President Biden addresses the 2021 National Prayer Breakfast / National Prayer Breakfast
Washington D.C., Jun 18, 2021 / 20:15 pm (CNA).
On Friday, US President Joe Biden was asked about a “resolution” of the U.S. bishops to deny him and other pro-abortion politicians Communion – even though their vote this week was on drafting the teaching document, not any national policy of denying Communion.
“That’s a private matter and I don’t think that is going to happen,” Biden said.
The U.S. bishops held their annual spring general assembly this week. The bishops debated drafting a document on the Eucharist, which would include a sub-section on “Eucharistic coherence,” or worthiness to receive Communion.
#BREAKING | President Biden was asked about the Catholic bishops’ decision to develop a document on the Eucharist, which could prevent pro-abortion politicians from receiving communion.
He responds: “That’s a private matter, and I don’t think that’s going to happen.” #USCCB21pic.twitter.com/Dq2T2LYEfn
In a proposed outline of the document, the bishops’ doctrine committee cited the special need for Catholic public officials to uphold Church teaching in public life.
Biden, who is the second Catholic US president, has pushed for taxpayer-funded abortion while his administration seeks to deregulate medical abortions and to fund international pro-abortion groups.
On the 48th anniversary of the US Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris issued a statement supporting Roe and stating their intent to codify it in law.
Biden repealed the Mexico City Policy, an executive policy that bars U.S. funding of foreign NGOs that provide or promote abortions.
In domestic abortion policy, Biden moved to allow for federal funding of elective abortions by introducing his budget request for the 2022 fiscal year without the Hyde amendment. That policy, enacted in law since 1976 as a rider to budget bills, prohibited federal funding of most elective abortions in Medicaid.
Gaudium et spes, Vatican II’s 1965 constitution on the Church in the modern world, said that “from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care while abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes.”
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a doctrinal note in 2002 on participation of Catholics in political life. The document stressed the need for Catholics to adhere to Church teaching, especially on grave issues such as abortion and euthanasia.
Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect of the CDF, cited the note in his letter to the U.S. bishops in May on the matter of Communion for Catholic public officials who support permissive legislation on grave evils.
In October 2019, while campaigning for president, Joe Biden was denied Communion at a parish in the Diocese of Charleston. A Charleston diocesan policy, which is also that of the Archdiocese of Atlanta and the Diocese of Charlotte, states that “Catholic public officials who consistently support abortion on demand are cooperating with evil in a public manner. By supporting pro-abortion legislation they participate in manifest grave sin, a condition which excludes them from admission to Holy Communion as long as they persist in the pro-abortion stance.”
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Pope Benedict XVI arrives in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican for the Oct. 21, 2012, canonization ceremony for Jacques Berthieu, Pedro Calungsod, Giovanni Battista Piamarta, Maria Carmen Salles y Barangueras, Marianne Cope, Caterina (Kateri) Tekakwitha, and Anna Schaffer. / Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 2, 2023 / 14:00 pm (CNA).
During his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI beatified 870 people and canonized a total of 45 saints. Though his papacy was relatively short, spanning from 2005 to 2013, the 45 people whom he declared saints are models of faith and holiness, celebrated by Catholics all over the world.
Here are seven of the best-known saints Pope Benedict XVI canonized:
St. Kateri Tekakwitha
St. Kateri Tekakwitha, or “Lily of the Mohawks,” was the first Native American saint to be canonized. Born in what is today New York state, she was the daughter of a Mohawk father and a Christian Algonquin mother. She was baptized at age 21 and fled persecution to St. Francis Xavier Mission near Montreal, Canada, joining a community of Native American women who had also converted to Christianity. She is remembered for her suffering, devout faith, courage, and her purity. St. Kateri died on April 17, 1680, at age 24.
Statue of St. Kateri Tekakwitha with lily. Shutterstock
She was canonized by Benedict XVI on Oct. 21, 2012. He said: “Kateri impresses us by the action of grace in her life despite the absence of external help and by the courage of her vocation, so unusual in her culture. In her, faith and culture enrich each other! May her example help us to live where we are, loving Jesus without denying who we are.”
St. Hildegard of Bingen
St. Hildegard of Bingen was an abbess, artist, author, composer, mystic, pharmacist, poet, preacher, and theologian from Germany. Born in 1098, in her late teens she became a Benedictine nun at the Monastery of Saint Disibodenberg. From the age of 3, she experienced visions of God and was asked by her confessor to write them down in what became the influential illustrated book “Scivias.”She founded two monasteries and was a prolific writer of poetry, theology, and sacred music. She died on Sept. 17, 1179.
A sculpture of Hildegard of Bingen by Karlheinz Oswald at Eibingen Abbey in Hesse, Germany. . Gerda Arendt (CC BY-SA 3.0).
St. Hildegard was canonized on May 10, 2012, and declared a Doctor of the Church by Benedict XVI on Oct. 7, 2012. He said: “In Hildegard are expressed the most noble values of womanhood: hence the presence of women in the Church and in society is also illumined by her presence, both from the perspective of scientific research and that of pastoral activity.”
St. Damien of Molokai
The bronze cast of Marisol Escobar’s ‘Father Damien’ in the National Statuary Hall (detail). public domain.
Joseph de Veuster, later to become St. Damien of Molokai, was born in 1840 in rural Belgium. At the age of 13, he was forced to leave school to work on a farm but later decided to pursue a religious vocation with the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. As a priest, he served victims of leprosy quarantined on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. He eventually contracted the disease, losing his eyesight, speech, and mobility. St. Damien died of leprosy on April 15, 1889. Benedict XVI said of St. Damien, whom he canonized on Oct. 11, 2009: “Following in St. Paul’s footsteps, St. Damien prompts us to choose the good warfare, not the kind that brings division, but the kind that gathers people together. He invites us to open our eyes to the forms of leprosy that disfigure the humanity of our brethren and still today call for the charity of our presence as servants, beyond that of our generosity.”
St. Marianne Cope
St. Marianne Cope was born in Germany in 1838 and entered religious life with the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis in Syracuse, New York, in 1862. Mother Marianne served as an educator and opened two of central New York’s first hospitals. She was sent to Kalaupapa on the island of Molokai in Hawaii at age 45 to care for leprosy patients and established an education and health care system for them in the years she was there.
Painting of nun Saint Marianne Cope and images with lepers and her team on Molokai Island at Mary, Star of the Sea, Catholic Church, Kalapana, Hawaii. Claudine Van Massenhove / Shutterstock
Benedict XVI canonized St. Marianne Cope on Oct. 21, 2012. Of her legacy, he said: “At a time when little could be done for those suffering from this terrible disease, Marianne Cope showed the highest love, courage, and enthusiasm. She is a shining and energetic example of the best of the tradition of Catholic nursing sisters and of the spirit of her beloved St. Francis.”
St. Jeanne Jugan
St. Jeanne Jugan was born on Oct. 25, 1792, during the French Revolution. At age 25, she joined the Third Order of St. John Eudes, a religious association for laypersons. After some time serving as a nurse caring for elderly women, she acquired an unused convent building that would hold 40 people and established the Little Sisters of the Poor. At the time of her death on Aug. 29, 1879, 2,400 members were serving internationally.
Portrait of St. Jeanne Jugan (1792–1879), foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor, by Léon Brune 1855. Public domain
At St. Jeanne Jugan’s canonization on Oct. 11, 2009, Benedict said: “Jeanne lived the mystery of love, peacefully accepting obscurity and self-emptying until her death. Her charism is ever timely while so many elderly people are suffering from numerous forms of poverty and solitude and are sometimes also abandoned by their families.”
St. Pedro Calungsod
St. Pedro Calungsod was born in 1654 in the Philippines. In 1668, at the age of 14, he was among the young catechists chosen to accompany Spanish Jesuit missionaries — among them Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores — to the Marianas Islands to spread the Catholic faith. St. Pedro was responsible for converting many people, especially through the sacrament of baptism. On April 2, 1672, he was killed, along with San Vitores, while they were conducting a baptism. He is now recognized as a martyr.
Pope Francis and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle before a mosaic of catechist St. Pedro Calungsod in St. Peter’s Basilica on Nov. 21, 2013. Credit: Kerri Lenartowick/CNA.
He was canonized on Oct. 21, 2012. Of St. Pedro’s hardships, while visiting the Marianas Islands, Benedict said: “Pedro, however, displayed deep faith and charity and continued to catechize his many converts, giving witness to Christ by a life of purity and dedication to the Gospel. Uppermost was his desire to win souls for Christ, and this made him resolute in accepting martyrdom.”
St. Alphonsa
St. Alphonsa was born in Kerala, India, on Aug. 19, 1910. As a young woman, she rejected all suitors who came her way, as she was determined to enter religious life. In 1923, she suffered an accident that left her burned, disabled, and partially disfigured. She joined the Franciscan Clarist Congregation, and until her death suffered from physical ailments and problems associated with her disability. In her love for God, she embraced her sufferings until her death on July 28, 1946.
1996 stamp of India with photo of St. Alphonsa. India Post, Government of India via Wikimedia Commons
St. Alphonsa was canonized by Benedict XVI on Oct. 12, 2008. She is the first Indian woman to become a saint. In a Vatican statement released on the day of her canonization, she is described as “a victim for the love of the Lord, happy until the final moment and with a smile of innocence always on her lips.”
A consistory for the creation of new cardinals in St. Peter’s Basilica Nov. 28, 2020. / Vatican Media.
Rome Newsroom, Aug 17, 2022 / 05:31 am (CNA).
On Saturday, Aug. 27, Pope Francis will place a red biretta on the heads of 18 bishops and two … […]
15 Comments
Another door-stop USCCB document on “Eucharistic coherence” with page after page of pious blather that a 2nd grader preparing for First Communion could summarize in a simple declarative sentence completely misses the point. Biden is a heretic and is already excommunicated latae sententiae. The bishops need to declare Biden’s excommunication formally and publicly and then proceed down the line from there. U.S. Catholics have had enough. Actions, not words, are what is demanded.
Problem is this action would not only apply to Biden. It would apply to millions of Catholics, who might stop coming to church and no longer financially supporting the church. Then the church could face a dilemma. How important is money?
Also this could lead to schism. Do we really want another of these? Maybe some do.
Valid points, but maybe a spiritual housecleaning is necessary at this point. Better to have a smaller, faithful Church than a morally and spiritually corrupted larger body.
Great Expectations. Biden’s expectation [a shameless excerpt from a previous comment] has an imperious tone, solemnly urging the Church to desist from its faithful practice, refusing what’s owed him over a mere trifle, a predisposed approval of the murder of approx 70 million innocents since 1973. The president lives in a world bereft of “rules”, except his own, with license presumptuously due to separation of Church and State. He recently shouted, arms flailing, that he’s made far greater radical change to our Nation than any predecessor. Destructive changes to timeless moral doctrine on life, family, and sexuality. An infant in the womb is in greater danger during his administration than at any time in history. What’s at stake for the Church isn’t political expediency. Nor maintaining order and cohesion. Neither is separation of Church and State at issue. Rather it’s the foundation of a just society in which religious freedom and the right to uphold its values. Values that are the source of that foundation for justice.
I think we can have a pretty good idea of the bishops who supported going forward on the document, if we’ve been following this story. Several bishops have come forward, besides Cordileone and others who have been forthright thus far.
“Hope springs eternal . . .”
So are we going to deny communion to those Catholic politicians advocating the death penalty?
While on this path what about those who campaigned for sending US troops to Iraq?
Oh, please. Support for abortion, “gay marriage”, and trans-sexualism is different, in kind and degree, from prudential judgments re: capital punishment and national defense.
Oh, please, the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with national defence. It was an act of un godly evil, in every respect it was a murderous pursuit! And one can argue that prudential judgements as applied to capitol punishment can also apply to the issue of Abortion. It is my personal position that I am against abortion, full stop. However to what degree or extent, in a democratic republic where there is the separation of church and state, can I insist that an other, who does not share my faith in Jesus, be beholden to a law that may be against the wishes of a voting majority who are non christian?
The answer you seek is no, because as the court of the Pontiff Francis has reluctantly implied by its “eloquent ambiguity,” (to quote one apologist) the death penalty cannot be declared immoral.
This is as compared to abortion, fornication, sodomy, false witness and idolatry, which, among other things, remain mortal sins.
I have no academic qualifications in Ethics unlike Mr Weigel but a quick look at the Wikipedia page on the subject states:
[ In ethics, a “prudential judgment” is one where the circumstances must be weighed to determine the correct action. Generally, it applies to situations where two people could weigh the circumstances differently and ethically come to different conclusions.
For instance, in the theory of just war, the government of a nation must weigh whether the harms they suffer are more than the harms that would be produced by their going to war against another nation that is harming them; the decision whether to go to war is therefore a prudential judgment.]
Mr Weigel, an author and academically qualified ethicist who has written extensively on the subject of Just War Theory was a signatory to the Project For a New American Centurary’s Statement of Principals, accompanied by the political elite of the Bush administration. His support for invasion of Iraq is on record, in effect a Catholic blessing of this act of war: https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/428/article/just-war-case-war
Why is Mr Weigle, a celebrated contributor of articles to CWR not the subject of serious discourse with respect to the sanctity of life?
One could mount an argument that he should be denied communion!
An ordinary and commonplace and “private thing,” says the hollow-suited and sleepwalking occupier of the White House…
When Hannah Arendt interviewed Adolf Eichmann, the captured overseer of Hitler’s “final solution” to the Jews, she found him to be “quite ordinary, commonplace, and something neither demonic nor monstrous” (Eichman in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, 1964).
Biden has frequently said that he personally opposes abortion but that he “won’t impose his beliefs on anyone else”, or some such blather.
Mr. President – we’re not asking you to do that, we are merely asking you to DEFEND what you say your beliefs are, and there is NO sign that you have any intention to do so.
Another door-stop USCCB document on “Eucharistic coherence” with page after page of pious blather that a 2nd grader preparing for First Communion could summarize in a simple declarative sentence completely misses the point. Biden is a heretic and is already excommunicated latae sententiae. The bishops need to declare Biden’s excommunication formally and publicly and then proceed down the line from there. U.S. Catholics have had enough. Actions, not words, are what is demanded.
Problem is this action would not only apply to Biden. It would apply to millions of Catholics, who might stop coming to church and no longer financially supporting the church. Then the church could face a dilemma. How important is money?
Also this could lead to schism. Do we really want another of these? Maybe some do.
Valid points, but maybe a spiritual housecleaning is necessary at this point. Better to have a smaller, faithful Church than a morally and spiritually corrupted larger body.
At least those “millions of Catholics” will have ceased committing sacrilege by receiving Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin.
John 6:66
Great Expectations. Biden’s expectation [a shameless excerpt from a previous comment] has an imperious tone, solemnly urging the Church to desist from its faithful practice, refusing what’s owed him over a mere trifle, a predisposed approval of the murder of approx 70 million innocents since 1973. The president lives in a world bereft of “rules”, except his own, with license presumptuously due to separation of Church and State. He recently shouted, arms flailing, that he’s made far greater radical change to our Nation than any predecessor. Destructive changes to timeless moral doctrine on life, family, and sexuality. An infant in the womb is in greater danger during his administration than at any time in history. What’s at stake for the Church isn’t political expediency. Nor maintaining order and cohesion. Neither is separation of Church and State at issue. Rather it’s the foundation of a just society in which religious freedom and the right to uphold its values. Values that are the source of that foundation for justice.
“An infant in the womb is in greater danger during his administration than at any time in history.”
Well said.
I think we can have a pretty good idea of the bishops who supported going forward on the document, if we’ve been following this story. Several bishops have come forward, besides Cordileone and others who have been forthright thus far.
“Hope springs eternal . . .”
So are we going to deny communion to those Catholic politicians advocating the death penalty?
While on this path what about those who campaigned for sending US troops to Iraq?
Oh, please. Support for abortion, “gay marriage”, and trans-sexualism is different, in kind and degree, from prudential judgments re: capital punishment and national defense.
Oh, please, the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with national defence. It was an act of un godly evil, in every respect it was a murderous pursuit! And one can argue that prudential judgements as applied to capitol punishment can also apply to the issue of Abortion. It is my personal position that I am against abortion, full stop. However to what degree or extent, in a democratic republic where there is the separation of church and state, can I insist that an other, who does not share my faith in Jesus, be beholden to a law that may be against the wishes of a voting majority who are non christian?
The answer you seek is no, because as the court of the Pontiff Francis has reluctantly implied by its “eloquent ambiguity,” (to quote one apologist) the death penalty cannot be declared immoral.
This is as compared to abortion, fornication, sodomy, false witness and idolatry, which, among other things, remain mortal sins.
I have no academic qualifications in Ethics unlike Mr Weigel but a quick look at the Wikipedia page on the subject states:
[ In ethics, a “prudential judgment” is one where the circumstances must be weighed to determine the correct action. Generally, it applies to situations where two people could weigh the circumstances differently and ethically come to different conclusions.
For instance, in the theory of just war, the government of a nation must weigh whether the harms they suffer are more than the harms that would be produced by their going to war against another nation that is harming them; the decision whether to go to war is therefore a prudential judgment.]
Mr Weigel, an author and academically qualified ethicist who has written extensively on the subject of Just War Theory was a signatory to the Project For a New American Centurary’s Statement of Principals, accompanied by the political elite of the Bush administration. His support for invasion of Iraq is on record, in effect a Catholic blessing of this act of war: https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/428/article/just-war-case-war
Why is Mr Weigle, a celebrated contributor of articles to CWR not the subject of serious discourse with respect to the sanctity of life?
One could mount an argument that he should be denied communion!
An ordinary and commonplace and “private thing,” says the hollow-suited and sleepwalking occupier of the White House…
When Hannah Arendt interviewed Adolf Eichmann, the captured overseer of Hitler’s “final solution” to the Jews, she found him to be “quite ordinary, commonplace, and something neither demonic nor monstrous” (Eichman in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, 1964).
Biden has frequently said that he personally opposes abortion but that he “won’t impose his beliefs on anyone else”, or some such blather.
Mr. President – we’re not asking you to do that, we are merely asking you to DEFEND what you say your beliefs are, and there is NO sign that you have any intention to do so.