New Indiana auxiliary bishop says he would never deny Communion

Indianapolis Bishop-designate Christopher J. Coyne answered questions from The Indianapolis Star on a wide variety of subjects for nearly an hour last week. Here are a few excerpts:

On the priest sexual abuse scandal in Boston, where he was a spokesman for the archdiocese:

"There were a lot of low points. There were plenty of times when you would say, 'It can't get any worse,' and it did. The hardest part was when people in the archdiocese, we turned on each other. The clergy infighting would take place. And in the chancellery, there was backbiting and different things. They were self-inflicted wounds, like when the priests would get up and say things that were just wrong."

On preaching, which he taught at seminary and sees as an area where the Catholic Church needs improvement:

"What I try to do is to have a beginning and an end and not a lot of time in between the two, maybe eight or nine minutes."

On church architecture, which he made a focus of study in Rome and the subject of a CatholicTV series he hosted:

"You can look at it as the house of people or the house of God. What Catholics have done throughout history is find a healthy balance between the two."

On art's connection with the divine:

"When art is created, when beauty is created, it shows forth God's original desire for all creation to be beautiful. And that elevates us higher. What is interesting about that is that it doesn't all have to be sunshine and light. The grotesque or the awful -- in the sense of a bloody crucifix -- can be a beautiful work of art in the sense that it is hard to look at, but it raises us to the higher value of salvation, of the faith."

On denying Communion to politicians whose votes conflict with Church teaching:

"I would never deny someone Communion unless they were absolutely deranged or something like that and it is obvious that they shouldn't be receiving Communion. The Communion line is not the place where you deal with whether or not someone should be receiving Communion."

On whether the University of Notre Dame was right or wrong last year in honoring President Barack Obama, a move that some bishops and other Catholics criticized, given Obama's support of abortion rights:

"That's outside of my purview."