WILMINGTON, Delaware, July 26, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — LifeSiteNews is exclusively revealing a photo showing radically pro-abortion President Joe Biden receiving Holy Communion at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Wilmington last Saturday, despite his own rejection of Catholic teaching on the “intrinsically disordered” nature of abortion.
The self-professed Catholic politician attended the 4:00 p.m. vigil Mass at St. Joseph’s on the Brandywine church in Wilmington, Delaware, on July 24.
Pro-life advocates keeping vigil outside the church “begged” the recently appointed pastor Msgr. John P. Hopkins, as he entered the church, not to give Holy Communion to the pro-abortion politician.
The two pro-lifers also called out to the president on his way in and out of the church, asking him not to receive Holy Communion and commit a sacrilege. Members of the press attended the event, noted the pro-lifers to LifeSiteNews, but have yet to properly interview the group keeping vigil when the president attends Mass at the church.
The image shows Msgr. Hopkins in the act of handing Holy Communion to Joe Biden, who is receiving the Host on his hand. Biden is seen wearing sunglasses inside the church.
While Biden was attending the 4 p.m. Mass, his official schedule shows that he did not leave his residence until 4:14 p.m. and only arrived at the church at 4:17 p.m. Some 22 minutes later, Biden left the church for his residence.
Joe Biden has been very open about his support for abortion as well as gender ideology. He has gone so far as to call abortion an “essential health service” and wishes to enshrine abortion into federal law.
Biden also advocates a number of policies which would promote LGBT ideology in everyday life in America, as well as across the world. As vice president, the first “wedding” Biden officiated was between two men.
The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is always wrong because it kills an innocent human being, thus violating the Church’s prohibition on murder, a teaching which “remains unchangeable.”
“Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense,” reads the Catechism of the Catholic Church. “The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life.”
Furthermore, the Church’s Canon Law stipulates that under no circumstances are those who persist in manifest grave sin to receive the Holy Eucharist. “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.”
It was based on this very directive of Canon Law that Fr. Robert E. Morey of St. Anthony Catholic Church in Florence, South Carolina, refused to give Biden Holy Communion in 2019. In comments to media in the aftermath, Morey explained his reasons: “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,” he added.
In response, Biden claimed that Fr. Morey’s actions were unique, and even contrary to his experience with Pope Francis: “It’s not a position that I’ve found anywhere else, including from the Holy Father, who gives me Communion.”
U.S. bishops’ Eucharistic document will not deal with issue of Communion to pro-aborts
Biden’s reception of Communion this Saturday comes on the back of the recent spring meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Last month, the bishops debated the drawing up of a document on the meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the Church. Many prelates in the conference warned against such a document, declaring that it would lead to a “weaponization” of the Holy Eucharist if the text were to draw up norms on denying pro-abortion politicians access to the Holy Eucharist.
The proposed document was eventually approved in a vote, with a majority of 168-55, although many prominent prelates opposed it, including Washington’s Cardinal Wilton Gregory, who has already confirmed he would give Holy Communion to Joe Biden. The cardinal repeated his insistence on having a “conversational relationship” and “dialogue” with Biden, instead of implementing Church law and denying the politician Holy Communion.
Days after the spring meeting, the USCCB’s head of the Doctrine Committee, Bishop Kevin Rhoades, announced that the planned document would not be instituting a “national policy on withholding Communion from politicians.”
Indeed, the Jesuit-run church where Biden normally attends Sunday Mass, Holy Trinity Catholic Church in the nation’s capital, issued its own statement after the USCCB Spring Meeting, declaring that the clergy there “will not deny the Eucharist to persons presenting themselves to receive it.”
The stance of many figures in the USCCB, as well as Cardinal Gregory and Msgr. Hopkins of St. Joseph’s in Wilmington, is contrary to that of Cardinal Raymond Burke, former Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, who gave an interview in September 2020 in which he referenced Biden, saying that “a Catholic may not support abortion in any shape or form because it is one of the most grievous sins against human life, and has always been considered to be intrinsically evil.”
Cardinal Burke gave another interview just days prior to the 2020 presidential election, in which he condemned Biden’s positions on life, marriage and the family.
“I can’t imagine that he would present himself as a devout Catholic,” Burke said. “He has a record which is unfortunately perfect in promoting the attack on the innocent defense of the unborn … He is also not correct on the issues with regard to marriage and the family. The great darkness in our nation comes from the wholesale slaughter of the unborn, the attack on the family, all this gender theory … and now the attack on religious freedom.”
Indeed, after Biden attended Mass at Washington’s Cathedral of St. Matthew on the morning of his inauguration, Austin Ruse, the president of the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM), wrote: “Joe Biden ate and drank his own spiritual death. That he received the Holy Eucharist from the hands of a Cardinal of the Church adds scandal upon scandal. One radio wag called it a [M]ass for Planned Parenthood. And so, it was.”