No easy answer to Cuomo Communion question

The declaration by a Vatican adviser that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo should be denied Holy Communion because he is living - unmarried - with his girlfriend, Sandra Lee, is the latest eruption of a controversy that has no simple answers.

Officially, the Roman Catholic Church instructs people in a state of mortal sin - and that would include unmarried couples living together and having sex - not to receive Holy Communion.

But ordinarily the church also considers such issues a matter between an individual and his or her pastor or bishop, and believes it is best handled in private, said Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"Many bishops choose to" deal with it in private and they "find it a more effective way," Walsh said. The Rev. Thomas Reese, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, said, "Passing judgment on individual people in public is just wrong."

Walsh and Reese noted that it is possible the person has gone to confession and otherwise put himself in a "state of grace" that would make receiving Communion acceptable.

"You don't know everything about the person's soul, even when they are public figures," said David Gibson, author of a biography about Pope Benedict XVI.

But the Rev. Peter West of Priests of Life, a Staten Island-based anti-abortion group, said the Vatican representative was right to criticize Cuomo because the governor is blatantly violating church teachings.

"Gov. Cuomo is giving public scandal," West said. "The Vatican official is doing this for the good of Gov. Cuomo's soul and also as a way to set an example for other people."

Such controversies aren't new.

In 2008, then-Cardinal Edward Egan of New York publicly rebuked twice-divorced and thrice-married Rudy Giuliani for receiving Communion at a Mass celebrated by Benedict at St. Patrick's Cathedral.