abortion

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Clashing doctrines: Catholics for Choice takes on the 2022 Vigil for Life

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Clashing doctrines: Catholics for Choice takes on the 2022 Vigil for Life

When progressive Catholics list their heroes in the church hierarchy most would include Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C.

When preparing their own lists, most conservative Catholics would include Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco.

Thus, it's important to note how these two shepherds reacted to the spectacular protest staged by Catholics for Choice during the 2022 Vigil for Life inside the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

While worshippers gathered for overnight rites and prayers before the Jan. 21st March for Life, pro-abortion-rights Catholics – using a nearby projector – displayed their own beliefs on the 329-foot tower and facade of America's largest Catholic sanctuary. "Catholics for Choice" appeared inside a glowing cross, accompanied by a litany of slogans, such as "Stop stigmatizing; Start listening," "Mi cuerpo, mi decision (my body, my decision in Spanish)" and "Pro-choice Catholics you are not alone."

Archbishop Cordileone released this response, via Twitter, using language implying the actions of Satan: "The attempted desecration is enormous. Diabolical. Mother Mary, pray for them, now and at the hour of death. Amen."

Cardinal Gregory's press statement pointed readers to a specific scripture to find the context for his words: "The true voice of the Church was only to be found within The Basilica. … There, people prayed and offered the Eucharist asking God to restore a true reverence for all human life. Those whose antics projected words on the outside of the church building demonstrated by those pranks that they really are external to the Church and they did so at night – John 13:30."

That verse describes the moment when Judas exits the Last Supper to betray Jesus: "So … he immediately went out; and it was night."

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Pope Francis, President Biden and the U.S. Catholic bishops: Who said what to whom?

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Pope Francis, President Biden and the U.S. Catholic bishops: Who said what to whom?

Asked if he discussed abortion with Pope Francis during their recent Vatican summit, President Joe Biden said: "No, it didn't. It came up – we just talked about the fact he was happy that I was a good Catholic, and I should keep receiving Communion."

The next day, the Associated Press noted that Biden received Holy Communion at St. Patrick's Church in Rome.

Asked to validate the president's second-hand quotation, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni told reporters: "I would consider it a private conversation."

What do U.S. bishops think? That has remained a hot topic as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops braces for its fall 2021 meetings next week (Nov. 15-18) in Baltimore – its first in-person assembly since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

What is labeled as "draft 24" of a proposed USCCB statement on "Eucharistic coherence" flashes back to an earlier controversy about Catholic politicians, Holy Communion and an atmosphere of "scandal" among the faithful.

"We repeat what the U.S. bishops stated in 2006: 'If a Catholic in his or her personal or professional life were knowingly and obstinately to reject the defined doctrines of the Church, or knowingly and obstinately to repudiate her definitive teaching on moral issues, he or she would seriously diminish his or her communion with the Church," said this draft from late September – first obtained by The Pillar, a Catholic news website.

The quote continued: " 'Reception of Holy Communion in such a situation would not accord with the nature of the Eucharistic celebration, so that he or she should refrain.' "

As insiders have predicted, this draft of "The Mystery of the Eucharist in the Life of the Church" doesn't mention debates about the sacramental status of Catholic politicians who have consistently served as advocates for abortion rights, such as Biden or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

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Same old, same old: U.S. Catholic bishops still can't agree on politicos and Holy Communion

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Same old, same old: U.S. Catholic bishops still can't agree on politicos and Holy Communion

The questions that haunted the Pontifical Academy for Life conference were familiar, controversial and exhausting, since Catholics and their bishops had been arguing about them for years.

The year was 2006, but little has changed in 2021.

What should bishops do when prominent Catholics – even presidential candidates – defended and promoted abortion rights? What if they said they accepted churched teachings on the sanctity of human life, while their actions suggested otherwise?

Would it violate the "separation of church and state" if bishops denied them access to Holy Communion? What if bishops asked these politicos to go to Confession?

"This is silly," said scholar Robert P. George, addressing that Vatican gathering. A Catholic shepherd "acting on his authority as a bishop to discipline members of his flock, who commit what the Church teaches are grave injustices against innocent human beings" would be "exercising his own constitutional right to the free exercise of religion. …

"Freedom is a two-way street. No one is compelled by law to accept ecclesiastical authority," stressed George, an outspoken Catholic layman and professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University. Thus, a bishop has "every right to exercise spiritual authority over anyone who chooses to accept it. There is a name for people who do accept the authority of Catholic bishops. They are called 'Catholics.' "

At that time, most debates centered on Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic Party's presidential nominee in 2004.

Cracks inside the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops widened with the election of President Joe Biden, a rosary-carrying Catholic who – in word and deed – has evolved into a fierce defender of abortion and LGBTQ rights. Biden quickly dropped his longstanding opposition to the federal funding of abortion, after criticism from the left in the 2019 primaries.

Despite fierce opposition from several U.S. cardinals, 75% of the U.S. bishops recently voted to proceed with a document on "Eucharistic coherence" in an age in which many Catholics reject key church teachings – including the core belief that bread and wine used in Communion become the body and blood of Jesus.

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U.S. bishops wrestle with 'Eucharistic coherence,' a topic that mixes politics and doctrine

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U.S. bishops wrestle with 'Eucharistic coherence,' a topic that mixes politics and doctrine

Archbishop Salvatore Joseph Cordileone leads the Archdiocese of San Francisco, a symbolic city in debates about modern American culture.

But what matters the most, as tensions rise among Catholic leaders, is that Cordileone is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's hometown bishop. Thus, it's hard for politicos to avoid blunt passages in his new pastoral letter, "Before I Formed You in the Womb I Knew You."

Citing centuries of church doctrine, the archbishop argued that Catholics who "reject the teaching of the Church on the sanctity of human life and those who do not seek to live in accordance with that teaching should not receive the Eucharist. It is fundamentally a question of integrity: to receive the Blessed Sacrament in the Catholic liturgy is to espouse publicly the faith and moral teachings of the Catholic Church, and to desire to live accordingly."

There is, he added, "a great difference between struggling to live according to the teachings of the Church and rejecting those teachings. … In the case of public figures who profess to be Catholic and promote abortion, we are not dealing with a sin committed in human weakness or a moral lapse: this is a matter of persistent, obdurate and public rejection of Catholic teaching. This adds an even greater responsibility to the role of the Church's pastors in caring for the salvation of souls."

Citing a famous example, Cordileone recalled when former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani received Holy Communion during a 2008 Mass led by Pope Benedict XVI. This caused scandal and, according to the late Cardinal Edward Egan, violated an agreement that Giuliani would not receive the Sacrament because of his public support for abortion rights and other clashes with doctrine.

The big issue, as U.S. bishops prepare for June discussions of "Eucharistic coherence," is not how to handle a former New York City mayor. The question is whether bishops can address their own divisions about the status of pro-abortion-rights Catholics such as Pelosi and President Joe Biden. While vice president, Biden also performed two same-sex marriage rites.

San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy, firing back at Cordileone in America magazine, stressed that the "Eucharist must never be instrumentalized for a political end. … But that is precisely what is being done in the effort to exclude Catholic political leaders who oppose the church's teaching on abortion and civil law. The Eucharist is being weaponized and deployed as a tool in political warfare. This must not happen."

Meanwhile, the prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith warned the leader of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that these issues could become a "source of discord rather than unity within the episcopate" and among all American Catholics.

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Years of 'McCarrick doctrine' fights among U.S. bishops go public – on Inauguration Day

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Years of 'McCarrick doctrine' fights among U.S. bishops go public -- on Inauguration Day

Speaking to an Italian family association in 2018, Pope Francis compared the abortion of children with genetic problems to "what the Nazis did to purify the race. Today, we do the same thing but with white gloves."

A year later, Francis bluntly asked a journalist from Mexico if it's "fair to eliminate a human life in order to solve a problem? The answer to which is, 'No.' Second question: Is it fair to pay a sniper to solve a problem? No. Abortion is not a religious problem. … It is a problem of eliminating a human life. Period."

But the pope was careful in his Inauguration Day message to America's second Catholic president, assuring Joe Biden that he would "pray that your decisions will be guided by a concern for building a society marked by authentic justice and freedom, together with unfailing respect for the rights and dignity of every person, especially the poor, the vulnerable and those who have no voice."

The pope's text was examined closely after reports that the Vatican – on behalf of progressive American bishops – tried to stop the circulation of a sobering statement from the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The letter from Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles addressed the challenge, and blessing, of working with "our first president in 60 years to profess the Catholic faith."

Clearly, Biden's piety had offered "solace in times of darkness and tragedy," said Gomez, leader of America's largest diocese and a crucial voice among Hispanic Catholics. He also praised Biden's "longstanding commitment to the Gospel's priority for the poor."

Nevertheless, Gomez noted that "our new President has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender. Of deep concern is the … the freedom of believers to live according to their consciences."

Cardinal Blasé Cupich of Chicago fired back on Twitter, attacking this "ill-considered statement on the day of President Biden's inauguration" while claiming "there is seemingly no precedent" for this action by Gomez.

The Pillar, a Catholic news website, reported that the Vatican Secretariat of State intervened to "spike" the statement from the U.S. bishops after objections from Cupich, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark and some other bishops.

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While many Catholics feel politically 'homeless,' Biden Catholics managed a 2020 win

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While many Catholics feel politically 'homeless,' Biden Catholics managed a 2020 win

Conservative patriarch Edmund Burke died in 1797 in Beaconsfield, England.

This didn't prevent columnist Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal, a Catholic conservative, from making Burke her write-in choice in the 2020 White House race. She wasn't the only voter who felt politically homeless, due to religious and moral convictions that clashed with the political and personal choices of President Donald Trump and, the odds are overwhelming, president-elect Joe Biden.

Once again, there was no way to ignore issues linked to faith, morality and, yes, character. This was especially true with Catholic voters who frequent church pews.

Considering Trump, Noonan stressed the coronavirus crisis, where the president finally "met a problem he couldn't talk his way out of. I believe that's what happened: He played down the pandemic, lied, made uninformed claims at briefings that serious people were struggling to keep useful. He produced chaos. The country can't afford any of that in a crisis that is sudden and severe."

What about the Democrat, a lifelong Catholic? Noonan predicted Biden would be a "hapless and reluctant conductor" on a "runaway train," especially on moral and cultural issues.

"The progressive left," she argued, "endorses and pushes for the identity politics that is killing us, an abortion regime way beyond anything that could be called reasonable or civilized and on which it will make no compromise; it opposes charter schools and other forms of public school liberation; it sees the police as the enemy, it demonstrates no distinct fidelity to freedom of speech and, most recently, its declared hopes range from court packing to doing away with the Electoral College and adding states to the union.”

The bottom line: The political realities of 2020 left many Catholics and other active religious believers torn between political options that no longer seemed acceptable.

It was easy to read between the lines in key passages of a new cover letter the U.S. Catholic bishops added to their "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship" document (.pdf here).

"The threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself, because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and because of the number of lives destroyed," the letter stated. "At the same time, we cannot dismiss or ignore other serious threats to human life and dignity such as racism, the environmental crisis, poverty and the death penalty. …

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Facing ties that bind between 'pro-life' issues – like human trafficking and immigration

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Facing ties that bind between 'pro-life' issues -- like human trafficking and immigration

It's hard to talk about the horrors of human trafficking – including young women and children forced into the sex trade – without mentioning the I-10 corridor across northern Florida and over to California.

Florida and California are in the top three on the list of U.S. states involved in human-trafficking cases, according to Florida State University's Center for the Advancement of Human Rights. Any realistic discussion of this crisis has to include women, children, poverty, prostitution and crisis pregnancies.

"There are so many overlapping issues in all of this. But you know you're dealing with abused women and, often, their pregnancies," said Ashlyn Portero, co-executive director of City Church in Tallahassee, Fla., which has two campuses close to I-10.

"Churches that want to help can start right there. …When you see those connections, you know you're talking about issues that fall under the pro-life umbrella."

Thus, human trafficking is an issue that "pro-life" religious leaders in Tallahassee, as well as many other urban areas, need to face if they want to minister to women in crisis pregnancies and their children, she added. The problem is that tackling this issue also involves talking – or even preaching – about subjects that many people will call "political" in a state like Florida. Take immigration, for example.

Timing is crucial. Right now, thousands of Americans are preparing for the annual March For Life, which is linked to the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1973 legalizing abortion. This year's march in Washington, D.C., will be on Jan. 24.

"When people come back from something like the March For Life, lots of them will be asking, 'What can we do now?' They want to do something practical," said Portero, in a telephone interview. "But these issues all seem so big and complex. It's hard to know where to start, in terms of ministries that will help real people."

One thing is certain: Nothing happens in a typical church without clear communication through preaching. That's where things can get tricky.

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It's hard to avoid religion when fighting about 'fourth-trimester' abortions

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It's hard to avoid religion when fighting about 'fourth-trimester' abortions

Before "Game of Thrones" infighting rocked Virginia Democrats, before the Michael Jackson moonwalk press conference, before a KKK and blackface photo surfaced from his Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook, Gov. Ralph Northam made some candid remarks about abortion on WTOP's "Ask the Governor" radio show.

The now embattled governor's words raised many religious, scientific and philosophical questions and he all but guaranteed that what his critics are calling "fourth-trimester abortion" will remain a hot-button issue in American public life.

A proposed Virginia bill on late-term abortions, he said, would allow termination in cases where an unborn child is "not viable" outside the womb.

"In this particular example, if a mother's in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen," said Northam, a former pediatric neurologist. "The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother."

Northam is "greatly misinformed about what this bill would do. … It is infanticide," Democrats for Life leader Kristen Day told EWTN News.

Concerning bills of this kind in Virginia (tabled on a 5-3 vote in committee) and New York, she added: "I'm hearing from more people who say that they can't vote for Democrats if they continue to push this. … This abortion extremism is continuing to push Democrats out the party." She predicted large numbers of Democrats at Virginia's March for Life on April 3, sending this message: "We want to be a state that protects women, supports women and provides support for women to carry their pregnancies to term. That's what we stand for as Democrats."

To no one's surprise, President Donald Trump used Twitter to jump into this controversy, attacking Northam for making the "most horrible statement on 'super' late term abortion. Unforgivable!"

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At March for Life, embracing ancient doctrines reveals modern tensions

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At March for Life, embracing ancient doctrines reveals modern tensions

Just over a century ago, a Methodist leader on the church's Board of Temperance, Prohibition and Public morals noticed an empty lot facing the U.S. Capitol and thought it would be a fine place to do some lobbying.

The Methodist Building was finished in 1923 and 100 Maryland Ave., N.E., soon became an even more strategic address when the Supreme Court moved next door. The prohibition cause faded, however, and in recent decades the five-story limestone building has housed liberal Protestant activists of all kinds, as well as Kids 4 Peace, the Islamic Society of America, Creation Justice Ministries and others.

It's an unusual site for a March for Life prayer meeting. But, year after year, the Taskforce of United Methodists on Abortion and Sexuality meets there to mark the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade.

Defending life means "walking in a way that is out of step with the world," said retired Bishop Timothy Whitaker, former president of the denomination's Board of Discipleship. While there are secular people who oppose abortion, he focused his Jan. 18 sermon on why this issue has become so crucial to modern Christians who strive to affirm ancient Christian doctrines.

"Unless a part of the church is compromised by being conformed to the world," said Whitaker, "becoming a Christian profoundly changes one's perception of reality and one's behavior. … That is why the church is loved by many, as well as hated by many."

When the March for Life makes headlines, it is almost always for political reasons, such as this year's remarks by Vice President Mike Pence and a video-chat from President Donald Trump.

The massive march also serves as a hub for dozens of smaller events, with groups ranging from Episcopalians for Life to Feminists for Life, from Pro-Life Humanists to the Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians. Almost all mainstream religious groups – including progressive flocks – include a pro-life caucus of some kind.

For decades, United Methodists were powerful supporters of the interfaith Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, ties that were cut by delegates at the denomination's 2016 General Conference. That same conference defeated a motion to retain an old affirmation of Roe v. Wade.