Divisions in Catholic Church collide with politics
When it comes to political intrigue and division, it’s hard to match the Catholic Church.
The schisms within the church have marked its history for centuries.
Now, a decadeslong disagreement among church leaders has landed in the middle of U.S. politics, and it’s playing out in our backyard.
The elevation of San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy to cardinal by Pope Francis on Sunday follows the announcement by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco that he will deny House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Communion because of her support for abortion rights. Cordileone, a San Diego native, is a former auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego.
McElroy has been an outspoken opponent of such action, declaring that denying Communion is “a tool in political warfare.”
McElroy’s position is in line with the Vatican, which last year warned American bishops against pushing to deny Communion to politicians who support abortion rights, including Joe Biden, who is the second Catholic to become president after John F. Kennedy more than six decades ago.
As widely noted, McElroy, 68, was selected cardinal ahead of the more senior Cordileone. Beyond the Communion dispute, the current San Diego bishop is an ideological ally of Pope Francis and has called for greater efforts to combat climate change and poverty, encouraged improving outreach to the LGBTQ community and urged Catholics to broadly pursue social justice.
The disagreement over denying Communion is a familiar one, particularly in San Diego.
In 1989, then-San Diego Bishop Leo T. Maher denied Communion to Lucy Killea, a former City Council and Assembly member running in a special election for a state Senate seat, because of her stance favoring abortion rights. Maher’s action made headlines around the globe and some observers at the time believed the controversy boosted support for Killea, who won the election.
Other politicians subsequently were either banned from Communion or were told or asked not to take part in the church sacrament. The list of officeholders includes former Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, former New York Mayor Mario Cuomo, former California Gov. Gray Davis, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani — a rare Republican among the group.
In the Catholic Church, the sacrament of the Eucharist is the ritual also known as Holy Communion. According to Catholic theology, bread and wine blessed by a priest in the ritual become the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, wrote Timothy Gabrielli, a Catholic scholar at the University of Dayton.
“Such is its central role in Catholicism, it has been called the ‘fount and apex of the whole Christian life,’ ” he wrote.
In 2019, Biden, then a former vice president running for president, was denied Communion by a priest at a Catholic church in South Carolina. Biden’s home diocese in Wilmington, Del., issued a statement
saying Bishop W. Francis Malooly “has consistently refrained from politicizing the Eucharist, and will continue to do so.”
The day after Biden’s Jan. 20, 2021, inauguration, he received Communion from Cardinal Wilton Daniel Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, D.C. — an act that was assailed by some church conservatives.
In 2004, the New York Post wrote that then-Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts criticized Pope John Paul II over the move to deny Kerry Communion, noting “the pope gave Communion to Gen. (Augusto) Pinochet,” the Chilean dictator accused of murders and human rights violations.
Some analysts contend the Communion dispute contributed to Kerry’s loss to George W. Bush.
Pelosi last week also suggested church officials such as Cordileone were being hypocritical.
“I wonder about the death penalty, which I’m opposed to. So is the church, but they take no action against people who may not share their view,” the House speaker said on MSNBC.
Pelosi is expected to again cruise to re-election in San Francisco this year. If anything, the dispute may improve her already strong political standing in the famously liberal city.
In an open letter on May 20, Cordileone said his action to deny Pelosi Communion was in keeping with canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law.
“After numerous attempts to speak with her to help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she is causing, and the danger to her own soul she is risking, I have determined that the point has come in which I must make a public declaration that she is not to be admitted to Holy Communion,”
according to the letter.
McElroy has expressed grave concerns about abortion. In an essay last year, he said Democratic control of the White House and Congress “is a sign that, outside of the courts, federal progress on the pivotal issue of abortion will not occur in the immediate future.
“This is an immense sadness for every bishop in our country and for the church as a whole, and leaders of the church are ardently seeking a step that will advance the protection of the unborn,” he wrote in the magazine America: The Jesuit Review.
But he said the Catechism of the Catholic Church says the essence of Communion is the overarching goal of “the divine life and that unity of the People of God.”
A policy of excluding leaders who support abortion rights, he said, “will constitute an assault on that unity, on that charity.”
“Fully half the Catholics in the United States will see this action as partisan in nature, and it will bring the terrible partisan divisions that have plagued our nation into the very act of worship that is intended by God to cause and signify our oneness,” he wrote.
McElroy has questioned the selectivity of the Communion sanction on abortion, while insisting more urgency be given to addressing racism, helping the underprivileged, aiding immigrants and protecting the environment.
“The death toll from abortion is more immediate, but the long-term death toll from unchecked climate change is larger and threatens the very future of humanity,” he said in a speech in 2020.
It seems political and religious discourse will benefit from greater focus on such existential issues, regardless of where one stands on the dispute over Communion.