The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops ignored the Vatican and a gaggle of USSCB’s members to overwhelmingly approve drafting a formal statement on what the sacrament of the Eucharist — or Holy Communion — means to the Catholic Church.
On Friday, the bishops voted 168-55, with six abstentions, to move ahead. They were forced to act because President Biden, the most prominent Catholic in the country, is pro-abortion. That means he should not present himself for Communion at Mass.
Catholics have been pushing Catholic prelates to deny the sacrament, as Church law requires, to pro-abortion Catholic politicians such as Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and others.
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The bishops have refused to do so because they don’t want to “politicize” or “weaponize” the Eucharist, some claim. Catholics believe the Eucharist is the literal body and blood of Jesus Christ.
The Controversy
The wording of the bishops’ “action item,” No. 7 doesn’t sound as controversial as opposing bishops and the leftist media made it out to be:
The full body of bishops also voted to task the Committee on Doctrine to move forward with the drafting of a formal statement on the meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the Church. Requiring a simple majority vote for approval, the action item passed with 168 votes in favor, 55 against, and 6 abstentions.
Weeks ago, 67 bishops wrote to USCCB chieftain Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez and told him to stop the vote. That bunch acted after a note from the Vatican said such a vote might cause “discord” in the Church.
Wrote the pro-Biden bishops:
Having now received the May 7, 2021 letter from His Eminence Luis F. Cardinal Ladaria, SJ, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, we respectfully urge that all Conference wide discussion and committee work on the topic of Eucharistic worthiness and other issues raised by the Holy See be postponed until the full body of bishops is able to meet in person.
That side lost. They fear what might be coming — if the USCCB can finally muster the courage to act.
Canons 915-916
At issue is whether the bishops will follow Canon law.
Because pro-abortion politicians such as Biden advocate and cooperate with objective evil, they are, according to Church teaching, in a state of mortal sin. That means a priest cannot give, and pro-abortion politicians should not present themselves for, Holy Communion.
Canon 915 makes the duty of pastors explicit:
Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.
Canon 916 applies to the Catholic pastors and the faithful:
A person who is conscious of grave sin is not to celebrate Mass or receive the body of the Lord without previous sacramental confession unless there is a grave reason and there is no opportunity to confess; in this case the person is to remember the obligation to make an act of perfect contrition which includes the resolution of confessing as soon as possible.
Despite these laws, bishops and priests are reluctant to refuse Biden and his leftist cohort the sacrament. Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C., has said Biden is welcome to receive. Again, they argue, refusing Biden and others would “weaponize the Eucharist for political ends.”
A misunderstanding among many Catholics, including some bishops and priests, is that refusing to give Holy Communion to Biden and Catholics like him is not a choice. They must refuse the sacrament.
When a priest in Florence, South Carolina, denied Biden Holy Communion in 2019, Canon lawyer Ed Peters was very clear.
“Canon 915 positively requires ministers of holy communion, especially pastors, to withhold the sacrament from Catholics ‘obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin,’” Peters wrote.
Public support for abortion, its preservation in law, and/or its public funding, are sinful acts under Catholic moral analysis. Thus, even if Biden is not the most egregious offender among Catholic politicians regarding abortion (a case that can be made), such a defense favors him only in comparison with fanatics such as Nancy Pelosi.
In a blog post about Pelosi — who claims to be a “devout, practicing Catholic,” despite supporting the mass murder of the unborn — Peters explained that Canon 915 “is not about impositions on individual conscience, it’s about public consequences for public behavior. It’s about taking people at their word and acknowledging the character of their actions. It’s about not pretending that people don’t really mean what they repeatedly say and what they repeatedly do.”
The question now is whether the bishops will have the courage to follow black letter Canon law and refuse to give Communion to Biden, Pelosi, and other pro-abortion politicians.
