The American Catholic bishops have overwhelmingly voted to draft a document that could lead to the denial of the sacrament of Holy Communion to President Joe Biden, a Catholic, and other Catholic politicians who publicly advocate for abortion.
The question of denying Communion has been a fraught one in politics in the United States, and it’s one in which Rome doesn’t appear to be on the same page right now. It’s also something that doesn’t poll well. But if the Catholic Church operated based on popularity, it would have folded centuries ago.
The bishops could have dealt with this issue at any time since Roe v. Wade. It’s a shame they have been so weak because if all Catholics simply refused to vote for any pro-abortion rights candidate, then we would not have one party that views abortion as a sacrament or a system of politics in which a pro-life position requires a wholesale buy-in on one side of the political spectrum.
Sadly, that’s all just water under the bridge. Now, however, people have forced the issue by electing a Catholic president who supports abortion and even wants taxpayers to fund it.
There is a twofold reason the bishops should impose such a sanction on Biden and, to be consistent, on others who want to take this position and prance around as though they are good Catholics.
First, abortion isn’t just any issue. Second, Biden isn’t just any Catholic.
With respect to abortion, there is something about it much more serious than your average sin. The church not only considers it a grave sin, but it also takes the extraordinary step of excommunicating, by their very act, those who participate in, procure, or help others obtain abortions. The church imposes this additional ecclesiastical punishment because there is an innocent human life involved here. The abortion debate is not some esoteric debate about tax rates, tort procedures, government administration, or even an ideological question about the size or scope of government.
It also rises to a level above other questions the church deems to be moral issues in politics — for example, what’s best for adopted children? What should schools tell children about sexuality? How can we best honor the biblical exhortation to show hospitality to immigrants? Those issues matter, too, but it is with serious consideration that the Catholic Church has put such a heavy weight upon the need to protect unborn human life from slaughter.
Moreover, because of the innocent, defenseless nature of the lives that abortion snuffs out every day, there can certainly be no more, and probably, there must be a lot less debate on this question than on other weighty life-and-death questions such as, “Is this particular war just?” I would contend, even, “Are there any remaining circumstances in our modern world under which the death penalty is appropriate?”
In any case, to consider oneself minimally united to the Catholic Church’s salvific mission — and I really do mean “minimally” — one must at least oppose the convenience-driven slaughter of innocent babies. I don’t mean to be rude, but if you want to present yourself as some kind of Catholic, it just won’t do to make excuses for the cruel, blood-stained, and yes, racist institution of abortion on demand. The fact that it has resulted in something like 19 million fewer black people alive today should provide a good illustration of how much mental gymnastics its supposedly woke advocates must do to sleep at night.
Anyway, the long and the short of it is that if you can’t at least take such a basic stand for the innocent, you ought to rethink your life before you consider presenting yourself to receive what we believe is the body and blood of Christ.
And as big a deal as the sacraments are in Catholicism, it isn’t just a question of somehow defiling the sacrament with one’s personal unworthiness, as St. Paul put it. It’s also the fact that you’d be presenting yourself to the public as a member of a faith community whose beliefs you ostentatiously reject. And this is where the second point comes in: Biden isn’t just any Catholic. He is the second Catholic to be elected president. He is the world’s most powerful man, not just some face in the crowd, kneeling behind a pillar at Sunday Mass.
If an average Catholic advocates for abortion on demand and then goes to Communion, probably nobody is even going to know. That doesn’t make it any better for his or her soul, but it also doesn’t cause a public scandal the way it does when Biden expresses his advocacy for abortion and then ostentatiously presents himself for Communion. He is president — in today’s world, it is literally impossible to be more notorious than that.
By allowing him to impersonate a member of our community, church leaders risk giving the impression to everyone else that the gravest injustice of our time just really isn’t such a big deal after all. The church, one might reasonably say upon seeing such a thing, just isn’t really serious about its teaching on this matter.
I think there are a few other questions to address here because of how far the Democratic Party has veered on this issue. For example, Biden is going way beyond the typical cop-out that liberal practicing Catholics tend to resort to — that although abortion is both unnecessary and evil, one might justifiably vote for pro-abortion rights candidates against pro-life alternatives based on other serious issues. In fact, Biden goes way beyond even the far less sympathetic Mario Cuomo position — that one can “personally” oppose abortion yet refuse to lift a finger to support legal protection for the unborn.
No, Biden’s position goes way beyond that. He believes that abortion is a positive good — something taxpayers ought to even fund. He has said that those who oppose the right to abortion are flat-out wrong and oppose women’s rights. There is nothing redeeming about this position at all.
Now, you might wonder, why shouldn’t a similar standard apply to the death penalty and Catholic politicians who still support it in spite of the pope’s revision to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, calling it “inadmissable” and “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person?” My answer is…..well, maybe it should be. I don’t know. But for now, that’s just a good example of what people call “whataboutism.” It’s irrelevant. Whenever we elect a Catholic president who supports the death penalty, maybe it will be Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, we will have a chance to cross that bridge.
Right now, we’ve elected an abortion fanatic as president. He happens to be Catholic, and he also happens to be susceptible to staking out ever-more-extreme positions based on the pressure that his party’s Left has been putting on him. If the bishops are ever going to cross this bridge, this is the time, because we’re standing in front of it.
