On Some Recent writings by Bishops Regarding the Reception of Holy Communion by Public Advocates of Abortion

STATEMENT
of Bishop Liam Cary

On Some Recent writings by Bishops
Regarding the Reception of Holy Communion
by Public Advocates of Abortion

6 May 2021

President Joseph Biden’s coupling of Catholicism with public promotion of abortion has provoked a spirited debate among the bishops of the United States.

As I prepare to publish my own thoughts on the question, I wish here to endorse the pastoral letter of Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco and two articles by Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver.

In Before I Formed You in the Womb I Knew You, Archbishop Cordileone sets forth perennial Catholic teaching on the wrongfulness of abortion and on the moral responsibility of those who help to make it happen. Against this backdrop he then goes on to consider the worthy reception of Holy Communion: “Jesus Christ cannot be separated from His Body; to receive His Eucharistic Body and Blood while repudiating essential doctrines of His Mystical Body [the Church] is to eat and drink judgment on oneself,” as St. Paul taught us long ago.

But the spiritual damage extends far beyond individual self-deception. Catholics in public life who hitch their career and their Catholicism to the aggressive cause of abortion-on-demand “lead Catholics (and others) to assume that the moral teaching of the Catholic Church on the inviolate sanctity of human life is not seriously held.” Thus do they mislead multitudes down the permissive path of darkened conscience to approve or procure the taking of innocent life themselves.

To be faithful to their office, therefore, bishops must “correct Catholics who erroneously . . . promote abortion,” even if that correction leads to “the public medicine of temporary exclusion from the Lord’s Table.” In this regard the Archbishop has in mind, as all bishops should, the Word of the Lord to the prophet Ezekiel:  “When I say to the wicked, ‘You wicked, you must die,’ and you do not speak up to warn the wicked about their ways, they shall die in their sins, but I will hold you responsible for their blood.’”

In America magazine and Catholic World Report Archbishop Aquila eloquently raised the issue of “Eucharistic Coherence”—“our freedom . . . to live lives that are consistent with God’s truth and the truths of the Church or not.”

The question is not a new one. “From the very beginning, the teaching around the Eucharist from Jesus Himself was a . . . source of turmoil and division among Jesus’ followers, to the point that many stopped following Him.” Leaving them free to go away from the very source of mercy, our Lord taught a great lesson:  “Love is indeed merciful, but authentic love is also truthful.”

Here we touch the heart of our Eucharistic heritage:  “The truth may be hard to speak and hard to hear, but love speaks the truth.”

“When the Church minimizes the danger of an unworthy reception of the Eucharist,” therefore, “she fails to properly love” public officials who claim to be following their conscience and receive “the Body and Blood of Jesus in a way that endangers their eternal salvation.” They forget that “conscience does not excuse any decision simply because a person makes a personal judgment about good and evil.” They forget that they must first form their conscience rightly, “so that good and evil can be properly discerned.” They forget that an unformed conscience can all too easily be an erroneous conscience and lead them and others widely astray.

“A well-formed conscience,” by contrast, “submits the person’s heart, will and mind to the will of our loving Father.” For conscience is the voice of God in the depths of the soul and “should never go against God’s law.”

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These few columns convey only a fraction the valuable insights which archbishops Cordileone and Aquila bring forth from the storehouse of the Church’s wisdom. I urge you to read their writings and discover for yourself the service they have done for the Church at this critical hour.

https://sfarchdiocese.org/inthewombhttps://sfarchdiocese.org/inthewomb

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/04/14/aquila-denver-eucharist-politicians-teaching-240396

https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2021/04/18/eucharistic-coherence/

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