LAS VEGAS (LifeSiteNews) – The bishop of Las Vegas recently told lawmakers who promote abortion to stop coming up for Holy Communion and publicly corrected a radical, pro-abortion Nevada congresswoman who voted to codify Roe v. Wade.
In a January 24 column for the Las Vegas Sun, Bishop George Thomas announced that politicians in his diocese who reject unequivocal Catholic teaching against abortion are to refrain from presenting themselves for the Eucharist while in office.
“If a politician from the Diocese of Las Vegas finds himself or herself at odds with the church’s teaching on the sacredness of human life, I ask him or her voluntarily to refrain from the reception of Holy Communion while holding public office,” he wrote. “I place the onus of that decision upon the individual politician’s shoulders, and not on the backs of Pastors or Eucharistic Ministers.”
The bishop’s comments came as a direct response to Democratic Rep. Susie Lee, who represents Nevada’s 3rd congressional district. Lee had published a guest column in the Las Vegas Sun earlier this month titled “The Senate must codify abortion rights now,” urging the upper chamber to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), which she co-sponsored.
The WHPA, pushed by Democrats with the Supreme Court poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, would codify legal abortion nationwide, nullify state abortion bans, and mandate taxpayer funding for abortion, among other things.
Lee, who professed to be Catholic, lamented the possible demise of Roe as “catastrophic.”
“As a Catholic, I have a deep understanding of the moral dilemma that the choice to have an abortion presents,” she wrote. “At the same time, the choice to become a mother is an extremely personal one, and that choice should stay between a woman, her family and her doctor.”
The pro-abortion Democrat added that she would “always be a fierce advocate” for abortion on-demand and attacked pro-lifers as “extremists” who “refuse to recognize women’s bodily autonomy.”
Bishop Thomas rebuked Lee in his column, saying that she “articulated a position that stands in stark contrast to the hallowed moral teaching of the Catholic church.” Though a “self-identified Catholic,” the congresswoman “claimed ‘to have a deep understanding of the moral dilemma that the choice to have an abortion presents,’” he wrote. “Her ‘deep understanding’ is highly flawed.”
And she failed to take into account “the consequences of her advocacy for the unborn child,” he said, “over 60 million of whom have been annihilated in the womb since the enactment of Roe v. Wade 49 years ago.”
“As a Catholic politician, Lee is not alone in her selective and truncated understanding of the church’s moral and social teaching,” the Las Vegas bishop continued. “Today the Supreme Court’s much-anticipated decision regarding the constitutional right to abortion stands as a teachable moment for all of us, and most notably for Catholic pro-choice politicians.”
He pointed to the U.S. bishops’ 2021 Eucharistic document, which states that Catholics should refrain from Communion if they “were knowingly and obstinately to reject the defined doctrines of the church, or knowingly and obstinately to repudiate her definitive teaching on moral issues.”
“It is my sincere hope that Catholic politicians and Catholics at large take this moment to look deeply into their own hearts, and re-examine the church’s moral conviction on the inviolability and dignity of human life,” Bishop Thomas said.
He noted that is willing to discuss the issue privately with Lee or any so-called Catholic politician “to whom this position applies.”
Biden ‘absolutely’ unfit for Communion
In a statement to the Las Vegas Sun last week, Rep. Lee reaffirmed her abortion views, despite her bishop’s public censure.
“That choice is one that a woman should be able to make based on her own faith and discussions with her family and doctor,” she said. “However, my faith — or anyone else’s — should not dictate whether or not a woman has the chance to make her own health care decisions.”
Bishop Thomas also doubled down in an interview with the Sun, telling the paper that Joe Biden should “absolutely” avoid receiving the Eucharist as well.
“It would make no difference if it’s the president, the congresswoman or a senator if they describe themselves as Roman Catholic and assume a position that is radically different from the Catholic Church,” he affirmed. “It’s time for lawmakers to reflect on the minds of the church and the teachings of the Catholic Church.”
The liberal newspaper later attacked the bishop in a February 1 editorial, calling on him to withdraw his criticism of Lee and saying that his pro-life stance invites bigotry against Catholics.
Thomas’ comments reflect those of numerous American prelates, including Archbishop Joseph Naumann, the U.S. bishops’ former pro-life chair who urged Biden last year to “stop defining himself as a devout Catholic.” “I believe the president has the responsibility not to present himself for Holy Communion,” he added.
Despite dissenting from Church teaching and aggressively advancing abortion and the LGBT agenda, Biden still receives Communion in Washington, D.C. with the explicit approval of Cardinal Wilton Gregory. Bishop William Koenig of Wilmington, Delaware – the Bidens’ hometown – also has yet to ban the pro-abortion Democrat from taking the Eucharist.
The Catholic Church continues to denounce abortion as intrinsic evil and murder, as it has since the time of the Apostles, and “attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication” for “formal cooperation” in abortion. A 2004 memo to the U.S. bishops from then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and later Pope Benedict XVI clarified that “consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws” qualifies as formal cooperation.
The Church’s teaching against the “moral evil” of abortion is “unchangeable,” according to The Catechism of the Catholic Church.
“In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to ‘take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it,’” Pope St. John Paul II declared in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae. A doctrinal note approved by the saintly pontiff in 2002 stressed that it is “impossible” for a Catholic to support “any law” that promotes abortion.
Since Biden’s inauguration, more than a dozen bishops have made renewed calls for pro-abortion lawmakers to skip Holy Communion, including Cardinal Raymond Burke, Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver, Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, Bishop James Wall of Gallup, New Mexico, Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, and Bishop Kevin Vann of Orange, California.
In July, New Mexico Bishop Peter Baldacchino prohibited a pro-abortion Democrat from receiving the Eucharist in the Diocese of Las Cruces.