NEW YORK – If it were up to him, the archbishop of San Francisco Salvatore Cordileone would deny communion to his most famous faithful. He put it in black and white, in a pastoral letter published on Saturday. However, since the faithful is called Nancy Pelosi, she is the Speaker of the Chamber and occupies the third highest office in the state in the US, the question also extends to the first office. Because Biden is a Catholic, and in the assembly in mid-June the American Bishops’ Conference will be called to decide whether to take the host away from him too, or at least start the process.
The president goes to mass every Sunday, preferably in St. Joseph on the Brandywine church, where his first wife Neilia, daughter Naomi and son Beau are buried. Faith informs his private and public life, to the point that in the Oval Office he replaced the bust of Churchill with Francis. He would like to visit it in June, when Covid permitting, he will be in Europe for the G7, or certainly in October, when he will come to Rome for the G20. The problem is abortion. On a personal level Joe is against it, but as a politician he defends him, because a Democrat would never have conquered the White House as a pro-life. So in October 2019 Robert Morey, pastor of Saint Anthony Catholic Church in Florence, South Carolina, denied him communion.
The problem had already arisen in 2004, when the Catholic Kerry was a candidate. The then Cardinal Ratzinger, consulted by the American episcopate, advised him to be excluded from the Eucharist. The bishops, however, had ignored him, voting 183 to 6 to leave the decisions on how to treat politicians to the holders of the dioceses to which they belong. After Biden’s election, the issue re-emerged. The dossier passed to the Committee on Doctrine of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), and during the assembly from June 16 to 18, the bishops will have to vote to decide whether to write and publish a formal document.
The American hierarchy is divided, as are the faithful. Conservatives, such as Cardinal Burke or the chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities Joseph Naumann, would like to ban communion. Cordileone intervened at their side, with the letter inspired by the words of Jeremiah “Before I Formed You in the Womb I Knew You”. While not citing his faithful Pelosi or Biden, he affirms that exclusion from the sacrament on a temporary basis appears to be the only solution for “the errant Catholic.” Liberals, like Washington’s new Cardinal Gregory, think it’s not useful to go that far. Also on this position was the Bishop of Wilmington Malooly, who allowed Joe to communion, but has just been replaced by William Koenig.
Behind it there is also the discontent of some American conservatives towards Francis. The Pope is not in favor of abortion, but he thinks that culture wars should not be the priority of the Church. Also because it is true that the doctrine requires defending life from conception to natural death, but then why should communion be denied to politicians in favor of abortion, and allow it to those who support capital punishment? The hope is that the bishops will postpone, or leave the choice to local colleagues, avoiding a head-on with the second Catholic president of the United States, which the Vatican would not want. However, the division is there, and will remain in the background.