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US President: Joe Biden outside a church in Washington DC in early June
Photo: Chris Kleponis / POOL / EPA
It is a debate that divides the Roman Catholic Church in the US and exposes internal rifts: 280 bishops are due to discuss this week whether politicians should receive communion even though they support abortion and LGBTQ rights - such as Joe Biden.
As the second Catholic after John F. Kennedy to serve as US President, Democrat Biden has alarmed some church leaders by promoting same-sex marriage and abortion rights.
Views that, in the opinion of hardliners, contradict church teaching.
For this reason, the US Bishops' Conference will probably decide at its virtual annual meeting from Wednesday to Friday whether it should instruct the teaching committee to draw up a document on the subject of receiving the Eucharist.
It should be about the central sacrament of the Roman Catholic faith.
According to the Catholic News Agency (KNA), the proposal comes from the chairman of the US Bishops' Conference, Archbishop José Gomez from Los Angeles.
"Source of Discord"
60 bishops, led by Washington Archbishop Cardinal Wilton Gregory, are said to have appealed to Gomez to postpone the issue. According to the report, they are referring to the Prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, who warned the US bishops in a letter to unity in early May. Such a debate could become a "source of discord". Whatever the Bishops' Conference decides, Ladaria said, the unity of the Church must be kept in mind as a guideline.
Should the conference decide to commission the document, the bishops would discuss it and, if necessary, vote on it at their autumn meeting.
Back in 2004, the conference published a statement saying that individual bishops could decide whether to refuse communion to Catholic politicians who support the right to abortion.
Biden has become an advocate for LGBTQ rights over the past few years.
Since taking office in January, he has also lifted state restrictions on abortion pills to make them more accessible.
He also proposed removing a long-standing ban on federal funding for abortions from his budget in 2022.
The bishops disagree on whether to denounce what some Catholics see as a contradiction in Biden's beliefs and actions.
Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Joseph Cordileone, argued in a letter in May that Catholics who "do not publicly represent the faith and moral teachings of the Catholic Church" - including politicians like Biden - should not receive communion.
San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy published an essay a few days after Cordileone's letter warning that refusing communion for Biden would lead to further division among Catholics.
Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of Dignity USA, a group that supports LGBTQ Catholics, wrote in an article published by Religious News Service last week that the bishops were "outrageously biased" by voting on the issue and Biden and other politicians may have refused communion.
"To refuse communion to a Catholic in order to punish him for his identity, his actions or his belief is coercion." This violates the duty of care, which embodies the central work of the priests.
US Catholics majority in favor of Biden
A poll by Pew Research in March found that two-thirds of US Catholics believe Biden's views shouldn't exclude him from communion.
And according to KNA, Cardinal Gregory has already signaled that he has no problem giving communion to Biden.
As the President's local bishop, the decision under canon law is therefore his.
A document from the US Bishops' Conference would only be of a recommendation.
wit / Reuters
