Germantown – 40 Days for Life – Fr. Marcel from Michael Martelli on Vimeo.
Posted: 02/27/2012 3:52 pm
As The New Civil Rights Movement blogger David Badash is reporting, Father Marcel Guarnizo of Gaithersburg’s Saint John Neumann Catholic Churchreportedly covered the bowl containing the Eucharist as the woman, who is identified only as Barbara, approached him.
“I cannot give you communion because you live with a woman and that is a sin according to the church,” he is quoted as saying.
Badash quotes from an Addicting Info blog written by Ann Werner, who also notes, “To add insult to injury, Fr. Guarnizo left the altar when she delivered her eulogy to her mother. When the funeral was finished he informed the funeral director that he could not go to the gravesite to deliver the final blessing because he was sick.”
Werner also notes, “I will tell you a little about the woman who drove that priest from the altar. She is kind, she is smart, she is funny and she works hard promoting the arts. She pays her bills, she cares deeply for her family and she loved her mother and her mother loved her right back. And now she will never set foot in a Catholic church again and who can blame her?”
Other bloggers seem to agree with Badash’s assessment of Guarnizo. On Restore DC Catholicism,one reader notes, “We need to have a mass protest against this HYPOCRITE! He is one of these reactionary evangelical zealots who believe the pulpit is a place to condemn others and control public policy.”
THE LAITYTUDE 
This is outrageous, In claiming to be upholding the Catechism, Fr Guarnizo is displaying woeful ignorance ot it, on at least three counts. (See http://queeringthechurch.com/2012/02/28/in-denying-communion-at-mothers-funeral-priest-contravened-the-catechism/ for an explanation)
If acting contrary to the Catechism is necessarily sinful, then by his own standards he is himself in sin. That is why he needs to apologize. The theory of confession states that not only must we repent and confess our sins – but also that for absolution, we must make reparation to those we have injured. The hurt in this case cannot be undone – the least that will suffice is a public apology.