Faith and politics

Richard A. Sokerka

With Election Day 2019 in the rearview mirror, all eyes are now intensely focused on the presidential election in 2020.

And with every candidate for president in the Democrat Party in lock step with the party’s platform that supports abortion on demand at any time during a pregnancy, the stage has been set for the inevitable clash between politics and faith on this issue.

That was evident recently when Father Robert Morey, pastor of St. Anthony Parish in the Diocese of Charleston, S.C., denied Joe Biden, a Democrat candidate for president and a Catholic, Holy Communion at Sunday Mass for Biden’s support of legal abortion. The former senator from Delaware and former vice president under President Obama, Biden had been campaigning in South Carolina.

“Sadly, this past Sunday, I had to refuse Holy Communion to former Vice President Joe Biden,” Father Morey said in a statement sent to Catholic News Agency. “Holy Communion signifies we are one with God, each other and the Church. Our actions should reflect that. Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of Church teaching,” the priest wrote.

Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law states: “Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.” Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote a memorandum to the U.S. bishops in 2004, explaining the application of Canon Law 915 to the reception of Holy Communion. The memorandum stated, “the minister of Holy Communion may find himself in the situation where he must refuse to distribute Holy Communion to someone, such as in cases of a declared excommunication, a declared interdict, or an obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin.”

The case of a “Catholic politician” who is “consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws” would constitute “formal cooperation” in grave sin that is “manifest.” When the individual perseveres in grave sin and still presents himself for Holy Communion, “the minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it,” Cardinal Ratzinger wrote.

Biden’s campaign platform would seek to “codify” Roe v. Wade. At a Planned Parenthood event this summer, Biden promised to “eliminate all of the changes that President Trump made” to its programs, and would increase funding of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, which has given him a 100-percent rating. He also changed his mind on the Hyde Amendment, once supporting the policy that protects taxpayer dollars from funding abortions and now opposing it and calling for its repeal.

The denial of Holy Communion to Biden signals that any candidate’s support for abortion on demand is, indeed, a major issue in determining whom voters will cast their ballot for in the presidential election.