Catholic bishops who want to refuse Biden’s communion may have to reckon with the Pope

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Washington • A movement is growing among conservative Catholics to deny Communion to President Joe Biden during worship, but they may have to reckon with lay Catholics who disagree and a pope who insisted that the sacrament is “not a price for the perfect”.

A subset of American Catholics have spent months calling on bishops to deny Biden – the second Catholic president in U.S. history – the Eucharist because of his support for right to the law legislation. abortion, a position which they believe goes against Catholic teaching which condemns abortion. It has happened once before: Biden was reportedly refused Communion in October 2019 while attending mass while campaigning in South Carolina, with the priest claiming that “any public figure who advocates for abortion is outside the teaching of the church “.

This incident has attracted little attention, but the problem has worsened at the upper echelons of the Catholic hierarchy in recent days. On May 1, Archbishop of San Francisco Salvatore Cordileone – who oversees the original archdiocese of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, another Catholic Democrat – published a 17-page pastoral letter claiming that officials who support legislation on the right to abortion should be prohibited from receiving the sacrament.

“Because we are dealing with public figures and public examples of cooperation in moral evil, this correction can also take the public form of exclusion from receiving Holy Communion,” Cordileone wrote.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is expected to discuss communion at its annual meeting in June, and the situation may soon have a direct impact on Biden. Bishop-elect William E. Koenig – the new bishop of the Diocese of Wilmington, who oversees the church where Biden often worship and where his family members are buried – was questioned over the weekend whether he would refuse the Eucharist of the president in his diocese. The clerk only said he hoped to have a conversation with Biden but that as a bishop he is “called to teach the fullness and beauty of the Catholic faith.”

The White House declined to say whether the president had spoken with Koenig or had an answer to the communion question.

But efforts to deny Communion to Biden and other Catholic politicians who support the right to abortion are arguably out of step with the views of most American Catholics and could potentially clash with the Pope himself, who seemed less inclined to forbid believers the Eucharist.

A November 2020 poll conducted by GBAO and Catholics for Choice found broad opposition among Catholic voters when it came to denying Communion to lawmakers who support access to legal abortion, with 66% opposing it and 53% strongly opposed. Opponents were in the majority regardless of the party: 81% of Democrats, 64% of Independents and 51% of Republicans rejected the idea.

Meanwhile, polls from multiple sources – ranging from Pew Research to conservative Catholic media EWTN – indicate that most Catholics in the United States believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Lay people understand things the hierarchy doesn’t understand: Denying someone communion is the spiritual equivalent of starving them,” Jamie L. Manson, director of Catholics for Choice, told Religion News Service.

“It is just one step too far for the bishops to use the sacrament as a punishment and to arm it as a political tool. … It shows a lack of faith in the power of the sacraments to reduce it in this way, to use it as a tool of intimidation. I don’t think there could be anything more antithetical to Christianity, to the message of Jesus.

While the Vatican has not shied away from its long-standing condemnation of abortion, it has been more fluid when it comes to offering communion to politicians who hold opinions different from Catholic teaching, depending. more of the cleric administering the sacrament than of the positions of politicians. receive it.

Saint John Paul II gave Communion to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, both supporters of the right to abortion, and in 2001 administered the Eucharist to progressive Italian politician Francesco Rutelli, who advocated for an legislation on the right to abortion in Italy.

Pope Francis has not publicly weighed in on the issue of communion in the United States, but an overview of his writings and actions suggests a more inclusive posture. In his 2013 apostolic exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel”, Francis wrote “The Eucharist, although it is the fullness of sacramental life, is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and a food for the weak ”.

The Pope called for “prudence and daring” when considering the administration of the sacraments, warning against the clergy who “act as arbiters of grace rather than its facilitators.” Churches should not function as “a toll booth”, he suggested, but as a space with open doors “where there is room for everyone”.

Francis set a similar tone in two documents from 2016: his apostolic exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” opened the door for divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion after speaking to their priest, and his apostolic letter “Midericordia et Misera” allowed to priests to absolve women and doctors. who had an abortion.

Francis himself rarely administers Communion directly when presiding over Mass, usually allowing others to do so. When he was inaugurated as Pope in 2013 at the Vatican, he officiated Mass but did not personally administer Communion to Biden or Pelosi, who were present.

But Francis’ position remains markedly different from that of the Vatican, for example, in the 2004 US presidential election, when some US bishops suggested denying Communion to Democratic candidate John Kerry for holding views contrary to the Catholic education in matters of life and marriage. Then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – later Pope Benedict XVI – sent a letter in July of the same year to Theodore McCarrick, a since defrocked cardinal who oversaw the Archdiocese of Washington at the time, containing instructions on the administration of communion.

“Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person’s formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his constant campaigning and voting for permissive laws on abortion and euthanasia), his pastor must meet with him, asking him to inform him of the teaching of the Church, informing him that he must not present himself to Holy Communion until he is will not have put an end to the objective situation of sin, and warning him that otherwise he will be refused the Eucharist, ”Ratzinger, then head of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote.

Years later, in 2007, as Pope Benedict, he suggested that Catholic politicians who support abortion rights could be threatened with excommunication, adding that “the murder of an innocent child is incompatible with communion, which receives the body of Christ ”.

Yet even Benedict presided over services in 2008 during a visit to the United States where Pelosi, Rudy Giuliani, and even Kerry were able to receive Communion – although not directly from the Pope.

As far as American prelates are concerned, the dominant guidance on the issue is based on existing Catholic policy and a 2004 USCCB document titled “Catholics in Political Life,” which reaffirms that individual bishops decide to administer the ‘Eucharist to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights.

This means that Biden will likely continue to receive Communion in Washington for the time being. The Archdiocese of Washington has not responded to repeated requests this week regarding Biden and Communion, but Cardinal Wilton Gregory – the Washington cleric who attended one of Biden’s inauguration ceremonies – explained his decision to continue offering Biden the Eucharist during an interview with RNS in December.

“I don’t want to start a relationship with (Biden) on the basis of a penalty,” he said.

The cardinal later added: “I don’t want to go to the table with a gun on the table first.”

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