Public declarations by bishops regarding the reception of holy Communion by pro-abortion politicians began with a trickle last January and have widened into a stream, with more and more bishops weighing in with pastoral letters, articles, homilies and pronouncements of other sorts.

The positions taken vary. Some have called for the outright refusal of Communion to unambiguously pro-abortion legislators, others have called on such politicians to willingly abstain from holy Communion and others have said they prefer not to use the Eucharist as a sanction for ensuring political morality.

While it is clearly up to each bishop to decide how he will apply the relevant canonical norms (see Code of Canon Law, No. 915), the debate has offered a singular “teaching moment” for the Catholic hierarchy.

Fundamental questions of Catholic morals, the responsibility of Christians engaged in public service, the provisions of canon law and key elements of sacramental theology have become topics of table conversation and op-ed columns even in the mainline secular media. All of this is surely a good thing.

Without wishing to tackle here the multiple factors in such a discussion, I would briefly like to address two arguments that one hears with increasing frequency, namely the separation of the internal and external forums and the pastoral choice between conscience formation and disciplinary action.

In Catholic parlance the “internal forum” refers to the area of conscience such as revealed to a confessor or spiritual director and concerns one's subjective moral state before God. The “external forum,” on the other hand, refers to Church governance and public record. The internal and external forums correspond roughly to the private and public sectors of ecclesiastical life.

This distinction often comes up in the debate regarding whether or not to deny Communion to pro-abortion politicians because it seems to some that the denial of Communion would entail a judgment of a person's subjective moral status and thus cross over from the external to the internal forum.

Bishops have cited the longstanding Church practice of refraining from making a public judgment about the state of the souls of those who present themselves for Communion. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (No. 1861) states the basic Catholic principle that no one can know with absolute certainty the state of another's soul. Some bishops argue that a vote for legislation that supports abortion doesn't necessarily mean that a person is in a state of sin — and that at any rate, that judgment can't be made.

Such a conclusion would be compelling if in fact knowledge of the state of a person's soul were necessary in order to refuse Communion. This doesn't seem to be the case, however, since such a necessity would render meaningless the provision of canon law that sets forth the conditions for the denial of holy Communion. If knowledge of the subjective state of another's soul were necessary, no priest could ever refuse holy Communion under any circumstances.

Here it is important to recall that “sin” comprises both an objective element and a subjective one. Without going so far as to make a judgment on a person's soul, the Church may refuse holy Communion to persons who persist in an objectively sinful action (grave matter) of a public nature with no signs of repentance. This is what canon law means by saying that those “who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy Communion.”

The second argument relates to the trade-off between teaching and forming consciences on the one hand and disciplining transgressors on the other.

Recently I was speaking with an American bishop here in Rome for his ad limina visit who told me that he opposes denial of Communion to pro-abortion politicians because at that point “it is too late.” He said he favors a more pedagogical approach whereby consciences are rightly formed according to Catholic doctrine so that Catholic lawmakers will make the right decisions in the future.

The problem here, it seems to me, stems from the radical divorce between teaching and disciplining. Is not “discipline,” at least etymologically, the characteristic virtue of the “disciple” or learner? Doesn't discipline have an essentially pedagogical function?

When Church leaders take a strong stand on a particular issue (in this case the moral gravity of abortion), they send a clear message to the faithful that certain moral matters are non-negotiable and that certain actions will provoke consequences. This message reaches beyond the persons directly involved and touches everyone who hears of it.

Even in civil society the law exercises more that just a punitive role. Legislation, and the penalties attached to civil infractions, teaches citizens what is expected of them and what sort of behavior will not be tolerated. Similarly, the decriminalization of determined activities sends a tacit message that such behavior isn't really all that bad. People can't help interpreting tolerance of a given behavior as a judgment of the relative significance attached to it.

I can understand that some bishops would prefer to avoid confrontations at the altar rail, yet this teaching moment may involve some lessons that won't be learned any other way.

American moral theologian Father Thomas D. Williams, LC, is dean of the theology school at Rome's Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University.