It’s a Mess at Mass
Abortion rights stance may lead to Communion ban for Biden, others
President Biden’s regular attendance at Catholic Mass could be under scrutiny as the nation’s bishops debate whether Biden and other politicians’ stance on abortion should ban them from taking Communion.
The nation’s Catholic bishops meeting virtually this week overwhelmingly voted to create new guidelines on the meaning of Communion — a decision that could pave the way for priests to prevent Biden and other politicians from participating in the rite.
Denying the Holy Eucharist would be a personal blow to the president, who often talks of his Catholic faith and quotes the Bible.
Biden is a faithful participant at Sunday Mass and a devout Catholic, and his current bishop in Washington supports allowing him to take Communion, but the Democratic president’s support of federal funding for abortion clashes with the Pope’s position that abortion is morally wrong.
While Biden says he’s personally opposed to abortion, he flip-flopped two years ago and dropped his opposition to federal funding for abortion.
It’s a simmering controversy that was waiting to explode.
The debate over church attendance and politicians’ positions on abortion is not a new one, as other Democrats have faced similar calls for bans on Communion.
Former Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry faced objections to his getting Communion during his presidential campaign because of his stance on abortion rights. The controversy engulfed Kerry’s campaign for a while as reporters staked out churches to see if he was taking Communion.
In 2019, a Catholic priest in South Carolina, Rev. Robert Morey, rebuked Biden for his position on abortion and denied him Communion but the story didn’t have much legs — at least partly because Biden wasn’t yet the presumed nominee.
“That’s just my personal life and I am not going to get into that at all,” Biden said at the time.
But now that he’s president, priests and bishops are under renewed pressure to say whether they would offer him Communion.
At the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the vote to come up with new rules of Communion came after a heated debate.
The Vatican and other supporters of Pope Francis strongly objected to the measure, but it passed with 73% support, according to a statement by the bishops’ conference.
This means that bishops will soon come up with a new policy laying out conditions under which politicians may receive Communion, which could lead to a decision to ban them because of their support for abortion rights.
The church currently allows any member in good standing to receive Communion and there is no stated policy on whether supporting abortion rights should disqualify someone. Individual bishops are divided over whether they would ban parishioners from getting communion over their abortion beliefs.
The Vatican would ultimately need to approve any action by the bishops and Pope Francis this week warned them not to let Communion be used politically.