Posted on 05/07/2013 2:33:24 PM PDT by NYer
A letter Pope Francis sent to the bishops of Argentina in late March is encouraging pro-life advocates because it says pro-abortion politicians should not be eligible for communion in the Catholic Church.
Pope Francis directed the Argentinean bishops to govern the Church there following the Aparecida Document.
The text states, in part, “[people] cannot receive Holy Communion and at the same time act with deeds or words against the commandments, particularly when abortion, euthanasia, and other grave crimes against life and family are encouraged. This responsibility weighs particularly over legislators, heads of governments, and health professionals.”
“These are the guidelines we need for this time in history,” the pope wrote to the bishops.
Judie Brown, president of American Life League, a U.S.-based pro-life group, and Michael Hichborn, director of Defend the Faith for American Life League, sent a letter to all U.S. Catholic bishops alerting them to what Pope Francis wrote.
“We are renewed in our joy over the election of Pope Francis. One of the reasons for our happiness is the Holy Father’s reiteration of Catholic teaching as enunciated in canon 915,” the letter reads.
“We pray that these words will be an encouragement to you as well because, like Argentina, the United States has her share of Catholics in public life who persist in their support of abortion while, at the same time, receiving Christ in the sacrament of Holy Eucharist,” it continues. “We write to ask you, in view of this recent news report, to act on Pope Francis’ call and deny the sacrament of Christ’s real presence-body, blood, soul, and divinity-to every pro-abortion Catholic in public life who has not repented of his support for the heinous crime of abortion.”
The communion issue was exacerbated when, despite their pro-abortion views, Vice President Joe Biden and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi both received communion at the Mass to celebrate Pope Francis’ inauguration. Biden’s office confirmed to the Washington Times that he had received communion and reporters in the White House presidential reporting pool confirmed in an email to LifeNews that Pelosi had received it as well. Pope Francis did not administer the sacrament.
Father Frank Pavone told the LifeNews he opposed the two pro-abortion politicos receiving communion since their pro-abortion views are outside the teachings of the Catholic Church.
The Priests for Life leader said, “At a Mass during which our new Pope emphasized the duty public officials – and all the rest of us – have to protect the weakest among us, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi have the audacity to receive Communion while publicly renouncing their responsibility to protect the weakest among us.”
“Some Church leaders mistakenly think we are advocating the use of the Eucharist as a ‘weapon.’ In fact, we are defending the Eucharist from being used as a political tool. These politicians have no respect for what the Eucharist means: an integral, consistent union with Christ and with all our brothers and sisters. To receive Christ while rejecting the unborn is a slap in the face to both,” he added.
Do you have a link to this letter, dated?
I believe the letter cited dates to 2007 or 2008.
The Pope apparently wrote to the bishops of Argentina and commended them to follow the Apariceda Document. I would like to see a copy of what, exactly, he wrote.
This document is 165 pages long. It covers many, many things, most of which have to do with social justice issues. The quote about not receiving the eucharist is in item #436 on page 101. The document is not written by the Pope, but by a Latin-American episcopal conference. It was not written in 2013, but in 2007.
I think it is a substantial misrepresentation to say, “A letter Pope Francis sent to the bishops of Argentina in late March...says pro-abortion politicians should not be eligible for communion in the Catholic Church”, unless his letter references item 436 on page 101 specifically.
Similar things were written, repeatedly, about Benedict XVI when what he said or wrote actually amounted to offhand references to passages in CCC or GRIM which support the pro-life view about our whoremaster politicians and the eucharist.
The fact is, the Pope has absolute authority to govern the Church. He could issue a Bull or a Rescript tomorrow forbidding pro-death politicians from receiving communion. He could excommunicate Nancy Pelosi and Joseph Biden by name with a stroke of the pen. He could even put the United States under an interdict until such time as Catholic voters cause abortion to be outlawed.
But he has not done, and in all likelihood will not do, any of those things.
I hope we publicly do that — they have excommunicated themselves by their own actions but we need to publicly call them excommunicated.
I hope you are wrong. I’m afraid you’re right.
A politician who votes to legalize, expand, promote, or especially fund abortion, has gone beyond the actions analogous to "representing a client." Such acts are cooperation in the act of abortion itself: the active promotion of an evil. The politician's acts make his an accessory or accomplice.
A more accurate analogy would be, if Gosnell's lawyer said "Yes he did kill all those babies after 24 weeks, and yes he did kill newborns by, effectively, decapitating them: and I say that's all right, I say that's justified, I'm going to try to make this more widespread, and I paid him to do it."
Yes, ansd it’s truly sickening. Catholics (or “voters identified as Catholic”) voted for Obama in almost exactly the same percentage as did American voters as a whole.
“On the other hand we do want, and want very much, to make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but, failing that, as a means to anything-even to social justice. The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the Enemy demands, and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice. For the Enemy will not be used as a convenience.”
-Screwtape
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