Denial of Communion Not a Political Act

Roman Catholic church officials recently have sparked controversy by suggesting that John Kerry and other pro-abortion politicians should be denied the Lord's Supper. According to an article in the June 2, 2004 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a pro-abortion Catholic group surveyed US Catholic bishops and found several who would not allow Kerry and others who support abortion to take Communion. "In April, a top Vatican official, Cardinal Francis Arinze, reiterated this message and seemed to support Burke and other bishops by reinforcing Rome's position of denying Communion to Catholic politicians whose views are different from those of the Church."

Reaction from abortion supporters is predictable. What is interesting, though, is the reaction of anti-abortion Americans. The consensus seems to be that such action inserts Rome into the American political process by dictating how Catholic legislators must make law. Not only would that be bad in itself, but it would also undermine Americans' trust that Catholic elected officials can fulfill their oaths to defend the Constitution without regard to the opinions of their church.

A Washington Post poll on the issue showed that about two thirds of Americans disagree with denying Communion to politicians who support abortion. Since only about half of Americans believe that abortion should be legal, many abortion opponents are among those who disagree with the policy of denying Communion. I interpret the poll data to mean that most people regard withholding Communion as a political pressure tactic. Surely all of the news reports I've seen on the issue start with this assumption.

Though I can't speak for the Catholic church, I have seen no proof that the Vatican or the US Catholic clergy regard their Communion practices in a political light. Faithful pastors make such decisions based on the spiritual health of the parishioners involved. There are Biblical grounds for not serving Communion to parishioners who come to the altar with unrepented sin.

In I Corinthians 11:27, St. Paul writes that "Whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." That is why Christians prepare themselves for Communion by examining their lives and repenting of their sins.

In the Catholic church and many others, including my own, asserting a "right" to kill the unborn would be considered a terrible sin. Anyone who consistently does that in public, as pro-abortion politicians do, would be regarded as an openly impenitent sinner. Any church which regards abortion as murder should deny Communion to such a person for the sake of his own soul. That is what I believe most Catholic clergy are doing when they discipline their pro-abortion members. It is a slander against these pastors' faithfulness to assume that they intend a political statement.