Last week, after three days of debate, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) voted by a three to one margin to draft new guidance on the eucharist. The unexpected strength of support for the move among the bishops was a rebuff to the Vatican, which had recently signaled its opposition.
Church officials revealed Friday that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted 165-88 to reconsider the rules about who can receive Communion. The new guidance could result in pro-abortion politicians (including Joe Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi) being banned from receiving communion because of their stance on abortion.
The Biden administration has recently lifted restrictions on federal funding for research involving human foetal tissue, rescinded a Trump policy barring organisations that refer women for abortions from receiving federal grants, and allowed women to remotely obtain a prescription for an abortion pill during the pandemic.
In an increasingly divided Roman Catholic Church, Conservative bishops are behind the push to draw up a new teaching document that Catholics who diverge from the church’s standpoint on abortion should be denied communion.
Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, who proposed the motion, said:
“We need to accept the discipline that those who obstinately persist in grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.”
Cardinal Raymond Burke, a leading conservative and critic of Pope Francis, has previously said that politicians who “publicly and obstinately” support abortion are “apostates” who should not only be barred from receiving communion but deserve excommunication.
Biden, who is the first Catholic president in 60-years, attends Mass every weekend and carries a rosary that belonged to his late son, said in response to the vote: “I don’t think that’s going to happen”, signalling his tight connections with the Papacy.
On cue, the Vatican warned conservative American bishops to hit the brakes on their push to deny communion to politicians supportive of abortion rights — including President Biden.
But despite the remarkably public warning from Rome, the American bishops are pressing ahead anyway and are expected to force a debate on the communion issue at a remote meeting that begins today (June 23).
The vote threatens to shatter a facade of unity in the Catholic Church, highlighting significant polarization within the church and set what church historians consider an amazing precedent for bishops’ conferences across the globe.
In response to the conservative initiative, pro-abortion politicians, activists, and opinion-makers have spent the last several days attacking the Catholic Church for daring to even discuss the possibility of denying Communion to lawmakers who support abortion. In response to the bishops' vote, a group of 60 Catholic House Democrats issued a statement decrying any attempt to "weaponize" the sacrament:
We believe the separation of church and state allows for our faith to inform our public duties and best serve our constituents. The Sacrament of Holy Communion is central to the life of practicing Catholics, and the weaponization of the Eucharist to Democratic lawmakers for their support of a woman's safe and legal access to abortion is contradictory. No elected officials have been threatened with being denied the Eucharist as they support and have supported policies contrary to the Church teachings, including supporting the death penalty, separating migrant children from their parents, denying asylum to those seeking safety in the United States, limiting assistance for the hungry and food insecure, and denying rights and dignity to immigrants.
Now at least one Democratic lawmaker is publicly declaring that the church's tax-exempt status could be at stake for taking a position that has always been the church's position. California Rep. Jared Huffman tweeted Friday in response to the statement issued by the Democratic lawmakers that it might just be time to "rebuke" the Catholic Church's tax-exempt status.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D) went on a rant this weekend against the Catholic Church calling U.S. bishops "hypocrites" and "nakedly partisan" for seeking to update Communion guidance that could rebuke politicians like President Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi for supporting abortion policies.
Lieu then dared the church to deny him Communion for his political beliefs of supporting access to abortion, and homosexual marriage. "Next time I go to Church, I dare you to deny me Communion," Lieu tweeted.
The US bishops will vote on the teaching document in November, when it will require a two-thirds majority for it to proceed.
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“Another step in papal assumption was taken, when, in the eleventh century, Pope Gregory VII. proclaimed the perfection of the Roman Church. Among the propositions which he put forth, was one declaring that the church had never erred, nor would it ever err, according to the Scriptures. But the Scripture proofs did not accompany the assertion. The proud pontiff also claimed the power to depose emperors, and declared that no sentence which he pronounced could be reversed by any one, but that it was his prerogative to reverse the decisions of all others” (The Great Controversy, page 57).