St. Matthew asked, “What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his soul."

Marc A. Balestrieri, a canon lawyer and an assistant judge of an ecclesiastical court in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, thinks that such a man is not profited.

John Kerry, baptized Catholic, former altar boy, United States Senator from Massachusetts, presumptive Democrat Presidential candidate, poster boy of Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-choice America (formerly the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League) and second husband of a perhaps billionaire widow, wants to find out.

On June 14, 2004, Balestrieri boldly exercised his right to file with the Boston

Archdiocese a sworn document described as “a Denunciation for the Public Ecclesiastical Crime of Heresy, Diabolical Scandal Leading to Heresy, Immediate Formal Cooperation in Heresy, Abjection of the Sacred Species, Diabolical Scandal Leading to Murder, and Grave Harm to Public Morals and Contempt for the Faith and Ecclesiastical Authority” and “a Criminal Complaint for Reparation of Harm” resulting from the crimes listed.

The person Balestrieri denounced is Kerry.

The basis for the denunciation is Kerry’s “deliberate, manifest, and pertinacious adherence to the proposition that one has a right to choose abortive murder.”

The main charge is an ecclesiastical crime, heresy, that is, "the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith...."

The relief demanded is a declaration of excommunication and the imposition of

additional penalties and punishments against Kerry, including barring Kerry from receiving Holy Communion or any other sacrament until Kerry publicly repudiates his heretical support for abortion or, in Balestrieri’s words, “the Right-to-Murder heresy.”

Balestrieri alleged that he personally had been gravely injured by Kerry’s “continuous attack on an disturbance of the pacific possession and unity of [his Roman Catholic] faith, a…right to all Catholics,” and invited “all other individuals who have been gravely scandalized, offended, angered or aggrieved as a direct result of [Kerry’s] actions or omissions” to join his suit.

Balestrieri noted Kerry’s support for abortion in his first speech in the United States Senate more than nineteen years ago and Kerry’s perfect pro-abortion voting record, including opposition to banning even partial birth abortion.

In addition, Balestrieri vigorously objected to Kerry’s public receipt of Holy Communion several times this year and asserted as fact “an urgent need for the elination of Scandal whereby a life-threatening heresy attacking a Dogma of Divine and Catholic Faith is growing substantially within the Church.”

Last summer Archbishop O'Malley of Boston gave the faithful hope that the subordination of religious principal to lesser considerations that permitted the horrific clergy sex abuse scandal was over, at least in the Boston archdiocese.

He declared that pro-abortion nominally Catholic politicians "should not be receiving Communion and should refrain from doing so."

But, the Archbishop dashed that hope by disregarding Canon 915's clear mandate, as explained in detail by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, and declaring that the policy in his archdiocese is not to deny Communion and instead to leave it to the individual to decide, as though each bishop may disobey canon law that might be problematic to enforce.

Therefore, it is possible, if not likely, that Archbishop O’Malley will choose to reject Balestrieri’s denunciation.

But, Balestrieri will be entitled to appeal to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, of which Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is the prefect, and that forum is virtually certain to be receptive to any such appeal.

This is evidenced by Cardinal Ratzinger’s recent confidential memorandum to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the rebellious United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on the “General Principles” with respect to “Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion.”

In that memorandum, Cardinal Ratzinger stated succinctly, emphatically and unambiguously as follows:

“1. Presenting oneself to receive Holy Communion should be a conscious decision, based on a reasoned judgement regarding one’s worthiness to do so, according to the Church’s objective criteria, asking such questions as: “Am I in full communion with the Catholic Church? Am I guilty of grave sin? Have I incurred a penalty (e.g. excommunication, interdict) that forbids me to receive Holy Communion? Have I prepared myself by fasting for at least an hour?” The practice of indiscriminately presenting ...