WASHINGTON, May 20, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A U.S. Senator who was Hillary Clinton’s 2016 running mate has written an opinion piece vilifying Catholic leaders for challenging President Joe Biden’s views on “abortion, contraception, marriage and gender,” and for considering “withholding of Communion to the president and other Catholic political figures.”
Calling U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) President Archbishop José Gomez’s expression of pastoral concern an “ad hominem rebuke,” Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) said he is worried that “even an unsuccessful effort to mandate the withholding of Communion from American public officials could lead more bishops and priests to freelance and deny Communion in their own dioceses and parishes.”
“I am most concerned by the bishops’ flirtation with redefining the meaning of the sacrament itself,” fretted the Jesuit-taught politician.
Kaine is one of many high-profile Catholics in D.C. — including the president and U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — who publicly dissent from Catholic teaching and promote offenses against human dignity.
For a long time their actions have essentially gone ignored by many Church leaders, whose silence has provided them with cover to support abhorrent anti-life practices. Kaine appears to be troubled that the cover is fraying and may soon be torn away.
The church of Biden, Pelosi, and Kaine
The church according to Kaine, Pelosi, and Biden should make no demands on the faithful, seek no adherence to important articles of faith, no dedication, and no sacrifice, as if the Cross of Christ were not the pivotal point of the Gospel and all human history. They support abortion, same-sex marriage, and transgenderism.
They are headliners at church-sponsored events one day and spokespersons for Planned Parenthood or the pro-LGBT Human Rights Campaign, the next. Yet they have long enjoyed fraternity and camaraderie within the Church, which has allowed them to maintain a public illusion that they are devout Catholics.
Enemies of the Catholic faith
Sen. Kaine is dismayed that prominent Church leaders and commentators are now publicly critical of his compromised approach to his Catholic faith, threatening to unravel the illusion that Catholics can embrace ideologies and political policies that are antithetical to the Gospel.
Last month, Denver Archbishop Samuel Aquila wrote a hard-hitting piece explaining why pro-abortion politicians who say they are Catholic — without mentioning President Biden by name — cannot receive Holy Communion according to Church teaching.
Cardinal Raymond Burke, Archbishop Joseph Naumann, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, and Bishop James Wall have also made the case that pro-abortion politicians such as Biden must be denied Communion to safeguard the sacrament, to avoid scandal, and to call the sinner to repentance.
Their voices have been joined by EWTN’s Papal Posse member, Fr. Gerald Murray, prominent theologian and former member of the Vatican’s International Theological Commission Fr. Thomas Weinandy, and Fr. James Altman.
“Joe Biden ate and drank his own spiritual death,” wrote Austin Ruse, president of the Center for Family and Human Rights, after Biden had attended Mass at D.C.’s Cathedral of St. Matthew just hours before his inauguration.
“That he received the Holy Eucharist from the hands of a Cardinal of the Church adds scandal upon scandal,” continued Ruse. “One radio wag called it a mass for Planned Parenthood. And so, it was.”
“Joe Biden is an enemy of the Catholic faith,” added Ruse.
A high-profile dissenter from Catholicism
Kaine has enjoyed a 100 percent rating from NARAL (the National Abortion Rights Action League) and Planned Parenthood.
Contradicting Church teaching, he supports same-sex marriage, while simultaneously accusing orthodox U.S. bishops of flirting with redefining the meaning of the Sacrament of Communion. Kaine has gone so far as to predict that the Catholic Church will change its views on same-sex marriage.
During his 2016 tenure as Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Kaine oddly showed himself to be so gender-compromised at a vice presidential debate that he couldn’t refer to himself as a man. Instead, he promised to be “Hillary Clinton’s right-hand person,” not her “right-hand man.”
The Virginia senator has also expressed support for women to become priests.
“If women are not accorded equal place in the leadership of the Catholic Church and the other great world religions, they will always be treated as inferiors in earthly matters as well,” wrote Kane in 2015. “There is nothing this Pope could do that would improve the world as much as putting the Church on a path to ordain women.”