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May 26, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – The Vatican’s recent letter to U.S. bishops advising them to undertake “dialogue” with Catholic pro-abortion politicians who insist on receiving Holy Communion to all appearances seems aimed at “forestalling indefinitely” a joint statement by the bishops on “eucharistic coherence in the Church,” wrote John Paul II’s biographer George Weigel in a recent piece.
“Why is such a dialogue necessary,” asked Weigel in his May 19 piece published in Catholic World Report. “At their ordination, bishops swear a solemn oath to uphold the teaching of the Church,” he added, pointing out that Catholic teaching is clear when it comes to the responsibilities of politicians who are also Catholic.
He quoted John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) where it states that “those who are directly involved in lawmaking have a ‘grave and clear obligation to oppose’ any law that attacks human life. For them, as for every Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them.”
“Yet the (Vatican) cardinal writes that the bishops should ‘discuss and agree’ to that teaching. What is there to ‘discuss?’ And if, God forbid, some bishops actually disagree with that teaching, why should their rejection of it – or even their muddled understanding of its implications – prevent the overwhelming majority of bishops who accept that teaching from restating it and then applying it?”
Weigel was referring to a recent letter from Cardinal Luis Ladaria, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), to the U.S. bishops in which he warned them that a planned forthcoming policy on reception of Holy Communion could be become a “source of discord” for the country’s episcopate and would unfairly target “only one category of Catholics.”
The U.S. bishops have become divided over how to deal with Catholic pro-abortion politicians, such as President Biden, who vigorously champion abortion while receiving Holy Communion. Some say that denying Communion to such politicians would amount to a “weaponization” or “politicization” of the Eucharist. Many more point out, however, that such a ban is required by Church teaching and is necessary to protect the sacrament, to avoid scandalizing the faithful, and to call the sinner to repentance.
Regarding the CDF’s advice that the U.S. bishops come to an agreement about the path forward, the Catholic author pointed out that “unanimity can never be at the expense of truth.”
“The First Council of Nicea didn’t wait for the episcopal supporters of Arius to ‘agree’ before it taught the truth about the divinity of Christ. The Council of Ephesus didn’t wait for the agreement of Nestorius and the Nestorian bishops before teaching the truth that Mary can rightly be called Theotokos, Mother of God,” Weigel wrote.
He criticized Ladaria’s notion that a “dialogue” could help clarify the situation.
“Perhaps the cardinal is unaware that this has been done. Perhaps the cardinal is unaware that the issue, typically, is not that ‘pro-choice’ politicians misunderstand what the Church teaches but that they reject it – and still insist on presenting themselves as serious Catholics in full communion with the Church,” he wrote.
Weigel also criticized Ladaria’s insistence that any “national policy on worthiness for Communion” must express a “true consensus of the bishops on the matter.”
Commented Weigel, “But that is to say, once again, that the bishops with the least sense of urgency about defending the truth, applying it, and thereby recovering the eucharistic coherence of the Church call the tune for the rest of the bishops. This is not the kind of ‘consensus’ that Pope Paul VI sought when he worked to have Vatican II adopt its Declaration on Religious Freedom by the largest margin possible. Pope Paul knew that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and other intransigents would never accept such a declaration, but he was not prepared to grant them veto power over it in the name of ‘consensus.’ Why should such veto power be granted to the few intransigents in the U.S. bishops’ conference today?”
Weigel concluded his piece by calling Cardinal Ladaria’s strategy for dealing with the problem “badly misconceived.”
“The strategy Cardinal Ladaria urges in his letter replicates key elements in the McCarrick approach to pro-abortion American politicians. I trust Cardinal Ladaria was unaware of that, but in any event the sluggish, tepid approach to a crisis that he urges on the U.S. bishops is badly misconceived.”