This week, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will convene to discuss whether or not President Joe Biden will be allowed to receive Communion while endorsing abortion and LGBTQ rights.
The bishops, who will meet virtually from Wednesday to Friday for their annual meeting, will determine whether to ask the Committee on Doctrine to draft a teaching document on the topic of Communion, Reuters reports.
If the document is commissioned, it can be a strong symbolic rebuke of individuals with views contrary to Catholic teaching. The bishops would then proceed to review an amendable draft in their fall meeting.
In 2004, the conference issued a statement that said individual bishops could determine whether to deny Communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, direct abortion or willful is "gravely contrary to the moral law," and marriage should be between a man and a woman, not members of the same sex.
Biden, a professing Catholic, has caused concern among church leaders because of his support for abortion and same-sex marriage.
After taking office in January, Biden lifted federal restrictions on abortion pills to increase accessibility. The president also condensed cutting off a long-standing ban on federal funding for abortion in his 2022 budget.
In February, Sycamore Trust, an alumni group from the University of Notre Dame, wrote to the university's president urging that Biden should not speak at the university's commencement because of his pro-abortion and pro-same-sex marriage stances. The school has held to a recent tradition of having presidents speak at commencement.
Biden, however, ultimately turned down the speaking invitation due to a scheduling conflict, Catholic News Agencyreports.
The White House hopes that Biden would appear in a future commencement ceremony during his first term.
As Christian Headlines previously reported, a Gallup poll conducted in March found that 55 percent of Republican Catholics said that Biden should be denied Communion. On the other hand, 67 percent of U.S. Catholics believe Biden should continue to receive communion "regardless of his views on abortion."
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Drew Angerer/Staff
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.
