass because they were misidentified as members of the Rainbow Sash movement, a group of gay activists who had said they were planning to receive Communion as a form of protest against the Church's teaching on homosexuality. "The Eucharist is the core of our faith and a sign of our unity," spokesman Susan Gibbs said. "It is very rare to deny Communion, but since it was publicly announced it would be a protest and not a sign of faith, the Rainbow Sash group was denied the sacrament."

All three defendants, Ken Einhaus of Arlington, Virginia, Mike Perez of Seattle, and Kara Speltz of Oakland, California, said they were emotionally shattered by the refusal of Communion at Mass and went to the hotel to "find healing among the people who caused me so much suffering," Einhaus said. Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit flew into Washington to testify on their behalf.

Einhaus claimed that withholding the Eucharist was an abuse of power, but Gibbs said under canon law priests have a right to deny Communion when they think someone might use it as a political tool.

William Donohue of the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights condemned Edwards' decision and said it was not the first time she had used her position to provide support to anti-Catholic and liberal defendants in her court. "Previously, she dropped charges against students for deliberately knocking over headstones in a Catholic cemetery, and has acquitted death penalty protesters for deliberately demonstrating on the steps of the Supreme Court." He added, "It would be interesting to know how Edwards would react if her critics staged an illegal protest in her own chambers and then had a judge dismiss the charges after lecturing her about her judicial incompetence and theological ignorance."

A spokesman for the Catholic League added, "The worst part of this whole story is the abuse of the Eucharist by the protesters." He said their using the Eucharist as a political action constituted an abuse of their power as Catholics to receive the sacraments.

Ut Roma cadit, sic omnis terra — As Rome falls, so the entire world.
Lucio Mascarenhas.
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