U.S. Catholic bishops overwhelmingly approve document on Communion that stops short of calling for withholding the sacrament from politicians such as President Biden who support abortion rights.
BALTIMORE — U.S. Catholic bishops overwhelmingly approved a long-anticipated document on Communion on Wednesday that stops short of calling for withholding the sacrament from politicians such as President Joe Biden who support abortion rights but offers plenty of tacit justification for individual bishops to do so.
It was approved by a 222-8 vote at the conference's fall assembly in Maryland after receiving only minor revisions in recent days by drafters on the bishops’ Committee on Doctrine. The document does not identify Biden or other politicians by name, though it says at one point, “Lay people who exercise some form of public authority have a special responsibility to embody Church teaching.”
Naumann, wearing a facemask with the words “REMEMBER The Unborn,” called for bishops to find common ground where politicians agree with the church’s vision for “the dignity of the human person.” But he also urged them “not to be afraid to fulfill our obligations to let them know how serious” it is to dissent from church teaching.
Biden has said that Pope Francis, too, told him in a recent private meeting in Rome to continue receiving Communion. While the Vatican has not confirmed that, Biden did subsequently go to Mass and receive Communion at a church in Rome — evidence that Francis did not forbid priests in the Diocese of Rome, which he oversees, from giving Communion to Biden.
The document also says the sacrament is central to church unity and worship and leads to “personal and moral transformation,” motivating believers to take care of vulnerable people and, in a broader sense, the environment.