- Feb 5, 2002
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Certain Catholic media platforms that often function as de facto extensions of Jen Psaki’s White House Press Office have continually urged the U.S. bishops to dodge the issue of pro-abortion Catholic politicians receiving Holy Communion. Pope Francis, for his part, offered some helpful comments on this contentious matter during a September press conference, held as he was returning to Rome from a visit to Hungary and Slovakia. “Those who are not in the community cannot receive Communion,” the pope said, speaking of the unbaptized and those “who are estranged” from the Church.
Exactly. And that is the key ecclesial fact in play when Catholic political leaders willfully promote elective abortion—just as it was when Catholic public officials refused to desegregate schools in their jurisdictions. In both instances, the men and women in question deny, by their actions, an essential truth of Catholic faith: the inalienable dignity of every human person. Their actions publicly declare that they are not in full communion with the Church.
That is the objective reality; it is not a judgment on the subjective culpability or moral condition of a given public official. No minister of Holy Communion can know with certainty that that public official is in a state of mortal sin when he or she approaches the altar to receive the sacrament of the Eucharist. The official in question may be ill-catechized, or invincibly ignorant, or cognitively impaired. But the subjective moral condition of the pro-abortion politician—Is this person in a state of mortal sin?—is not the crux of the matter. And the question of the reception of Holy Communion by Catholic politicians promoting abortions shouldn’t be framed in those terms.
Continued below.
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exc...rancis-estranged-catholics-and-holy-communion
Exactly. And that is the key ecclesial fact in play when Catholic political leaders willfully promote elective abortion—just as it was when Catholic public officials refused to desegregate schools in their jurisdictions. In both instances, the men and women in question deny, by their actions, an essential truth of Catholic faith: the inalienable dignity of every human person. Their actions publicly declare that they are not in full communion with the Church.
That is the objective reality; it is not a judgment on the subjective culpability or moral condition of a given public official. No minister of Holy Communion can know with certainty that that public official is in a state of mortal sin when he or she approaches the altar to receive the sacrament of the Eucharist. The official in question may be ill-catechized, or invincibly ignorant, or cognitively impaired. But the subjective moral condition of the pro-abortion politician—Is this person in a state of mortal sin?—is not the crux of the matter. And the question of the reception of Holy Communion by Catholic politicians promoting abortions shouldn’t be framed in those terms.
Continued below.
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exc...rancis-estranged-catholics-and-holy-communion
