Source: Politics<\/p>\n
While some U.S. Catholic bishops continue to denounce President Joe Biden for his support of legal abortion, their conference as a whole is likely to avoid direct criticism of him at its upcoming national meeting.<\/p>\n
The highest-profile agenda item is a proposed \u201cteaching document\u201d about the sacrament of Communion. Months of work on the document, by the conference\u2019s Committee on Doctrine, coincided with sometimes heated debate among the bishops as to whether Biden and other Catholic politicians who support abortion rights are unworthy of receiving Communion.<\/p>\n
A draft of the document circulating ahead of the Nov. 15-18 meeting in Baltimore breaks little new ground, though its language could be toughened during the gathering. The draft mentions
abortion only once and doesn\u2019t name Biden or other politicians, though it says at one point, \u201cLay people who exercise some form of public authority have a special responsibility to embody Church teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n
A member of the doctrine committee, Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth, Texas, said he and his colleagues decided that the document should avoid any trace of partisan politics.<\/p>\n
Yet Olson remains an outspoken critic of Biden\u2019s abortion stance, saying the president has \u201cupped the scale of scandal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s gone on record as saying abortion is a fundamental right while presenting himself as an exemplary Catholic,\u201d Olson told The Associated Press. \u201cThe issue of public confusion is really at stake here.\u201d<\/p>\n
While some bishops have made clear that they would deny Communion to Biden, there is no national policy on the matter. Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, has affirmed that Biden is welcome to receive Communion there.<\/p>\n
Last month, after a private meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican, Biden said the subject of abortion was not raised, but indicated he had the pontiff\u2019s general support.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just talked about the fact he was happy that I was a good Catholic and I should keep receiving Communion,\u201d Biden said.<\/p>\n
One conservative bishop, Thomas Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island, had urged Francis to confront Biden over abortion.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease challenge President Biden on this critical issue,\u201d Tobin tweeted before the Vatican meeting. \u201cHis persistent support of abortion is an embarrassment for the Church and a scandal to the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Throughout the year, Francis and some of his high-level aides have sought to tone down the anti-Biden sentiment with USCCB ranks, calling for dialogue and an approach to Communion that is pastoral rather than punitive.<\/p>\n
The friction between U.S. bishops and Catholic politicians who support abortion rights is a decades-old phenomenon; it reached a notably intense phase in 2004 when John Kerry, a Catholic, won the Democratic presidential nomination.<\/p>\n
But Biden\u2019s election \u2014 as only the second Catholic president after John F. Kennedy, and the first with an explicit record in favor of legal abortion \u2014 created an unprecedented dilemma for the bishops.<\/p>\n
Archbishop Jos\u00e9 Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, formed a working group last year to assess the \u201ccomplex and difficult situation\u201d posed by the newly elected president\u2019s stances on abortion and other issues that differ from official church teaching. Before disbanding, the group proposed the drafting of a new document addressing the issue of Communion \u2014 a project assigned to the doctrine committee.<\/p>\n