"First world problems"

The world can be a cold, lonely, confusing place, where maturity and sanity are too often elusive and fleeting. But at least we've got Weird Al on Youtube to help us ground and lighten our perspective! (Check out Al's video ("First world problems") if you don't already know the tune - the second line below is definitely one of my all-time favouritest Weird Al lines):

“...I couldn’t order off the breakfast menu, cause I slept in till two

Then I filled up on bread, didn’t leave any room for tiramisu!

[On no! Some stranger on FB didn’t like an analogy I drew, so she got real mad, started a slander campaign, and had her husband threaten to beat me up!]

CHORUS

“I got

First world, first world problems (first world problems)
…”

I love you, Weird Al!
...and you too, irascible FB-friends, who in real-life are strangers - peace be with you.

"Stop that misogynistic 'March for Life'"

On a poster at the University of Ottawa: “Let’s get out and stop that misogynistic ‘March for Life.’”

My first reaction: Right; ‘misogynistic’ - that’s like someone who thinks that it’s okay to enslave members of ‘inferior’ races calling abolitionists (who, yes, do tend to believe in racial equality) ‘white-haters’: "Stop that white-hating 'March against Slavery'"...  

My second reaction: What it is with these radical feminist types? What is their problem, most fundamentally?:

Is it intellectual? (They’re stupid and/or brainwashed?)

Or is it psychological? (They’re deeply wounded, fixated, overwhelmed and driven by irrational rage?)

Or is it spiritual? (All their silliness is fundamentally an outgrowth of bad conscience?)

No doubt it's a mix, and the answer will vary from individual to individual…

Fr. Longenecker and the Death Penalty

The estimable Fr. Dwight Longenecker has written a short summary of C.S. Lewis' essay The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment, by way of a preface to arguing in favour of a recent, rather jejune joint editorial from four "national Catholic journals" calling for an end to the death penalty (Longenecker's piece here). I'd say this is not one of Fr. Longenecker's finer performances, whether as an exponent of Catholicism, or simply as a thinker. Let's analyze:

Longecker's case against the Humanitarian Theory of Punishment

Lewis' essay, which Longenecker aims to summarize, treats of three reasons offered by contemporary 'humanitarians' justifying punishment: deterrence, protection, and rehabilitation. Longenecker rejects these reasons. Let's analyze his arguments:

Regarding deterrence, Longenecker writes:

if deterrence is the reason for punishment, then the sentence should be as severe as possible to scare others from committing the crime.

Longenecker is being sloppy here: the premise here simply won't get you to that conclusion. The premise would instead need to be: "If deterrence is the only reason for punishment, and deterrence is an objective that trumps all others, then..." But at the very least, the humanitarian at least believes in rehabilitation and protection, as well as deterrence, so the humanitarian will want to find a balance with those other objectives, he has no reason to absolutize deterrence, and Longenecker's argument here clearly doesn't work. (His argument against deterrence as one of the reasons grounding the application of a particular punishment for a particular crime is also decidedly un-Catholic, that is, opposed to the clear Catholic tradition, as Stephen Long has pointed out here.)

Regarding rehabilitation, Longenecker writes:

Likewise, if rehabilitation is the reason for punishment it can end in injustice and cruelty. If a person is to be imprisoned or punished in some other way until he is reformed and changes his mind he might stay in prison for a very long time and therefore suffer a great injustice. 

Well, indeed: I suppose he might. But it seems obvious that the humanitarian could reply that the person might also be reformed and change his mind and therefore obtain a great benefit - and indeed, this is what the humanitarian hopes and/or expects, so it isn't fair to simply ignore that. And the same kind of analysis would apply to Longenecker's next argument:

Conversely, he may feign rehabilitation in order to attain early release and that too would be unjust.

Well, yes, that might be unjust, and certainly, the humanitarian would agree, it would be undesirable, but that is a practical matter, not one of principle. This is no argument against an emphasis on rehabilitation as such. Longenecker continues:

If the person is imprisoned for an ideological crime he may never recant because to do so, for him, would be to sell his soul. Let’s imagine that a pro life demonstrator was jailed and told that he would only be released if he agreed that abortion was okay. In resisting such “rehabilitation” he would have to be imprisoned forever because he will never recant.

Here the humanitarian could surely object that he no more wants to forceably rehabilitate merely 'ideological criminals' than Longenecker would want to (justly) punish them. Longenecker concludes:

Rehabilitation, therefore, as a motive for punishment leads to injustice.

One problem here is that Longenecker's formulation, "rehabilitation as a motive for punishment," tends to basically misrepresent the humanitarian position. While punishment might still serve as a tool for rehabilitating someone, what the humanitarian fundamentally wants is to replace punishment with rehabilitation, to replace the 'Criminal Justice System' with 'Correctional Services.' He at least wants to thoroughly subordinate punishment - which is a response to past crimes - to his humanitarian goals - which are resolutely future-oriented. Rather than 'punishment' properly speaking, with its connotations of justice, rehabilitation is strictly about 'efficacious conditioning.' In any case, while admitting that abuse of rehabilitative processes might lead to injustice, this doesn't seem like a real reason to reject rehabilitative measures as such, or a reason to retain justice as a more fundamental public objective than rehabilitation.

Thirdly, Longenecker offers his argument against protection:

Likewise if protection of the public is the reason for punishment great injustice may occur. A person who has committed a minor but dangerous crime might be locked up forever if the judge deemed him to be irreformable and a constant danger to the public. If protection of the public is the reason for punishment most anyone could be locked up if the authorities deemed them dangerous.

Here it's not clear how a 'minor' crime could be so dangerous as to justify locking someone up forever. It may be true that an irreformably dangerous person could get locked up forever, but the humanitarian will want to know why that is a bad thing, why it is a "great injustice."

Longenecker then offers his own preferred theory: retribution should be the basis for punishment:

The judge has a list of crimes and he puts that next to the list of punishments and the criminal gets what’s coming to him. No more and no less. The judge then has authority to lengthen or shorten the sentence according to extenuating circumstances and motivation.

Here the humanitarian will likely wonder how this list of crimes and punishments has been constructed. What makes this (or that) list a fitting instrument of fundamental justice? He might cite historical examples that would suggest that such lists may in fact allow "great injustice" to occur, and wonder why it is that when - and only when - expounding his own theory, Longenecker simply ignores the "possibility of great injustice" problem.

Longenecker's case against Capital Punishment

Now for Fr. Dwight's case against capital punishment. He first frames his argument in relation to the three afore-analyzed 'humanitarian reasons.' First, deterrence:

Capital punishment as a deterrent has not been shown to be effective, but the main argument against it is that the deterrent factor should not be the motivation for capital punishment in the first place. If punishment is meted out for its deterrent factor then let us stop complaining about Muslims lop of thieve’s hands, stone adulterers and throw homosexuals from rooftops.

As we have seen, besides being un-Catholic, Longenecker's argument here doesn't work: the humanitarian obviously doesn't - and logically couldn't - absolutize deterrence in such a way that this analysis would make any sense. Deterrence can certainly be one motivation for meting out some particular, harsh punishment, without it being the only or the overriding motivation. Regarding Longenecker's examples, it's hardly clear that they show the wisdom of his own approach: unless it is in fact the case that Muslims, say, lop off thieves' hands strictly for 'humanitarian' reasons (in particular for the purpose of deterrence), then such examples are irrelevant; and if, as may well be the case, Muslims regard such punishment as compatible with Longenecker's "list of crimes-list of punishments" retributive approach, then the example would positively tell against Longenecker's theory of punishment.

Second, rehabilitation:

Capital punishment obviously has nothing to do with rehabilitation except that the imminence of the electric chair, the injection room or the firing squad may prompt repentance and remorse. However, even then it is not always the case as plenty of death row prisoners face their end either spitting with rage and rebellion or strutting in with false bravado and a defiant gesture.

Of course, Fr. Dwight's claims about what may be the case and what is not always the case are correct, but they don't establish anything about the general relative effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of capital punishment vs. long-term imprisonment for purposes of 'rehabilitation' (i.e., repentance and remorse), and thus doesn't tell us anything about the case for or against capital punishment vis-a-vis the goal of 'rehabilitation.'

Third, protection:

It is arguable that capital punishment protects the public by removing a threat permanently, but incarceration accomplishes that without the killing.

This may be so for the most part; except that people who are incarcerated may well in fact continue to pose a threat, living lives of violent and sometimes murderous thuggery even while in prison. Longenecker simply ignores this fact/possibility.

Longenecker concludes with an assessment of capital punishment in light of his own, retributive theory of just punishment:

It remains then to ask whether the execution of a criminal fulfills the demands of retributive justice. Are there crimes so heinous that we must execute the criminal simply because that is what is just?

We should note at the outset that Longenecker has started by posing the fundamental question in a misleading way: The real question is not about whether we must execute certain criminals; the question is whether we may legitimately do so. In positively advocating for an end to the death penalty, for its abolishment, one must establish not only that capital punishment is not a must; one must establish that we must not have recourse to it, no matter how heinous the crime. In any case, let's look at Father's reasoning:

Some would say so. I used to believe so. I no longer do.
Here’s why: it is certainly arguable that one who cruelly and deliberately takes an innocent life should forfeit his own life in return. But a life in prison is also a way to lose one’s life. Perhaps those who are so in favor of the death penalty have never visited a prison or met a man serving a life sentence. I have, and I can tell you that a life sentence is a long, slow death.

This may well be; but then why should we think that a "long, slow death" is preferable to a quick one? Surely Fr. Longenecker needs to explain this.

The life prisoner has a lifetime to learn remorse. He has a lifetime to count the cost. He has a lifetime to make amends. He has a lifetime to give a life for the life he took.

This is true; but it is true regardless of how long the prisoners lifetime is, and regardless of whether that lifetime is cut short by execution or ended by natural death. There is no fundamental principle, I dare say, that the longer we take to learn remorse and to make amends, the better. So again: this is no real argument against the death penalty.

There is, therefore, no good argument for the death penalty.

And to this conclusion I would have to retort: There is, therefore, no good argument against the death penalty - at least none that Fr. Longenecker has offered.

Longenecker ends with the general statement, "This is why I support the editorial in our four Catholic publications today." It is worth noting that when one reads the editorial, this claim looks somewhat ironic, insofar as a number of the reasons given in the editorial are ones which Longenecker himself has just undertaken to refute in the course of offering his own views on the legitimate principles of just punishment. Cardinal O'Malley talks about 'protection'; there is talk of spending resources more efficiently so as to prevent crime in the first place (this would fit in the 'deterrence' portfolio); and there is mention of working for "restorative justice" (albeit only in the case of lesser criminals for some reason... - anyway, I guess, this would fit the 'rehabilitation' portfolio). As for Longenecker's 'just retribution,' I didn't notice any mention of that.

Confirmation: "empty words and cold language"

Conclusion of the Roman (Tridentine) Catechism's section on the Sacrament of Confirmation:

Admonition: Let this, then, serve as a summary of those things which pastors are to expound touching the Sacrament of chrism. The exposition, however, should not be given so much in empty words and cold language, as in the burning accents of pious and glowing zeal, so as to seem to imprint them on the souls and inmost thoughts of the faithful.

How many pastors these days have gotten this memo?: when you're talking about Confirmation, "empty words and cold language"... to be avoided!

Ontario Physicians' "Professional Obligations" - feedback time

Re.: "Professional Obligations and Human Rights" – draft policy
Date: Feb. 20, 2015

To whom it may concern:

Following are some of the basic concerns that I urge you to consider in regard to the above-mentioned document (see here).

Sincerely, 

Yours truly





Lines 4-5: “The fiduciary nature of the physician-patient relationship requires that physicians act in their patients’ best interests.”

Since ‘ought’ implies ‘can,’ this statement is, to speak precisely, certainly false. A fiduciary relationship may well entail an ethical obligation to aim to act in accordance with whatever elements of trust are invested in that particular relationship, which elements are derived from whatever responsibilities are rightly considered to be entailed by that relationship. However, a fiduciary relationship as such certainly does not entail a requirement of actually acting in the best interests of the beneficiary in the relationship. This is not a minor issue. To state the issue in the way the draft proposal does obscures the crucial and quite unavoidable element of the exercise of discretionary judgment on the part of the trustee (the physician) in determining what is in fact in their patient's best interests. Such judgment, since it is fallible and will in some cases be irreducibly controversial, cannot serve as the basis for any kind of straightforward "requirement to act in a patient's best interests." What is at stake in the fiduciary relationship between physicians and patients is precisely trust relative to making these kinds of unavoidably fallible judgments (which judgments may lead to actions which in fact turn out not to be in the patient's best interests). Obviously one crucial point to retain in seeking to enunciate an intelligent and just policy regarding professional obligations is the fact that different individuals will have different judgments as to what constitutes “acting in the patient’s best interests,” and that these diverse judgments are from the nature of the case necessarily logically prior – and thus prior in the order of ethical analysis – to any obligations to act in accordance with any (putatively) objective standard of acting. From the start, the CPSO draft policy appears to systematically ignore this crucial point.

 

 

Lines 14-15: “The key values of professionalism articulated in the College’s Practice Guide – compassion, service, altruism and trustworthiness – form the basis for the expectations set out in this policy.”

 

This claim seems to be pure bafflegab. It should be obvious to anyone who considers the matter that these “key values” are far too vague and subject to diverse interpretation to actually form any real, substantive basis for the various specific expectations set out in the draft policy.

 

  

Lines 138-141: “Where physicians are unwilling to provide certain elements of care due to their moral or religious beliefs, physicians must communicate their objection directly and with sensitivity to existing patients, or those seeking to become patients, and inform them that the objection is due to personal and not clinical reasons.”

 

Implicit in this statement is the judgment of the CPSO that any "not clinical" reasons must be "personal" reasons. This is vague at best. It would seem to be clearly beyond the competence of the CPSO to make such an implicit determination about the general nature of reason-giving: that reasons must be either “clinical” or “personal.” If this is a merely stipulative use of the word “personal” – i.e., by stipulation any “non-clinical” reason will be called “personal” - then the CPSO should clarify what is meant by this distinction and attempt to offer some justification for choosing to express itself in terms of such an arbitrarily prejudicial dichotomy in this context. The governing council of the CPSO may well have some more-or-less collective "personal" view about the general nature of the "non-clinical" reasons that physicians inevitably have, and in accordance with which they may be unwilling to provided "certain elements of care." But this "personal" view of the CPSO council – and to be clear, the view is clearly "non-clinical," it has nothing whatsoever to do with medical expertise, it is a highly controversial ethical and meta-ethical question - is not one which the CPSO has any right to impose on its members and their practise, or on their patients, who also have a stake in being able to rely upon the integrity and autonomy of their physicians, without this integrity and autonomy being compromised by seemingly groundless thought-policing from the physicians’ professional organization. Certainly, if the CPSO does wish to arrogate to itself the right to dictate to its members certain ethical and meta-ethical positions in accordance with which its members must practise, then it has the obligation to communicate to its members and to the general public the reasons by which it holds itself to possess any such right, and why it holds itself justified in promoting, under threat of sanction, whichever particular ethical and meta-ethical suppositions it chooses to promote. The current draft policy does not provide, nor even attempt to provide, any such justification. In fact, it seems highly unlikely that the CPSO could justify claiming for itself such an aggressively ideological mandate, but if this is how the CPSO wants to behave, for the sake of consistency it must at least communicate the grounds for its judgment. Failure to do so is a failure of the CPSO to act in a way that upholds the dignity and autonomy of both physicians and patients, who prima facie should not be subjected to the seemingly whimsical behest of the decidedly "non-clinical" judgment of the CPSO in controversial ethical matters.

 

  

Lines 143-144: “In the course of communicating their objection, physicians must not express personal judgments about the beliefs, lifestyle, identity or characteristics of existing patients, or those seeking to become patients.”

 

Again, this claim is hopelessly vague and far too categorical. Besides the problem of failing to define what it is that constitutes a “personal judgment” as such, the scope of what might fall under the description of “expressing personal judgments about the beliefs, lifestyle, identity or characteristics of patients” is far too broad. To insist that physicians “must not” do this very broad and ill-defined thing is not only silly, in light of its vagueness, but would also seem to suggest that physicians’ responsibility to avoid saying anything that their patients might find disagreeable is more important than their responsibility to provide the care that, in the professional judgment of the particular physician, is in the best interests of the patient. Such a policy would seem to undermine the specific fiduciary relationship existing between doctors and patients, rather than safeguard it.

  

 

Lines 152-153: “Physicians must provide information about all clinical options that may be available or appropriate to meet patients’ clinical needs or concerns.”

 

This claim is again too categorical – “Physicians must…about all…” – in relation to the vague requirement it enjoins – “that may be…to meet patients’ clinical needs or concerns.” In reality, physicians must exercise judgment, first in assessing the “clinical needs or concerns” of patients, and then in providing information about the relevant, available clinical options of which they are aware, and which they actually deem to be appropriate. A categorical insistence on informing patients of all options which just may be available or appropriate obscures this reality.

 

 

Lines 155-160: “Where physicians are unwilling to provide certain elements of care due to their moral or religious beliefs, an effective referral to another health care provider must be provided to the patient. An effective referral means a referral made in good faith, to a non-objecting, available, and accessible physician or other health-care provider. The referral must be made in a timely manner to reduce the risk of adverse clinical outcomes. Physicians must not impede access to care for existing patients, or those seeking to become patients.”

 

This statement is again vague and smacks of a needless ideological imposition upon the integrity, autonomy, dignity, and professional judgment of physicians, which imposition, again, will tend to impair the fiduciary relationships of physicians with patients. The draft does not appear to present any principles upon which this policy could be grounded or justified. The statement is plagued by the usual vagueness: What is meant by “certain elements of care”? Does this refer to “elements of care” in the general sense of effective options for addressing genuine medical issues, i.e., issues pertaining to the health of the patient? Or does “elements of care” refer to particular procedures that patients might request, regardless of the necessity of that procedure for addressing any genuine health issue? Unless the CPSO has a great deal more to offer in terms of relevant principled justification, the draft should be amended so that the latter, unreasonably aggressive construal of the fiduciary duty of physicians towards their patients is clearly excluded.

 

  

Lines 168-169: “Physicians must provide care that is urgent or otherwise necessary to prevent imminent harm, suffering, and/or deterioration, even where that care conflicts with their religious or moral beliefs.”

 

This statement is again too categorical. The point of balancing rights is that everyone’s rights matter. To say to someone, “I don’t care how wrong you think this is; you must do it,” might be justified in some very rare circumstances; but to effectively make this kind of demand in a blanket way, in relation to such vague conditions, is certainly an overreach and a grave imposition upon the conscience and professional judgment of physicians. In making this kind of statement the drafters of this policy seem to have forgotten the basic necessity of prudential judgment in the matter of balancing conflicting rights, as well as their own fiduciary duties towards their professional members, which must surely include a duty to respect the autonomy, dignity, trustworthiness, etc. of those members.

  

Knowledge is scary

There may be certain things about the world or about yourself that you don't want to know. So if someone points out these things, maybe you get angry with the person pointing it out - the old story: don't like the message, shoot the messenger. Surely this is really quite remarkable: people are afraid of knowledge. Ponder that. Boko Haram and the like are just the extreme manifestation of something you can see everyday on Facebook - or even, too often, in the aggressively 'progressive' and 'tolerant' environment of many university classrooms (i.e., the supposed enemies of Boko Haram). People are afraid of knowledge; especially self-knowledge. But they still grasp that knowledge is a genuinely good and desirable thing. That's why they lap up absurd, self-righteous narratives about how enlightened they are, in comparison to all the people who have thought or do think differently from themselves and their narrow set - even when they have no idea of what those other people thought or think and why they thought or think it. And so they get angry if you question their absurd, self-righteous narratives. If they're 'progressive' types, they'll often go so far as to angrily dismiss you as a bully or a bigot - why? - because you have dared to challenge them to think critically about their precious 'progressive' viewpoints... and somehow they fail to see the irony! So do you laugh or weep? What a waste of time even trying to talk to such people! And yet, they remain fellow citizens and fellow human beings. We still have to live together. So even though it so often seems like a waste of time, we are not absolved from the responsibility to at least try to make positive contributions to public discourse. (And that's what your 'personal' FB page is: if people can see it, by definition it's public.)

A Romantic Yearning for Our Eucharistic Lord?

Crisis Magazine has published a piece by Richard Becker entitled A Romantic Yearning for Our Eucharistic Lord. Naturally this talk of 'romantic yearning' immediately sent my eyebrows into a rather supercilious and skeptical posture. ('Romantic yearning,' you say? That sounds... 'romantic.')

Anyway, Richard had a story to tell about a couple of formerly-Protestant students of his. They had both grasped the fact that Biblically, and in terms of historic Christian understanding, the Catholic (not to mention, broadly, the Orthodox and the High-Church Protestant) position on the reality of Christ's presence in the Eucharist is the only defensible Christian position. Nonetheless, these two still have a problem with the Eucharist:

They really, really want to receive Holy Communion now. Not later—now! They’re tired of watching everybody else feast on the Lord while they have to settle for a mere blessing—and not even that if there’s a lay Eucharistic minister at the end of the Communion line.

Okay, that's nice. And it's great that they go to a parish where the 'lay Eucharistic ministers' (i.e., the extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion) don't hand out blessings (FYI, that's a liturgical abuse). But Richard goes on to explain his attempt to console these good people and altogether his attempt is pretty limp.

He starts by telling them that their having to wait is an old-fashioned, Jane-Austen-Pride-and-Prejudice 'romantic' kind of thing. - Okay, whatever; if that works for you, it works; if it doesn't, it doesn't. But the question remains: why must they wait? Richard claims that "it's vitally important for at least three reasons." Let's look at those.

First reason:

(1) It’s honest. As the bishops remind us, “Catholics believe that the celebration of the Eucharist is a sign of the reality of the oneness of faith, life, and worship.” Ordinarily, to admit non-Catholics to the Eucharist is tantamount to a lie—much like extramarital intimacy is a lie, even between the engaged, in that it bespeaks a total life commitment that is not yet present. It’s the same logic that ought to hold back obstinate sinners from the Eucharist as well, for Holy Communion is nothing to be trifled with—something St. Paul clearly spelled out to the Corinthians:

So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup.

So it's honest, Richard claims, because "ordinarily, admitting non-Catholics to the Eucharist is tantamount to a lie." The problem with this claim is that a lot rides on the word 'ordinarily.' If we wanted to be really honest, we would need to mention why it is that, ordinarily, non-Catholics are not admitted to the Eucharist. Roughly, the reason, ordinarily, is that either there is some serious objective deficiency in their understanding of the Christian faith; or they have not been baptized. Since the people in question have been baptized and they appear to have a sound, well-formed faith, these ordinary reasons clearly don't apply to them; and similarly, there is no reason to assume that the other reason Richard mentions apply to them, namely, that they are "obstinate sinners" (which is not the most theologically precise way to put it, but whatever). As for the analogy with extramarital intimacy, Richard is implicitly relying on the claim here that because the two people in question haven't been duly confirmed, it follows that they are fundamentally lacking a "total life commitment" to Christ - which is surely an unjustified claim, and is suggestive of a serious misunderstanding of the sacrament of Confirmation. So, in all honesty, this first reason is really weak.

Second reason:

(2) It’s healing. Many Protestant groups practice open communion and invite everyone, regardless of church affiliation, to share in their Lord’s Supper rituals. This can lead to misunderstanding and resentment when people from those groups attend Mass and are asked to refrain. Yet there are real and painful divisions in the Body of Christ, and closed communion is a public acknowledgement of that sad fact. Awkward as it might be for us, it’s important to remember, as Cardinal O’Connor once noted, that “Holy Communion is not to be given or received as an act of courtesy.”

Instead, it’s better to think of closed communion itself as courtesy, for it both demonstrates respect for differences in belief and lays bare the wound of disunion to the required cure: Jesus himself. Here’s how the bishops put it:

We welcome our fellow Christians to this celebration of the Eucharist as our brothers and sisters. We pray that our common baptism and the action of the Holy Spirit in this Eucharist will draw us closer to one another and begin to dispel the sad divisions which separate us. We pray that these will lessen and finally disappear, in keeping with Christ’s prayer for us “that they may all be one” (Jn 17:21).

This argument is worse than the first. It a complete red herring. Everything he says is true. But it's all irrelevant. None of it implies that not allowing these two not-fully-initiated, but still baptized, believing Catholics to receive Communion is 'healing.' You might as well say that not allowing them to go to confession is 'healing.' How does that make any sense? And if denying communion to unconfirmed Catholic converts is 'healing,' then what is admitting unconfirmed (and very often unbelieving) Catholic children to communion? Words that come to mind are 'anomalous' and explanandum (as in 'in need of an explanation').

Third reason:

(3) It’s penitential. The time between coming to belief in the Eucharist and then finally receiving it at Easter is an extended fast of sorts, and a lot like Advent—another example of romantic expectation and longing. Though not penitential in the same degree as Lent, Advent is supposed to be a time of moderated deprivation—of staying hungry while awaiting the greatest birthday surprise the world has ever known. Christmas is a feast, after all, and we don’t want to spoil our appetites, spiritual or otherwise.

Our kids complain mightily about having to wait for Christmas—we did the same at their age—but we all know that the suspense is what makes it all so magical. It’s why we wrap presents and hide treats, and it’s also why we remove the baby Jesus from our nativity scenes until Christmas Eve: The visibly empty manger becomes a focal point of our eager longing for the Lord’s grand entrance into our lives and our world.

And that longing is deepened by the curious presence throughout Advent of all those other Nativity figurines: Mary and Joseph and the shepherds—even the cattle and sheep!—gazing placidly on the empty trough, a month-long Waiting for Godot that is spectacularly resolved when the ceramic child is enthroned on December 24.

That’s what it’s like to have to wait for Holy Communion—and not only for converts, but likewise for converting sinners, and children as well. It’s also the idea behind the one-hour fast we’re all supposed to observe before Communion. We become like pre-Christmas Nativity scenes, and our souls are empty cribs awaiting the arrival of our Eucharistic Lord. Our trust and our hope are deepened, our faith strengthened, and our love made more pervasive and profound. “All who are not receiving Holy Communion,” say the bishops, “are encouraged to express in their hearts a prayerful desire for unity with the Lord Jesus and with one another.” It’s a true maranatha moment—a true cry of the soul, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

To begin with the first three paragraphs here, if they were compelling, they wouldn't prove that it is right to deny the two people in question communion. It would show that frequent communion is perhaps a bad, 'anti-penitential' idea and that Catholics in general would benefit from denying themselves reception of Holy Communion for extended periods of time, perhaps only receiving it at Christmas and Easter and perhaps on a few other exceptional feasts. So maybe that's correct, but Richard needs to be consistent in the application of his principles, or drop this argument.

As for the fourth paragraph, the comparison to that oh-so-onerous "one-hour fast that we're all supposed to observe before Communion" is ridiculous and irrelevant. He's effectively telling his former students: "Guys/gals, I have to fast from regular food for one hour before receiving Communion, and it's super penitential for me and really strengthens my soul; so you should have to fast from the Eucharist for three (or five or eight or whatever) months, and it will be really penitential and a great spiritual discipline for you too - just like my one-hour fast. (I have to stop eating like fifteen minutes before mass begins - and it's tough, believe me! At least you don't have to make that sacrifice - because for another eight (or whatever) months you're not allowed to receive communion! - which, as I mentioned, I think is totally romantic.)" To which I suppose they might reply: "Are you serious???" - or something to that effect.

To conclude, then, if not admitting people like the two in question to communion is indeed vitally important, or even just important, or even justifiable or defensible, we need to find some better reasons than the ones Richard provides.