A public disagreement about abortion between a member of Congress and the bishop of Las Vegas is the latest salvo in an ongoing debate over whether Catholic politicians whose positions deviate from church teaching should receive Communion.
In a Jan. 24 op-ed for The Las Vegas Sun, U.S. Representative Susie Lee said she hoped Congress would pass legislation to protect legal abortion rights ahead of a decision expected later this year from the Supreme Court that some think could overturn Roe v. Wade. In her essay, the two-term member of Congress cited her Catholic faith.
“As a Catholic, I have a deep understanding of the moral dilemma that the choice to have an abortion presents,” Ms. Lee wrote. “At the same time, the choice to become a mother is an extremely personal one, and that choice should stay between a woman, her family and her doctor.”
She continued, “When extremists insert themselves into this decision, they refuse to recognize women’s bodily autonomy, potentially put them in life-threatening circumstances, and often coerce them into having a future that they neither wanted nor prepared for.”
The bishop said he would not ask priests or eucharistic ministers to police the Communion line.
Bishop George L. Thomas, head of the Diocese of Las Vegas, responded in his own op-ed three days later, citing documents from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and stating that he believed Catholic politicians who support legal abortion should not receive Communion.
“If a politician from the Diocese of Las Vegas finds himself or herself at odds with the church’s teaching on the sacredness of human life, I ask him or her voluntarily to refrain from the reception of Holy Communion while holding public office,” Bishop Thomas wrote. “At the same time, I am ever in the ready to discuss this matter privately with her or with any Catholic politician to whom this position applies.”
The bishop said he would not ask priests or eucharistic ministers to police the Communion line. Instead, he encouraged “Catholic politicians and Catholics at large [to] take this moment to look deeply into their own hearts, and re-examine the church’s moral conviction on the inviolability and dignity of human life” and refrain from the sacrament if they disagree with the church.
The public back and forth comes two months after U.S. bishops adopted a document about the Eucharist, “The Mystery of the Eucharist in the Life of the Church,” that did not explicitly address the worthiness of Catholic politicians to receive Communion if they go against church teaching in their public lives.
In an interview with The Las Vegas Sun last week, Bishop Thomas said he believed the president should not receive the Eucharist.
President Joe Biden, who is the nation’s second Catholic president and attends Mass regularly, was the subject of much debate among some bishops, who said that his support for legal abortion precludes him from receiving Communion. Some bishops hoped the document would include language that could be used to bar the president from the sacrament. But the archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, as well as the pastor of the D.C. church that Mr. Biden regularly attends, have distanced themselves from that position.
During a visit to the Vatican last October, Mr. Biden told reporters that Pope Francis had encouraged him to continue receiving the sacrament.
In an interview with The Las Vegas Sun last week, Bishop Thomas said he believed the president should not receive the Eucharist.
“I only have jurisdiction in southern Nevada,” the bishop said. “It would make no difference if it’s the president, the congresswoman or a senator if they describe themselves as Roman Catholic and assume a position that is radically different from the Catholic Church.”
In a statement to The Sun, Representative Lee said a political leaders’s personal faith should not be imposed on others when it comes to decisions about abortion.
“That choice is one that a woman should be able to make based on her own faith and discussions with her family and doctor,” Ms. Lee said in the statement. “However, my faith—or anyone else’s—should not dictate whether or not a woman has the chance to make her own health care decisions.”
