Biden should be refused communion for actions that have paved the way for “grave moral evils,” says a retired Philadelphia archbishop.
In a statement published by First Things, a journal on religion, former Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput declared that denying Communion to Biden is no slight matter and that “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.”
Bishops, Chaput went on, “give similar scandal by not speaking up publicly about the issue and danger of sacrilege.”
Chaput’s commentary follows a declaration by Washington, D.C. Archbishop Wilton Gregory in America Magazine, a Jesuit publication, last month that he will not deny Communion to Biden.
Bishops like Gregory are “responsible before God for the care of souls and the integrity of the sacraments within the Church,” Chaput says. While they may have some license, “no bishop can presume to ignore basic moral and sacramental principles.”
“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,” Chaput stated.
“By his actions during the course of his public life, Mr. Biden has demonstrated that he is not in full communion with the Catholic Church,” the retired archbishop went on.
“[M]any of his actions and words have also supported or smoothed the way for grave moral evils in our public life that have resulted in the destruction of millions of innocent lives. Mr. Biden has said that he will continue to advance those same policies as president, and thus should not receive Holy Communion,” Chaput unequivocally declared.
Chaput concluded that the matter is purely apolitical and is instead an issue of adhering to the basic tenets of Catholicism.
“Moreover, there is also the pressing matter of pastoral concern for a man’s salvation,” he warned. “At minimum, every bishop has the duty of privately discussing these vital moral issues and the destructive effect of receiving Communion unworthily with public figures who act contrary to Church teaching.”
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