Bishops, Biden and Communion

After more than a year of intense debate on a document originally intended to target pro-choice Catholic politicians like President Biden, the U.S. bishops approved a milquetoast text summarizing teaching on Communion.

Michael Sean Winters: This week the meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops gets underway. If the bishops vote to approve the proposed document on the Eucharist, it will not be because the text is good, but because the document is so mediocre.

Watch: Four experts discuss the U.S. bishops' controversial document on "eucharistic coherence," which was originally planned to cover denying Communion to pro-choice politicians such as President Joe Biden.

Commentary: The impending debate at the U.S. bishops' conference could have significant implications for many high-profile Catholics. However, the institutionalization of the Eucharist affects the spiritual health of millions of Catholics every single day.

We say: Don't be fooled by the bishops' spin. Although many would like to backpedal this PR train wreck, the document has been the pet project of a crowd of right-wing bishops who want to deny Communion to Joe Biden.

Commentary: The U.S. bishops' proposed new document on the Eucharist may not mention pro-choice Catholic politicians like President Joe Biden. But, even still, the document reads as if it could have been created before the Second Vatican Council.

Michael Sean Winters: When the US bishops gather in Baltimore this month, they will choose whether to pursue the culture war approach some bishops prefer, or to pursue communion with the bishop of Rome. They can't do both.

Several of the more conservative U.S. Catholic bishops, some of them among Pope Francis' most persistent critics, took to social media Oct. 29 to express their disapproval of his meeting with President Biden at the Vatican.

U.S. President Joe Biden says that Pope Francis told him he was a "good Catholic" and that he should keep receiving Communion during their Oct. 29 meeting at the Vatican.  

Pope Francis on Oct. 9 met with U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

U.S. President Joe Biden should not be denied Communion, said Cardinal Peter Turkson, warning that the denial of the sacrament should only take place in "extreme cases."

Signs of the Times: The U.S. bishops are working on a document on the Eucharist, which could be very helpful if they do it right. The chances are slim. But I have six suggestions on what should the bishops say in their document on the Eucharist.

On a Georgetown panel, Bishop Kevin Rhoades downplayed concerns that a planned document from the U.S. bishops would create norms prohibiting pro-choice Catholic politicians like President Biden from receiving Communion.

Commentary: Progressive Catholics are not "pro-abortion." Their fundamental disagreement with right-wing Catholics is not on whether abortion is an evil. The disagreement is about how best to go about preventing it.

Many Catholics are expressing anger, disappointment and confusion about the U.S. bishops' vote to approve plans to draft a document on pro-choice politicians and Communion, according to an email survey of NCR readers and members.

NCR Connections: We know 168 U.S. bishops voted in favor, 55 against and six abstained on the proposal to draft a document on the Eucharist. But who voted which way? My answer probably isn't the one you're looking for.

Commentary: The problem didn't begin with Biden. Whatever words on Communion the bishops come up with in November will not address the deeper wound, the loss of moral authority they brought upon themselves.

D.C.'s Holy Trinity Church, which President Biden often visits for Sunday Mass, said in a statement following the contentious U.S. bishops' meeting that it has no plans to deny Communion at liturgical celebrations.

We say: Bishops may be the leaders of our church, but it's not their church. It belongs to God, if it belongs to anyone, and the entire people of God have a claim on it.

Commentary: I believe that my grandfather's peace lay in knowing the difference between the politicized mandates of institutional Catholicism, and his own morality guided by the small "c" catholic church, meaning "universal."

Distinctly Catholic: My fear is not that the eventual document will adopt this lousy EWTN theology hook, line and sinker. But if the bishops give so much as an inch to the zealots, the harm to the church will continue.

Following a meeting at which a majority voted to advance a divisive document on the Eucharist, the U.S. bishops' conference is seeking to clear up its own mixed messaging and is insisting the document will no longer target Catholic politicians.

Commentary: Conservative media headlines proclaimed that the majority of U.S. Catholics think President Biden should be denied Communion because of his pro-choice stance. But there are big problems with these headlines and the poll behind them.

Faith Seeking Understanding: As U.S. bishops imprudently forged ahead with a document on Communion ostensibly targeting Biden, I returned to some of Merton's writings on ecclesial and social crises of the mid-1960s.

While the U.S. bishops authorized the drafting of a teaching document on the Eucharist and insisted its planned section on "eucharistic consistency" was not aimed at denying Communion to any specific group of people, the bishops' online debate led many Italian media outlets to a different conclusion.

Sixty Catholic Democrats in the House of Representatives, including Reps. Rosa DeLauro and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, released a "statement of principles" Friday calling on U.S. bishops to avoid "weaponizing" the Eucharist.

In a vote that was both expected and defying the Vatican, the U.S. Catholic bishops advanced on June 18 plans to draft a document addressing Communion for pro-choice Catholic politicians.

Distinctly Catholic: The proponents of drafting a document probably win the ballot. But they have lost something far greater. They have divided the conference in ways it has never been divided in my lifetime, perhaps ever.

Pope Francis' closest U.S. allies made an at times desperate appeal during the U.S. bishops' spring assembly not to charge ahead with plans for a divisive document regarding Communion and pro-choice Catholic politicians.

On the opening day of a virtual meeting of the U.S. Catholic bishops, a majority of U.S. prelates voted to limit discussion on whether to proceed with drafting a contentious document regarding Communion and pro-choice Catholic politicians.

Students for Life of America will hold protests in seven U.S. cities June 16, urging on an effort by U.S. Catholic bishops who seek to deny President Joe Biden Communion over his support for abortion rights.

Distinctly Catholic: As the U.S. bishops meet, all eyes will be focused on whether they will agree to draft a document on the Eucharist — a proposal that originated after Biden's election. Get ready for lousy arguments.

NCR interview with video: Former Speaker of the House John Boehner calls Joe Biden "a good man, a good Catholic and a good politician." In his own memoir, Boehner doesn't mince words about former colleagues.

Francis, the comic strip: Francis and Brother Leo discuss who truly is worthy to receive Communion.

Religion News Service asked more than 180 members of the U.S. Catholic bishops' conference their position on denying Communion to Catholic politicians who back the right to an abortion, a practice the church condemns. Few offered a firm yes-or-no answer.

The bishops pushing for a document about the denial of Communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians are the same prelates who have previously opposed Pope Francis' approach to pastoral life.

We say: Just do it. Use this virtual meeting and ram through a document that will forever brand the church in the U.S. for the out-of-touch, cultural warrior-obsessed organization it has become.

Distinctly Catholic: Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez is charging ahead with steps to approve the drafting of a text about pro-choice politicians being barred from holy Communion.

Signs of the Times: What is going on here? If the pope is against abortion, why is the Vatican intervening in conservative Catholic bishops' efforts to deny Communion to pro-choice politicians?

After receiving an unprecedented letter from 67 bishops appealing for a delay, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' president explained in a memo the procedure followed in bringing the question to a vote.

As the U.S. bishops consider a new document to address Catholic politicians who support legal abortion, historians and theologians describe the U.S. church-state confrontation as one lacking much precedent.

Commentary: Just as the true meaning of the Eucharist needs to be defended from those who would use it for publicity, it needs to be defended from those who would use it to divide the worthy from the unworthy.

As the U.S. bishops' conference is set to debate whether to deny the Eucharist to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, ordinary Catholics are considering what the sacrament does for them.

Commentary by Sen. Tim Kaine: Bishops contemplating a declaration that some public officials are unworthy to receive Communion should recall that, by church doctrine, no one is worthy to receive Communion, even bishops.

After a Vatican warning to the U.S. bishops to proceed with caution in their plan to issue a document on pro-choice Catholic politicians like President Joe Biden, the prelates appear to have limited options for going forward.

Cardinal Luis Ladaria's letter systematically pulls apart the rhetorical building blocks that had been assembled by the advocates of denying Communion to President Joe Biden.

As some American bishops discuss the possibility of denying Communion to Catholic politicians such as President Joe Biden for supporting abortion-rights policies, a senior Vatican prelate said decisions about administering the sacrament rest solely on the bishop giving the Eucharist.

Signs of the Times: Will President Joe Biden be denied Communion by the U.S. bishops' conference because of his position on abortion? This is a stupid story for canonical, theological and political reasons.

Distinctly Catholic: All Catholics should approach the Eucharist in fear and trembling, but also in hope and confidence. However great our sins, God's mercy is yet greater. That goes for President Joe Biden too.

Amid conservative Catholics' growing calls to deny President Biden Communion, San Francisco Archbishop Cordileone has released a letter calling for public figures who support abortion to be barred from the sacrament.

Panelists for "Taking Measure of the 'Biden Effect' " joined the intensifying debate within the U.S. church about whether the Catholic president should be barred from Communion over his support for legal abortion.

Less than three months after the formation of a controversial working group to deal with President Joe Biden, the U.S. bishops' conference has disbanded the group, which produced a public rupture among the hierarchy.

A U.S. bishops' conference working group to deal with the Biden administration does not include President Joe Biden's longtime bishop in Delaware nor his new local bishop in Washington, D.C. The group has met virtually twice.

Distinctly Catholic: George Weigel's praise of Archbishop Gomez's churlish Inauguration Day statement invites historical comparison to the 17th-century threat of Jansenism. Weigel is flirting with the stuff of schism.

A small but vocal minority wants to punish the new president for his support of legalized abortion, gay rights and birth control. These are the bishops who consider Biden a bad Catholic who should not be allowed to go to Communion. But even the late Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, no liberal, thought this was a bad idea and told his priests not to play cop at the Communion rail.