Posted on 02/24/2021 9:31:52 AM PST by ebb tide
Father Kevin Gillespie believes the Catholic Church should not deny communion to President Joe Biden even though he persists in advocating for the killing of unborn babies in abortions.
Gillespie is a Jesuit priest at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown, where the president attends Mass regularly. The Atlantic reports the church is associated with liberal politics and politicians; it has a Black Lives Matter banner hanging outside, and its priests often speak about social justice issues.
In an interview with the news outlet, Gillespie weighed in on the contentious debate within the church about Biden, who claims to be a devout Catholic while pushing policies that contradict church teachings and jeopardize millions of innocent lives.
Gillespie said receiving the Eucharist is a “sacred and intimate moment,” and Biden sees it as a “gift that enhances his faith, and it energizes his witness.”
“It’s really an encounter with God,” he told the news outlet. “We most certainly encourage him to improve his intimacy with God through the Eucharist.”
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Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C. also has welcomed Biden to attend Mass and receive communion. Gregory said it is normal for Catholics to have disagreements; they are part of “being a family, a family of faith. The difficulty is too many people want to throw out of the family of faith people with whom they have disagreements.”
Gillespie said the church has received a lot of complaints about its decision to give Biden communion, including more than 100 letters, phone calls and emails in the past month, according to the report.
However, the priest said he will not back down on his decision. According to the report:
Gillespie checked with Gregory to make sure he had the cardinal’s backing, and both men are resolute: The sacrament of the Eucharist—through which Catholics believe they experience the presence of Jesus by consuming his body and blood, transformed from a wafer and wine—should not be used as a carrot or a stick. …
Sinners abound in politics. The question facing the Catholic hierarchy is whether to offer the most famous Catholic sinner in America an invitation to closeness with God, or to withhold Communion until the president falls fully in line with his Church’s teachings.
But the problem is not just sin but Biden’s refusal to acknowledge that his pro-abortion actions are a sin, repent and stop pushing his deadly agenda.
“By his actions during the course of his public life, Mr. Biden has demonstrated that he is not in full communion with the Catholic Church,” Philadelphia Archbishop emeritus Charles Chaput wrote at First Things last year. He criticized Biden for supporting a “grave moral evil” that has “resulted in the destruction of millions of innocent lives.”
Catholic Archbishop Joseph Naumann also said Biden is creating “a real problem for the church” by advocating aggressively for the killing of unborn babies while calling himself a devout Catholic.
Naumann said Biden’s pro-abortion actions are a “great evil” that “goes very much against fundamental Catholic moral teaching.” He lamented how Biden describes the killing of unborn babies in abortions as “health care.”
“I think that’s particularly offensive in that health care doesn’t involve destroying life,” Naumann said. “It’s to help lives, heal lives, protect lives.”
Biden already is making abortions a priority in his administration. Just a week after taking office, he rescinded the Mexico City Policy and restored tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which kills babies in abortions around the world and lobbies to legalize abortions in pro-life countries.
He also began rolling back President Donald Trump’s Title X policy, which defunded the Planned Parenthood abortion chain of more than $50 million taxpayer dollars.
If Biden does what he promised, abortions could increase across America. Not only does Biden plan to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law in case the U.S. Supreme Court overturns it, he also wants to end the Hyde Amendment and force taxpayers to pay for elective abortions.
About 900,000 unborn babies are aborted every year in America, and about 62 million have been aborted since 1973 when the U.S. Supreme Court forced states to legalize abortion on demand. Without the Hyde Amendment, researchers at the Charlotte Lozier Institute predict 60,000 more unborn babies could be killed in abortions each year.
Last April, Biden went so far as to call the killing of unborn babies an “essential medical service” during the coronavirus pandemic. His health care plan would expand abortions as well by forcing insurance companies to cover abortions as “essential” health care under Obamacare.
On religious freedom, Biden’s position also is deeply troubling. Biden has endorsed anti-religious freedom policies that would force nuns, religious charities and hospitals to violate their deeply-held beliefs by funding the killing of unborn babies in abortions and potentially even by helping to facilitate their deaths. He also promised to restore an Obama-era mandate that would force the nuns with Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious employers to fund contraception, including types that may cause abortions, in their employee health insurance plans.
Baptists don’t have a central structure to do what you are proposing. They also don’t view communion as the RCC and LCMS do.
And to be frank, the SBC is turning hard progressive. While their corporate structure is such that the center has little hard control of the local congregations, I would not be surprised to see them (the SBC) start censuring pastors who are conservative in morals.
. When it comes to Catholic ministers, I would say roughly 5% have made the decision to withhold communion from pro-abortion politicians.
When it comes to Baptist ministers, I have seen zero make a statement along the lines of "Kamala Harris is not welcome to receive the Lord's Supper with our community until she repeats of her support of abortion on demand" . And yes, that includes even self described "very conservative, traditional, Bible believing" Baptist congregations. For example, Joe Biden was denied communion by a Catholic priest in South Carolina. I haven't seen a similar case of a Baptist pastor in Alabama turning down Kamala Harris.
. When it comes to Catholic ministers, I would say roughly 5% have made the decision to withhold communion from pro-abortion politicians.
When it comes to Baptist ministers, I have seen zero make a statement along the lines of "Kamala Harris is not welcome to receive the Lord's Supper with our community until she repents of her support of abortion on demand" . And yes, that includes even self described "very conservative, traditional, Bible believing" Baptist congregations. For example, Joe Biden was denied communion by a Catholic priest in South Carolina. I haven't seen a similar case of a Baptist pastor in Alabama turning down Kamala Harris.
Father Kevin Gillespie is a Jesuit. That explains his view on serving communion to a man who not only agrees with baby-killing, but he also is taking taxpayer money to give to other countries to use for abortion. That is really vile but Biden is the biggest hypocrite I have ever seen. No truly Catholic man thinks baby-killing is okay. It is people like this Jesuit who help support a sad sac like Biden so people will vote for him. Oh well, someday Biden will be having to answer for his hypocracy. Hope he gets a seat on the bench right next to Ted Kennedy down there.
For Father Kevin Gillespie - The 5th Commandment is not ambiguous. It clearly states ‘thou shalt not kill’. To argue anything else is a perversion of the Faith.
I have never heard of an instance of Harris attending and attempting to take part in communion in any orthodox Baptist churches. I have never even heard of Harris even attending church other than during the campaign.
If the priest believes in what he is supposed to be doing, he would have a private conversation with Joe Biden and explain to him that he is ineligible to receive the communion until he has announced in public that he has changed his position to pro-life and that he confesses his sins (privately to a priest) before he would be able to receive communion again.
Well, he is a Jesuit. End of story.
Jesuit Extreme Oath of Induction
It exists, the cathechism of the Catholic Church specifically says its up to individuals to examine their own conscience to determine if they are worthy to partake of Holy Communion, and up to their pastor to intervene in those matters and work with them on that, rather than its up to the Vatican and the Pope to micromanage Catholics on a case-by-case basis and then tell priests who can and cannot receive. If you read the catechism you'd know that.
This is why we always hear about priests being asked about giving Joe Biden communion, not the Pope. It's only up to the "central authority" if Joe Biden happens to attend mass at the Vatican one day. Same reason why Joe Biden's "mask mandate" only applies to "national momnuments" and he isn't deciding whether schoolchildren in Sandusky, Ohio are masked up.
There's actually very little difference between Catholics, Orthodox, and protestants when it comes to the worthiness of breaking bread with their fellow members. The issue is left up to the pastors and individual congregations, who know those people best.
The main difference is most protestant churches see communion as "merely a symbol". But apparently don't feel the need to withhold that "symbol" from phony Christians who present themselves in public as good people of faith.
Sorry, Fr. Gillespie, but St. Paul and 2000 years of Tradition say you are wrong.
Harris says both she and Joe are "proud people of faith" and "deeply spiritual persons" who believe in the bible and attend church regularly. Her home church is the Third Baptist Church of San Francisco, which she usually attends on Sundays. Her pastor, the Rev. Amos Brown, says she is good Baptist Christian and routinely gives her "the Lord's Supper, with no questions asked.
The reason you haven't heard about it is that the mainstream media LOVES to beat us over with the head with Joe Biden's Catholicism and CONSTANTLY talk about what a "good Catholic" he is, while completely ignoring Kamala's Harris religious "private life" to the point where 90% of Americans probably aren't even AWARE what religion she claims to be.
Same reason you frequently hear about Nancy Pelosi's Catholicism, but most people still haven't figured out "Rev." Ralph Warnock claims to be a "Evangelical" Protestant. It goes against the media's narrative (good Catholics love abortion and gay marriage, good Evangelicals love Trump), so they simply ignore it.
How do you know she usually attends on Sundays? Cuz she says so? She lies all the time.
So does “devout Catholic” Joe Biden. We’re still looking for any proof he went to Mass on Sunday. The only evidence I’ve seen of him regularly attending church was when his wife died, actually. And what about “Dr.” Jill Biden? Is she “Catholic” too? The media dances around all that, just like how they kept insisting Barack Obama was a strong Christian but nobody talked about where and when the “Christian” Obama was baptized...
LOL!!
Unfortunately, all too many Jesuits have their own interpretation on the doctrines of the Catholic Church.
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Including the Jesuit anti-Pope currently soiling the Chair of Peter!
Kamala Harris’ pastor at her Baptist church is fine and dandy with her receiving communion too. In fact, unlike Catholicism, I haven’t seen a single Baptist pastor say they would deny her communion. Not even “very conservative” Baptist ministers have made such a public statement. Interesting, no?
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Interesting but not surprising because, unlike the sacramental nature of Catholic and Orthodox communion, the communion ritual in Protestant churches is simply a remembrance ordinance.
Does anyone know if Jill practices the Catholic faith? again just wondering.
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That would be very unlikely given what is known about her infidelity to her first husband. Were she and Sleepy married in the Catholic Church? Probably not. Moreover, “practicing” the Catholic faith is a very amorphous concept that can often border on the ludicrous!
I actually confronted a Baptist FReeper about the double standard here (people constantly sneering at "the Catholics" for allowing Joe Biden to routinely receive communion at various Catholic churches, but nobody giving a hoot at Kamala Harris calling herself a good Baptist and being welcomed with open arms at Baptist churches around the country).
His response that was that if Kamala Harris visited his particular Baptist church to attend Sunday services, they certainly would NOT invite her to partake "the Lord's Supper" with them, and would confront her about horrible record and pray for her soul. He also stated that he can't think of "a single pastor of an SBC affliated church that would invite her to join them in the Lord's Supper". He attributed the universally warm reception that Kamala Harris gets at other Baptist churches to the fact she most likely "cherry picks" black Baptist churches on the campaign trail for a photo-op, and he's most likely right. That would certainly explain why Kamala Harris can claim to be a good faithful Baptist Christian, and every "Baptist" church she's visited has given her a pat on the back for it.
Obviously, Joe Biden doesn't have the same luxury, which explains why he occasionally has gotten the cold shoulder when he was campaigning in South Carolina and other such places -- any Catholic parish he showed up at Sunday mass for would most likely be "very conservative" and react accordingly to Biden the faux Catholic.
The point is null though -- we all know Kamala Harris wouldn't be caught dead attending an SBC affliated Baptist Church, just like Joe Biden wouldn't be caught dead attending a SSPX affiliated Catholic church that does the Tridentine Mass on Sunday. He KNOWS he would get an extremely hostile reaction. He was refused communion at a Catholic parish once or twice on the campaign trail because he was backed into a corner and that was probably the ONLY Catholic church available in the area for his weekly "Sunday mass" photo op. The other 95% of the time, he picks a Catholic parish where he will get a warm reception.
So Biden perfers to hang out with Jesuit priests that preach "social justice", and is welcomed with open arms. Kamala Harris prefers to hang out at "historic black" Baptist churches that preach "social justice", where she is welcomed with open arms.
Are we seeing a pattern here?
Are we seeing a pattern here?
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Interesting information. Thanks for posting it.
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