What Catholic Bishops Really Say About Denying Communion to Politicians

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Holy Communion, left, and President Joe Biden have been a regular issue during Biden’s presidency. (Unsplash / Creative Commons; AP / Andrew Harnik)

When American Catholic bishops meet for their annual (virtual) spring meeting June 16-18, prelates will debate a thorny theological question: Should the sacrament of communion be denied to Catholic politicians who support the right to abortion, a practice that the church condemns?

The bishops’ debate will not directly decide this issue – technically, they will discuss whether to draft a document related to the issue. Even then, a declaration would not be binding: each individual bishop retains the right to make decisions for his own diocese regarding the distribution of communion.

And among the bishops who responded to a recent Religion News Service poll asking more than 180 members of the American Catholic Bishops‘ Conference for their position on such a ban on Communion, few offered a firm yes or no answer.

“I think the Catholic faithful in general need to be educated on the meaning of the Eucharist,” said Colorado Springs bishop Michael Sheridan, who argued since at least 2012 that Joe Biden should not receive the Eucharist. He was also one of the small number of bishops who called to deny Communion to John Kerry during the then senator’s 2004 presidential campaign.

Nor do all bishops see questions of the politics of life in the same light. Many have imitated the posture of Pope Francis and hailed Biden’s presidential election as a welcome change in immigration and environmental policy and other concerns. Some bishops have invoked Francis’ inclusive description of communion in his Evangelii Gaudium the exhortation, which declares that the Eucharist is “not a price for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and food for the weak”.

But while not new or a matter of consensus, the threat to deny communion on abortion has gained traction among a group of clerics since the November election, which placed a Catholic in the White House for the second time – and the first from the landmark Roe deer v. Wade Supreme Court ruling on abortion – while ousting the most committed anti-abortion administration in recent memory from office.

Apparently wishing to keep abortion at the center of American Catholic conversation, a group of conservative bishops led the debate with unusually public statements. Chief among them is the Archbishop of San Francisco Salvatore Cordileone, who published a letter in early May in which he told Catholic politicians to “please stop pretending that defending or practicing serious moral evil … is somehow compatible with the Catholic faith“.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, left, of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, and Archbishop José Gomez, of Los Angeles, speak at a press conference during the spring meetings of the Catholic Bishops‘ Conference of United States on June 11, 2019 in Baltimore. (AP / José Luis Magana)

Many conservative bishops who answered RNS questions echoed Cordileone’s implication that Biden and other Catholics in the Democratic Party led Catholics astray by example. In Sheridan’s words, they “can get other devotees to think, well, that must be right.”

This situation has a formal name in Catholicism: “scandal” – when “people who are representatives of the church engage in activities which mislead other people … as to what the church believes”, explained William Mattison, who teaches theology at the university. of Notre-Dame.

Several prominent Catholic politicians, including Biden and former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, have largely avoided the scandal charge by seeking to separate their personal opposition to abortion from public policy, arguing that they have no right to impose their beliefs on all Americans.

“I really wish Mr. Biden and others would try to find restrictions on the abortion policy,” the father said. John Beal, professor of canon law at the Catholic University of America. “But they, for the most part, made it very clear that they agreed with the church’s teaching but took a different approach to public policy.”

There is also a pragmatic side to the question: “Here in the United States we need to be aware of what can be done,” Beal said, winking at the continued support of American voters for the right to vote. abortion, a dynamic that often manifests itself. in public polls.

But these accolades leave Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois unmoved. In a statement, Paprocki argued that politicians who promote or vote for “permissive” abortion laws not only cause scandal, but “manifest grave sin.”

“It communicates to others that they too can vote for pro-abortion laws with impunity and without negative consequences for their reception of Holy Communion,” Paprocki said.

“I think the Catholic faithful in general need to be educated on the meaning of the Eucharist.”

– Bishop of Colorado Springs, Michael Sheridan

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This was also the concern of Bishop Liam Cary of Baker, Oregon, who has clearly expressed his support for denying Communion to politicians who support the right to abortion. “Is it a political leader who declares himself Catholic? Will he fix the conditions of communion for himself and, implicitly, for others who share his point of view? Cary said. “Or the bishops, who have been entrusted with this responsibility?

Threats of banning communion are not exclusively a conservative tool. In 2018, Bishop Edward Weisenburger of Tucson, Arizona, suggested “canonical penalties“- which may include the denial of Communion – for Catholics who have participated in the Trump administration’s policy of separating immigrant families along the US-Mexico border. However, this openness has not succeeded in gaining ground among other bishops.

As for the struggle for communion, the liberal bishops have been reluctant even in their opposition to a ban. In a May 13 letter to the president of the American Episcopal Conference, the Archbishop of Los Angeles, José Gomez, 47 diocesan bishops asked that the conversation on the Eucharist be postponed “until all the bishops are able to meet in person ”, and noted that the Vatican recent warning to bishops to move slowly on the issue. Most of the signatories were reluctant to discuss the matter with the press: one of the bishops who signed the letter – Bishop Richard Pates, apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Crookston – responded to RNS, but only to say that he “Are working with my fellow bishops from the USCCB to arrive at a peaceful outcome to this issue as (Vatican officials) have so graciously advised us. “

Alberto Rojas of the Diocese of San Bernardino, Calif., Was the only clergyman to respond to RNS with a definitive no, saying through a representative that he believes Catholic leaders should instead strive to speak in deprived with politicians in this category of the seriousness of their support for the right to abortion and how this conflicts with the values ​​of their Catholic faith.

Rojas joins liberal-minded clerics who have shown their willingness to allow politicians like Biden to receive Communion – namely, Cardinal Wilton Gregory in Washington, DC, which was part of the president’s inaugural festivities, and the Bishop of San Diego, Robert McElroy, who recently argued that bishops should not “arm“the Eucharist.

Members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops gather for the annual fall meeting, November 12, 2018, in Baltimore. (AP / Patrick Semansky)

Conservative or liberal, however, there was a general sense of ambivalence on the issue.

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan told RNS in May that he “probably” still supports a statement from 2019 in which he suggested he would not deny Communion to Biden. After signing the letter of protest from the bishops to Gomez last month, Dolan is said to have asked for his name to be withdrawn.

A representative for Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Va., Pointed out Recent comments in which he called the dialogue important but acknowledged concerns about the timing and format of the virtual discussion.

Bishop Felipe Estévez of St. Augustine, Florida, has not closed the door on denying Communion to politicians who support the right to abortion, but has presented the approach as a “pastoral process”.

“I have to be in the process with the lawmakers, because the Holy Spirit is in the process – bringing light, wisdom, knowledge,” Estévez said.

But a pastoral approach does not remove a ban on communion. The Bishop of Denver, Samuel Aquila, clarified that clerics should have a private conversation with a lawmaker, followed by a separate dialogue with other witnesses present.

If lawmakers still support the right to abortion, he said, then bishops should “ask the person to refrain from receiving communion.”

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