The Vatican ratcheted up the debate yesterday as to whether pro-choice Catholic politicians should take Communion when a top-ranking prelate said such a person “is not fit” to receive the sacrament.
Cardinal Francis Arinze, speaking at a press conference in Rome, did not mention Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. Mr. Kerry, who is pro-choice, has said that church doctrine allows Catholics freedom of choice on the issue.
The cardinal quashed that idea, insisting that the church is solidly against abortion.
“The norm of the church is clear,” he said. “The church exists in the United States. There are bishops there. Let them interpret it.”
However, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops,which set up a task force five months ago on how to deal with pro-choice Catholic politicians, has yet to issue guidelines.
A spokeswoman for Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who leads the task force, has said no guidelines are expected until after the November elections. The cardinal met privately with Mr. Kerry last week.
Reporters also asked Cardinal Arinze whether any Catholic politician who supports abortion should be allowed to take Communion.
“If the person should not receive Communion, then he should not be given it,” he said.
The cardinal’s remarks were chiefly about the release of a new church document, “Redemptionis Sacramentum” (The Sacrament of Redemption). It was written by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments — which Cardinal Arinze leads — and focuses on norms for the Catholic Mass.
Among other things, the document restated church doctrine that no one in “grave sin” should take the sacrament unless they preface it with the sacrament of confession.
Mr. Kerry, against the recommendation of his archbishop, the Most Rev. Sean O’Malley of Boston, took Communion on Easter at the Paulist Center in Boston. Speaking yesterday at a pro-choice rally in the District, the senator said he “understands that a stronger America is where women’s rights are just that, rights, not political weapons to be used by politicians of this nation.”
“More than 30 years after Roe vs. Wade became the law of the land, it has never been more at risk than it is today,” he said. “We are going to have a change in leadership in this country to protect the right of choice.”
Only three U.S. bishops have said they will refuse Communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians and only one, St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke, has warned Mr. Kerry by name not to receive the sacrament in his diocese. When Mr. Kerry was in St. Louis several Sundays ago, he attended a Protestant church.
In a telephone survey of four European bishops conducted recently by the Catholic News Service, three of the prelates said they would be hesitant to announce publicly that a Catholic politician could not receive the Eucharist because of a political stand, including on abortion.
Only one, Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek of Krakow, the secretary-general of the Polish bishops conference, said he would forbid Communion to a pro-choice politician.
“I don’t hear about Italian bishops denying [liberal] Italian politicians Communion,” said the Rev. Tom Reese, editor of America magazine, a Jesuit publication. “It seems as though this issue is being created in the United States.”
Cardinal Arinze, who is Nigerian, is close to Pope John Paul II philosophically, and has been mentioned as one of his potential successors. In May, however, he sparked protests during a speech at a Georgetown University graduation ceremony.
The family, the cardinal said in the speech, among other threats, is “mocked by homosexuality,” a phrase that prompted one theology professor and several students to walk out of the ceremony and 70 faculty to circulate a critical letter.
The Communion issue and questions about whether the Catholic Church gave its blessing to the end of Mr. Kerry’s first marriage are taking him off message, Father Reese said.
“The Republicans must love this,” he said. “Kerry has had two points: unemployment and Iraq. That is all he can talk about. Now he has to talk about whether he can go to Communion and whether he has an annulment.”
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