More than 21,000 people have signed a letter calling for U.S. Catholic bishops to cancel a planned vote on whether President Biden should receive communion.
Biden, a Catholic, supports abortion rights and has long come under attack from some Catholics over that position. The vote is set to take place next week at a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The petition, organized by Faithful America, argued that the receiving of communion was being weaponized through the vote against Biden and congressional leaders who support abortion rights.
“Pope Francis is clear that mercy, welcome, and pastoral sensitivity should be hallmarks of the church. Follow his pastoral example and listen to your brothers Cardinal Gregory and Bishop McElroy: Stop playing partisan politics with Holy Communion and cancel your planned anti-Biden vote,” the petition reads.
“As a practicing Catholic, I find it absolutely unconscionable that Communion would be weaponized in this way against President Biden,” Micheal Vezzali, one of the Christians who signed the petition, said in the statement. “Where were these bishops during the horrors committed by the previous administration and the sickening ways it misappropriated Christianity? Thank you to Cardinal Gregory, Bishop McElroy, and others who are standing up for what is good and right.”
Separately, the group highlighted a letter organized by Washington Archbishop Wilton Cardinal Gregory in which 67 bishops offered their opposition to the vote, which they labeled an attempt to undermine Biden and prop up former President Trump.