Abortion, communion with Catholic priests in northern New Mexico | Local News

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The only reason Reverend George Salazar could imagine refusing someone Holy Communion would be if he was too drunk to know what he was doing, he said.

“I grant Communion to whoever comes to the altar,” said Salazar, the priest at Immaculate Conception Church in Las Vegas, NM.

Nonetheless, Salazar said last week that he will listen to what the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops says next month about the policy of communion and abortion rights.

“I really don’t have a position on this,” said Salazar, 80.

The biannual gathering of bishops and archbishops is expected to consider whether political leaders and those in the public eye who support abortion rights should be allowed to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion. The problem arises as President Joe Biden, a Democrat who has supported abortion rights, regularly attends Catholic services.

The case highlights the growing demarcation of the Democratic Party as “pro-choice” – or in favor of abortion rights – and the Republican Party as “pro-life” – or anti-abortion. It also reflects the division among Catholics over liberal and conservative views. Archbishop John C. Wester of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe said Thursday that tensions have existed in the church for centuries.

Wester said he had never refused Communion to a person and would only do so if a notorious sinner clearly sought to use Communion to manipulate public opinion. He said as it is, he would not want to politicize communion, but he will keep an open mind during Zoom’s June bishops’ discussion.

Wester said he didn’t like the fact that the issue of politics and fellowship had become such a public issue.

“I can see where some people would raise the issue,” he said. “I think this is something that is best managed by a bishop in his own diocese.”

The same problem arose at a session of the Catholic Bishops‘ Conference about 10 years ago, he said, and the denial of communion was not approved. He said it would take two-thirds of the bishops to implement the concept, which would be hard to come by.

He also said the conference cannot issue mandates and can only make recommendations. The ultimate decision as to whether a politician or a public figure could receive Communion would most likely involve his priest or the local bishop.

ABC News reported that Biden was denied Communion two years ago at a Catholic church in South Carolina. ABC also reported that in Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, a bishop said in 2008 that he would not give Communion to Biden, who was vice president at the time.

Reverend Vincent Paul Chavez of St. Therese Little Flower Catholic Church in Albuquerque said in a statement that communion, or the Eucharist, “should never be used for political purposes.”

Chavez said the Bishops’ Conference was “lax in opposing many controversial policies” of former President Donald Trump. He cited as an example the separation of children from their parents at the US-Mexico border. But now the Tory bishops want to go after Biden, he said.

A prominent bishop on the matter, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, wrote in a letter published this month that high-profile Catholics in the public eye “have a special responsibility” and “through their false witness. , other Catholics may come to doubt the Church’s commitment. teaching on abortion ”and communion.

Cordileone said abortion is “a top priority” for Catholics because it violates the right to life, which is the foundation of all other rights. He wrote that “the killings must stop. Please, please, please: the slaughter must stop.

Harry Montoya, a former Santa Fe County commissioner who ran for Congress last year, said he went from Democrat to Republican a few years ago when he became clearer than supporting the law abortion seemed non-negotiable for the Democratic Party.

“I struggled with this for years,” Montoya said. “I feel liberated, I guess you might say, not having that on my conscience.”

He said a position on the right to abortion is “totally contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church”. Montoya, 61, said Catholic politicians who support the right to abortion “lead souls down the wrong path.”

Michele Jackson of Santa Fe walked down the aisle and walked out of mass early Friday morning at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The sound of birds was heard through the open door of the spacious and sunny sanctuary.

Jackson, 56, said being Catholic trumps being a politician, not the other way around. If Biden intends to continue receiving Communion, she said, he should repent of his abortion rights advocacy and go to confession to have it erased. And then he must live with a repentant heart against this sin, she said.

“Personally, I am a very conservative Catholic,” Jackson said. “God has the power of life and death. We dont do.”

State Senator William Sharer of Farmington, an anti-abortion Republican, said people can repent of their sins and be forgiven. But this is not the case with politicians who continue to espouse “pro-choice” views, the Catholic said.

“There is no repentance if I keep going out in public and saying, ‘I did this and I’m proud of it,'” said Sharer, 62. And this is especially true, he said, of a “mortal sin” like abortion.

Last month, the Pew Research Center surveyed 5,109 American adults about abortion and reported that 59% said abortion should be legal in all or most cases; 80% of Democrats and those who lean towards this party thought it should be legal in all or most cases, while 35% of Republicans responded that way.

Pew also reported that 55% of Catholics polled said abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

In a Pew poll seven years ago, 37% of Catholics polled identified themselves as conservatives, 36% as moderates and 22% as liberals. The rest did not know.

State Representative Moe Maestas, a “pro-choice” Catholic Democrat from Albuquerque, said he had never been threatened with denial of communion. But he said categorically “pro-life” voters said, “You are not Catholic.”

“This is the ultimate political football,” Maestas said. The “so-called pro-life movement… has divided the country. He didn’t accomplish anything. He said the United States Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that abortion was a constitutional right and that upholding the constitution was the duty of lawmakers.

And “picking one sin out of several sins” committed by people “just doesn’t make sense,” he said.

State Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino, an Albuquerque Democrat, has repeatedly said while sitting in the Senate that people have approached him after controversial hearings and told him he does not deserve no communion.

“He’s not my priest. They are not my spiritual advisor, ”said Ortiz y Pino, a 78-year-old Catholic. “It’s none of their business.”

He said there are “real issues of faith” there, such as peace, service to the poor, and spreading the word of God. It’s a shame, he said, so many people in the church have become concerned about abortion. He said he did not know how this could rise to the level of “the preeminent question” of the church.

“It’s all a perversion, what’s going on, of our Catholic faith,” Ortiz y Pino said.

He added that fellowship is “not a reward for good behavior. … It is simply a person’s choice to participate in sacramental union with his Savior.

Pro-abortion Democrat and Catholic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham could not be reached for comment late last week. A spokeswoman said Lujan Grisham “has a very clear record on the issue of reproductive rights.”

Rev. Bill Sanchez, who oversees the parish of Cerrillos, said the strict understanding of abortion is that it is the murder of a human being. It is “the culture of death,” he said, and his followers should not receive Communion.

He said that a person in one of the parishes he served spoke publicly about the abortion, and others in the community asked the reverend why that person would consider himself in fellowship with the church.

“I asked him please not to go to Communion, at least when I was presiding,” Bill Sanchez said. “And he never did.”

Bill Sanchez said he believes life begins with conception. He believes that the church has a responsibility to define access to fellowship, especially for those who live contrary to the teachings of the church. He said he hopes “pro-choice” Catholics will admit that they do not believe in the key “pro-life” principle and that “they should honestly say that they are not in fellowship with the Church. Catholic “.

He said he does not vote for a political party: “I vote for life.

Reverend Salazar in Las Vegas said he was against abortion but did not believe that a person should be excluded from communion because of their position in society.

Salazar said he had heard people talk about Trump’s failures, then added, “Yes, but he’s pro-life.”

“What about the lies he’s telling?” Salazar asked. “What counts and what doesn’t?”

There is too much tunnel vision in this country, he said. “If I want to be pro-life, I want to be pro-life in all areas,” he said, including opposing the confinement of migrant children in cages at the border.

He said he didn’t have a list of who can and can’t take Communion – it’s not that simple.

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