WASHINGTON, June 8, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinals Blase Cupich, Wilton Gregory, Sean O’Malley and Joseph Tobin are among the 68 bishops who don’t want the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to discuss prohibiting pro-abortion self-identified Catholics in public life from receiving Holy Communion.
“Eucharistic coherence,” as the bishops call it, is theological shorthand for what is lost when famous people who identify as Catholics but persist in open scandal, for example, by promoting abortion, receive Holy Communion. This unhappy feature of American Catholic life became even more troubling when Joe Biden became President and immediately began working to facilitate abortion and to promote transgenderism.
Today, Catholic news website The Pillar published the list of the bishops who signed a May 13 letter asking USCCB president Archbishop Jose Gomez to drop the issue from the annual meeting, which will be taking place online this June (FULL LIST BELOW). The Pillar obtained a copy of the letter.
The letter reveals that these 68 American cardinals and bishops want to delay any discussion of “Eucharistic worthiness.”
“(W)e respectfully urge that all Conference wide discussion and committee work on the topic of Eucharistic worthiness and other issues raised by the Holy See be postponed until the full body of bishops is able to meet in person,” they wrote. “The serious nature of these issues — especially the imperative to forge substantial unity — makes it impossible to address them productively in the fractured and isolated setting of a distance meeting.”
Shockingly, the letter suggests that both a “high standard of consensus” among the American bishops and of “maintaining unity with the Holy See and the Universal Church” is “far from being achieved at this present moment.”
The Pillar stated that Cardinals Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C., and Blase Cupich of Chicago are “reportedly among the letter’s principal authors.” All their auxiliary bishops — seven for Chicago and two in Washington, D.C. — have also signed the letter. A representative sample of ordinaries who signed include Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski of St. Louis, Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego, and Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York was originally a signatory of the letter, but a spokesman for the Archdiocese told The Pillar that the cardinal had eventually asked that his signature be withdrawn.
Cardinal Cupich’s opposition to denying Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians is well-known. He recently sent a letter to Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver critiquing an article the latter wrote about Eucharistic coherence. Cupich also criticized the USCCB president’s statement, issued immediately after Biden was inaugurated as the President of the United States. That statement pointed out that Biden “has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender.”
According to The Pillar, the letter pertains to a vote that the members of the USCCB are expected to take during their June meeting about drafting an official document about “Eucharistic coherence.” It is not related to approving a document already written, or drafting one during the meeting.
The online magazine, led by former Catholic News Agency veterans Ed Condon and J.D. Flynn, noted that some are saying that this is an attempt by the signatories to ensure a “full and open” discussion, whereas others think these bishops are stalling for time.
“If the bishops do not vote this month that a document should be drafted, any eventual document is unlikely to be released before late 2022 or early 2023, and only then if a motion to draft a text comes up at a future meeting — most likely in November — for a vote,” The Pillar reported.
Meanwhile, subsequent correspondence from Archbishop Gomez suggests that he has not dropped preparations for a vote on a document about “Eucharistic coherence.” He reported that a doctrine committee had met to develop “a brief outline” to propose to the USCCB members in June. The USCCB president emphasized that they would not be voting on the document but on whether or not drafting of such a document could begin.
“If approved, the Doctrine Committee will develop a text,” Gomez wrote in his May 22 letter to all the bishops. “From there, the Conference’s usual process of consultation, modification, and amendment will take place as the document is presented for consideration at a future Plenary Assembly.”
The archbishop included in his letter the “action item” to be voted on by the members of the USCCB at their meeting: “Does the body of bishops approve the request of the Committee on Doctrine to proceed with the drafting of a formal statement on the meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the Church?”
The full list of signatories is as follows:
Cardinals
Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago
Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York (reported withdrawn)
Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington
Cardinal Sean O’Malley, OFM Cap., of Boston
Cardinal Joseph Tobin, CSsR, of Newark
Ordinaries
Archbishop Andrew Bellisario, CM, of Anchorage-Juneau
Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle
Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller, M.Sp.S. of San Antonio
Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski of St. Louis
Archbishop Dennis Schnurr of Cincinnati
Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe
Bishop Joseph Bambera of Scranton
Bishop Mark Bartchak of Altoona-Johnstown
Bishop Steven Biegler of Cheyenne
Bishop John Michael Botean of St. George in Canton for the Romanians
Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport
Bishop Randolph Calvo of Reno
Bishop Brendan Cahill of Victoria
Bishop Robert Coerver of Lubbock
Bishop Christopher Coyne of Burlington
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn
Bishop Timothy Doherty of Lafayette, IN
Bishop Ronald Hicks of Joliet
Bishop William Joensen of Des Moines
Bishop Donald Kettler of St. Cloud
Bishop Joseph Kopacz of Jackson
Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego
Bishop Michael McGovern of Belleville
Bishop Shawn McKnight of Jefferson City
Bishop William Medley of Ownesboro
Bishop Michael Mulvey of Corpus Christi
Bishop David O’Connell, CM of Trenton
Bishop Richard Pates, Apostolic Administrator of Crookston
Bishop Lawrence Persico of Erie
Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso
Bishop Michael Sis of San Angelo
Bishop John Stowe, OFM Conv., of Lexington
Bishop Anthony Taylor of Little Rock
Bishop David Toups of Beaumont
Bishop Geroge Thomas of Las Vegas
Bishop Louis Tylka, Coadjutor Bishop of Peoria
Bishop Joseph Tyson of Yakima
Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin
Bishop Michael Warfel of Great Falls-Billings
Bishop Edward Weisenburger of Tucson
Bishop Thomas Zinkula of Davenport
Bishop Patrick Zurek of Amarillo
Auxiliary bishops
Bishop Mark Bartosic, Auxiliary of Chicago
Bishop Ramon Bejarano, Auxiliary of San Diego
Bishop Kevin Birmingham, Auxiliary of Chicago
Bishop Michael Boulette, Auxiliary of San Antonio
Bishop Roy Campbell Jr., Auxiliary of Washington
Bishop Robert Casey, Auxiliary of Chicago
Bishop Manuel Cruz, Auxiliary of Newark
Bishop John Dolan, Auxiliary of San Diego
Bishop Mario Dorsonville-Rodriguez, Auxiliary of Washington
Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, MSpS, Auxiliary of Seattle
Bishop Jeffrey Grob, Auxiliary of Chicago
Bishop Gary Janak, Auxiliary of San Antonio
Bishop J. Gregory Kelly, Auxiliary of Dallas
Bishop Elias Lorenzo, OSB, Auxiliary of Newark
Bishop Robert Lombardo, CFR, Auxiliary of Chicago
Bishop John Manz, Auxiliary of Chicago
Bishop Joseph Perry, Auxiliary of Chicago
Bishop Mark Rivituso, Auxiliary of St. Louis
Bishop Michael Saportio, Auxiliary of Newark
Bishop Gregory Studerus, Auxiliary of Newark
Bishop Andrew Wypych, Auxiliary of Chicago