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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