USA: Bishops urged against ‘weaponization’ of Communion…
RNS – Religious News Service reports:
A group of 60 Catholic Democrats in the House of Representatives, including Reps. Rosa DeLauro and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, released a “statement of principles” Friday (June 18) calling on U.S. Catholic bishops to avoid “weaponizing” the Eucharist. The statement was announced shortly after clerics voted to draft a document on Communion following debate that included discussion of whether or not to deny the Eucharist to Catholic politicians who back abortion rights.
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From the US Catholic Bishops Conference website:
Action Item #7:
The full body of bishops also voted to task the Committee on Doctrine to move forward with the drafting of a formal statement on the meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the Church. Requiring a simple majority vote for approval, the action item passed with 168 votes in favor, 55 against, and 6 abstentions.
https://www.usccb.org/news/2021/us-bishops-approve-action-items-their-agenda-spring-general-assembly
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In defiance of Vatican, US bishops vote to advance Communion document
Motion to draft document passes by 75% of the bishops’ conference
NCR online reports:
https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/defiance-vatican-us-bishops-vote-advance-communion-document
Letting go of Christendom – the illusion that Christian values can be promoted by state coercion – should be easy for Americans – especially in light of the influence of John Courtney Murray at Vatican II.
Now that we can all recall that bishops never sanctioned themselves for the clerical child abuse debacle, and US bishops still mostly preferred Trump despite the threat he poses to the stability of the US and the survival of truth-telling itself, this action against Biden is too obviously a desperate and futile effort to look authoritative.
Not noticing Pope Francis’s insistence that real authority is based upon service – not upon the attempt to control others – these men seem bent on making themselves both foolish and irrelevant. Patriarchy is an illness as well as a scourge.
Isn’t it it just extraordinary how the cast, characters and storylines of the Gospels just continue to reappear and repeat themselves throughout history?! The Pharisees will always be with us!
I couldn’t agree more, Sean, with all of that.
When will they ever learn? !!
@Sean If standing up for the right to life of the unborn is foolish in the eyes of secular society I’ll carry on being foolish.
And buoyed up in my foolishness by the upcoming US Supreme Court decision on Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks. This looks like it could be the biggest step in 50 years towards directly undermining Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
Can there really be anyone on the Association of Catholic Priests website not delighted by the prospect of beginning down the road of doing away with Roe?
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/the-stakes-of-the-supreme-courts-new-abortion-case/
And as for irrelevant, 74% of church-going Catholics in America back the Bishops in refusing communion to Joe Biden.
Which hardly makes the Bishops irrelevant.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/poll-majority-of-church-going-catholics-say-pro-abortion-politicians-shouldnt-receive-communion/
There might be a more fruitful discussion to be had by entertaining the views of the US Bishops with a little less passion and, dare I say it, a little more respect.
The National Review has not much authority as a polling organization. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/20/8-key-findings-about-catholics-and-abortion/
As for CatholicVote it is very clearly not a bona fide polling organization at all, but an exercise in indoctrination/propaganda with its insidious leading questions in place of simple polling inquiries, which should be as neutral as possible.