The Best Bishop We Have Is Retired

 

A retired archbishop has said that President-elect Joe Biden should not receive Holy Communion because of his stance on abortion -- an issue that has divided Catholic leadership in the U.S.

The head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said Biden’s support for abortion rights presents the church with a “difficult and complex situation,” but Charles J. Chaput, a retired archbishop, has made his stance clear: Biden has demonstrated that “he is not in full Communion with the Catholic Church.”

                                                               Archbishop Chaput
 

“The implications for the present moment are clear,” Chaput wrote in the magazine First Things. “Public figures who identify as 'Catholic' give scandal to the faithful when receiving Communion by creating the impression that the moral laws of the Church are optional.”

 “When bishops publicly announce their willingness to give Communion to Mr. Biden, without clearly teaching the gravity of his facilitating the evil of abortion (and his approval of same-sex relationships), they do a serious disservice to their brother bishops and their people.”

 Catholics have been sharply divided over the issue of denying Holt Communion to public figures who take controversial stances on issues near and dear to the church, with bishops sharply divided over Biden in particular.

The USCCP president, Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez, ahead of Thanksgiving announced a working group of bishops who would assess the dilemma. Gomez rankled conservative bishops when he congratulated Biden on his victory and praised many of the president-elect's stances, including on immigration and racial justice.

 Washington archbishop Cardinal Wilton Gregory already declared that he would not deny Biden any Communion. Cardinal Gregory would Biden’s local bishop, and he called the issue of denial a “confusion” over Church teaching. 

 

                                                                     Cardinal Gregory