Archbishop Burke of St. Louis is at it again, calling for anarchy in the aisles.

Tell me, Bishop, how do you know what’s in my heart? Whether I’ve been to confession or not? Whether there are extenuating circumstances? Yes, God has the right to judge me, and yes, the Church can deny funerals to people. And sure, if someone says, I am not baptized, or, I am in a clear state of mortal sin, that person should not receive the Eucharist.

But we don’t know another’s soul, and once we start having every random EME deciding on someone else’s soul, well, we’re going to have real problems. This is seriously creepy.

So says Thomas Reese, SJ:

In 2004, Burke and a handful of other bishops said they would refuse communion to then presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. Burke also said Catholics who voted for pro-abortion rights politicians such as Kerry should refrain from taking the sacrament until they confessed their “mortal sin.”

In his new article, the archbishop explicitly criticizes his fellow bishops, the majority of whom voted in 2004 to leave the communion decision up to individual bishops.

Burke retorts: “The question regarding the objective state of Catholic politicians who knowingly and willingly hold opinions contrary to natural moral law would hardly seem to change from place to place.”

The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the influential conservative Catholic journal First Things, called Burke’s article “a scholarly tour de force.”

“The (archbishop’s) concern is not a political concern,” Neuhaus said. “The article is about, how does the church preserve the sanctity of the Holy Eucharist?”

But the article is ambiguous in some areas, said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Woodstock Theological Center.

If Burke is calling on communion ministers to disobey their bishops and deny communion to Catholic politicians, it would be “revolutionary” and “encourage anarchy,” Reese said.

“Most bishops do not want ministers of communion playing policeman at the communion rail,” he added. “This is a significant change in focus. Suddenly you’re going to have a few thousand decision-makers in parishes across the country.”