A Catholic priest told CNN on Sunday that members of his church are furious with Catholic bishops who are trying to punish politicians who support a woman’s right to choose by denying them communion. For some members of the church, the move is the final straw.
Father Edward Beck, a priest and a CNN religious commentator told the network that some parishioners approached him at Mass earlier on Sunday, furious with the bishops for advancing an effort to deny communion to pro-choice public figures of the Catholic faith.
“I had mass this morning, a few of them actually, and unsolicited, I can’t tell you how many people came up to me and were really upset about this,” said Father Beck. “I mean, across the political spectrum. And basically what they were saying was, you had a former president who checked none of the ‘life issue’ boxes for the Catholic church except that he said he would appoint Supreme Court justices that could overturn Roe v. Wade. And that’s all that seemed to matter.”
“And then you have Joe Biden, a practicing Catholic, who is pro-choice, although he says he’s personally opposed to abortion, and people are talking about denying him communion,” Father Beck continued. “The reception of communion — people see it as really based in hypocrisy. I can’t tell you, some said this is the final straw for them. If the bishops go ahead with that, that’s it for them.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) voted on Friday to create document on the meaning of communion that some hope would limit President Joe Biden and other pro-abortion politicians participation in the Eucharist.
The move against Biden, a devout Catholic who regularly attends Mass is odd, especially coming from conservative leaders in the Catholic church who ignored the many improprieties of Biden’s predecessor because they supported his politics. The New York Times notes that this is a brand of Catholicism unique to America and is increasingly at odds with the Vatican.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) called the bishops “nakedly partisan” and “hypocrites” over the move, and mentioned other prominent Republican members of the Catholic church who support issues not in line with the teachings of the church but were never told that they could not take part in communion.
