Cardinal Burke: Bishops have 'sacred duty' to apply canon law to pro-abortion Catholic politicians – Catholic World Report catholicworldreport.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from catholicworldreport.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
More than 60 Roman Catholic bishops have written a letter to the chair of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, urging him to delay the debate about whether or not pro-abortion Catholic politicians should receive communion.
President-elect Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden attend services at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle with congressional leaders prior to the 59th Presidential Inauguration ceremony on January 20, 2021, in Washington, D.C. | Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla
More than 60 Roman Catholic bishops have written a letter to the chair of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, urging him to delay the debate about whether pro-abortion Catholic politicians should receive communion.
The letter, obtained by the Catholic website The Pillar, was sent to Jose Gomez, the archbishop of Los Angeles and chair of the USCCB, earlier this month. Notable signatories include Cardinal Wilton Gregory of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., Cardinal Sean O’Malley of the Archdiocese of Boston, and Cardinal Blase Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago. According to the publication, the letter was sent on letterhead from the Archdiocese of Washington.
7 May 2021
ROME Each bishop must decide whether to allow pro-abortion politicians to receive Holy Communion rather than the U.S. Bishops’ Conference (USCCB), Jesuit Cardinal Michael Czerny said Thursday.
In the midst of debate over a common U.S. policy regarding Communion for President Joe Biden, a Catholic who has actively sought to expand abortion rights and funding, Cardinal Czerny told Religion News Service (RNS) that the USCCB is not the body to make that ruling.
“It’s not up to bishops in general to make these decisions, it’s the bishop of the person,” said Czerny, the undersecretary of the Vatican’s office for Migrants and Refugees.
When, in mid-August 2004, Wilton Gregory, then-bishop of Belleville, Illinois, showed up in Daejeon, South Korea, for the triennial meeting of the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences, his nameplate had been corrected to Gregory Wilton. They certainly didn t know of any St. Wiltons. The 100-plus bishops and theologians there from East, South and Central Asia knew little of this American but were surprised and delighted that he was, like almost all of them, a man of color.
The meeting had a detailed agenda and would produce an extensive final statement plus a Message to the People of God in Asia and People of Good Will. This gathering every three years brings together the cream of the Asian church, theologians, men and women religious and lay experts.
Fighting for the soul of Joe Biden Biden persists in grave sin by supporting and campaigning in favor of abortion Follow Us
Question of the Day
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
In June 2004, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) was trying to work out what to do about Catholic politicians who were receiving Holy Communion while obstinately persisting in grave sin by supporting and campaigning in favor of abortion.
Most prominently at the time it was John Kerry who was running for president. To help the USCCB, then-Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, sent a memo giving direction on the question. The solution was contained in a single sentence in the Code of Canon Law, number 915: “Those upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to holy communion.”