Martin Bürger, reporting for our friends at LifeSiteNews.com, recently posted an article that included an eye opening quote from Cardinal Raymond Burke, the former prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest Vatican court. Before that, Burke was the archbishop of St. Louis, Missouri and the bishop of La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Cardinal Burke pointed out that so-called “Catholic” politicians, including Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, must be denied Communion for advocating policies contrary to natural law and basic Church teaching, including on topics such as abortion and homosexuality.
“They may not present themselves to receive Holy Communion, because they’re not in communion with Christ,” Burke said during an August 8 Fox News interview with Martha MacCallum. “It’s not a punishment. Actually, it’s a favor to these people to tell them don’t approach, because if they approach, they commit sacrilege.”
According to Mr. Bürger’s reporting, the Cardinal said “Catholic” politicians so often back abortion and pro-LGBT legislation that many non-Catholic leaders of government believe that the Church has changed her teaching on these matters.
“I’ve had non-Catholic leaders of government in this nation tell me that they were certain that the Catholic Church’s teaching on abortion and the so-called same-sex ‘marriage,’ and so forth, have changed, because so many Catholics on Capitol Hill are regularly supporting this kind of legislation ... [a]nd that’s a scandal.”
Then-Archbishop Burke issued a similar warning to so-called Catholic pro-abortion Democrat John Kerry in 2004.
As Martin Bürger noted, politician supporting abortion or homosexuality is generally seen by faithful Catholics as “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin.”
Current Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has repeatedly touted his Catholic faith, even though his platform is radically pro-abortion.
Cardinal Burke: A pro-abortion presidential candidate ‘may not ... receive Holy Communion’.
He dedicated one section to “Reproductive Health,” which is generally a reference to abortion. The former vice president under President Barack Obama said, among other things, he “will work to codify Roe v. Wade, and his Justice Department will do everything in its power to stop the rash of state laws that so blatantly violate Roe v. Wade.”
Roe v. Wade is the 1973 Supreme Court ruling essentially imposing abortion across the country under the guise of a woman’s right to privacy. Many states passed legislation trying to limit the widespread killing of unborn babies. One form of legislation is so-called heartbeat bills, which prohibit abortions as soon as the unborn baby’s heartbeat can be detected after roughly six weeks of pregnancy. As Lauretta Brown, writing for the National Catholic Register observed, over the years, Biden has earned ample criticism and correction from U.S. bishops over his support of abortion. Time noted that, in 2006, “then-Wilmington Bishop Michael Saltarelli pressured Biden’s high school alma mater into dropping plans to name a new student center after him, citing a 2004 statement from the USCCB: ‘Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles.’”
Then-Archbishop Charles Chaput and Bishop James Conley responded to Biden’s comments on abortion in 2008, writing that “abortion is a foundational issue” and “is always grievously wrong.” They added that, “in reality, modern biology knows exactly when human life begins: at the moment of conception. Religion has nothing to do with it.”
“If, as Sen. Biden said, ‘I’m prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception,’ then he is not merely wrong about the science of new life; he also fails to defend the innocent life he already knows is there,” the bishops emphasized at the time.
And on Election Day 2008, Bishop John Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Florida, wrote a letter to Biden after it was disclosed that the vice-presidential candidate had received Communion the previous Sunday at a Mass he attended at a church in Bishop Ricard’s diocese.
In his letter, Bishop Ricard praised Biden’s positive contributions to public life but added, “I also observe, by your support for laws that fail to protect the unborn, a profound disconnection from your human and personal obligation to protect the weakest and most innocent among us: the child in the womb.”
Bishop Ricard’s letter cited relevant passages from the U.S. bishops’ 2004 document “Catholics in Political Life,” regarding reception of Communion by those in public life, indicating that someone with Biden’s position on abortion should not present himself for Communion.
2020 Election
abortion
Archbishop Charles Chaput
Bishop James Conley
Bishop Michael Saltarelli
Cardinal Raymond Burke
Catholic politicians
codify Roe v. Wade
Communion
heartbeat bills
homosexuality
Joe Biden
LGBTQ agenda
Planned Parenthood
Pro-Life
Same-sex marriage
Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura