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Catholic World News News Feature

Southern bishops: no Communion for pro-abort pols August 04, 2004

Three Catholic bishops of southeastern US cities have joined the small group of American bishops who have announced that public officials who support unrestricted abortion should be barred from the Eucharist.

In a public statement released on August 4, the three bishops say unequivocally:

we declare that Catholics serving in public life espousing positions contrary to the teaching of the Church on the sanctity and inviolability of human life, especially those running for or elected to public office, are not to be admitted to Holy Communion in any Catholic church within our jurisdictions: the Archdiocese of Atlanta, the Dioceses of Charleston and Charlotte.

The statement is signed by Archbishop John Donohue of Atlanta, Georgia; Bishop Robert Baker of Charleston, South Carolina; and Bishop Peter Jugis of Charlotte, North Carolina.

The three bishops join three other American prelates who have announced that they will not allow politicians to receive Communion if they are in public opposition to Church teachings on issues such as abortion, euthanasia, cloning, and same-sex marriage. The three bishops who had already taken that stand are Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis, Missouri; Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska; and Bishop Robert Vasa of Baker City, Oregon.

Several other American bishops have issued public statement saying that politicians should not receive Communion if they oppose Church teachings on fundamental issues involving the dignity of life, but have indicated that they will not attempt to enforce this policy.

A special ad hoc committee of the US bishops' conference, chaired by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, has been charged with drafting a general policy for dealing with public figures who oppose Church teachings. That committee is expected to make its recommendations sometime after nationwide elections in November of this year.

In an interim report, presented at a June meeting of the US bishops' conference in Denver, the McCarrick committee recommended against withholding the Eucharist from dissenting politicians. The full body of American bishops, after hearing that interim report, adopted a somewhat stronger statement, leaving the question for individual bishops to decide within their own dioceses.