Why are pro-abortion catholic politicians allowed to receive communion?

[DrPiano]

But if people like Pelosi or Biden or Kerry upheld the Catholic Church’s teaching on life (and homosexual “marriage”) while maintaining their other votes on immigration, worker’s rights, the poor, etc., people wouldn’t be forced to choose between abortion and the other issues (not that I fully agree with your previous statements).

I’m not trying to attack or demonize anyone. But it is these politicians’ positions that are forcing voters to choose between one or the other. If the Republicans weren’t the only ones saying they’re committed to trying to decrease abortions, opposing euthanasia, opposing the use of federal funds for abortions, etc. (and voting consistent with that), then there wouldn’t be that false dichotomy between ending abortion and helping the poor.

Nancy Pelosi has publicly supported FOCA - a bill that will INCREASE not decrease abortions. She wants to use federal funding for abortions in this country AND other countries. I’m not trying to demonize her but her positions ARE significantly more pro-abortion (and NOT limiting the harm done). They are also in direct contradiction with the teachings of the Catholic Church - and she repeatedly tries to pass of her positions as being in line with Catholic teaching.

You may disagree with me, and you’re entitled to do that. And ultimately I’m abiding by whatever her bishop decides to do (I’m personally more concerned with my own governor who, although Catholic, has both used her Catholicism to defend embryonic stem cell research AND vetoing a partial birth abortion ban). But I would like to reiterate that people like my governor and Pelosi cause great scandal for the church - particularly to outsiders like my mother. She sees them go forward for communion and can’t understand why she’s denied it - when they are no more in line with Catholic teaching than she is. And who can begin to say how many people in the pews might have unconfessed mortal sin and see their actions as justification for receiving communion while in that state?

 

[elts1956]

Here’s one priest explaining some of this: hancaquam.blogspot.com/2008/11/communion-and-pro-abortion-politicians.html

Also, as one blogger, with whom I agree, said, more or less, public sin requires public restitution. ie. Catholic pro abort. pol. receives communion=scandal. The pol. must make public amends/declaration of no longer promoting abortion.

The private conscience, private amends would not apply in this instance.

 

[elts1956]

Here’s one priest explaining some of this: hancaquam.blogspot.com/2008/11/communion-and-pro-abortion-politicians.html

One other point, it seems that there is a missing understanding over the difference between infallible/intrinsic and prudential. Direct abortion is intrinsically evil, because it is infallibly held to be never licit. So it carries an automatic sentence of excommunication (which can be lifted by a bishop, or the priests empowered by the bishop).

Voting for abortion legislation is indirect cooperation, further more, we have it on papal authority that such votes can be licit. Since the votes can be licit, the situations have to be judged on a case by case basis. The politician can make a moral argument to justify the action, and it is up to a bishop to judge the merits of that argument and the overall moral needs of his flock.

You are right in your main argument in that no one can know the state of the individual soul of anyone, including a Pelosi, Biden, Kennedy, or Kerry, at any given instant,but I think the gravity of the scandal they give should be clarified. They are public officials, calling themselves Catholic, who are giving great scandal in at least the appearance of giving sacrilege to the Eucharist. This should be rectified. The only way it can be corrected is for these pols. to publically recant their sin of supporting abortion. If the Bishops do not attempt to aid these misguided folk to do the least of these things, if the Bishops continue to uphold their politicians rather than the Body and Blood of Christ they also give scandal through their negligence to correct this.

If the so called “Princes” of the Church cannot defend Mother Church by stating a wrong to be wrong, then I see a continued weakening of her authority here in the states and elsewhere.

 

[elts1956]

The concept of “limiting the harm” was introduced by JPII in Evangelium Vitae, but in the CDF Doctrinal Note on Participation in Political Life put out in 2002 (and approved by JPII), licit applications where made very narrow.

The Church specifically stated that limiting the harm could not be at the expense of other fundamental moral principles, and even gave a pretty broad list of principles which are not negotiable. Please list these principles.Peace.

If this is so, why has the Church through Pope John Paul II and Pope Paul VI made such statements as below? You are seriously mistaken in interpreting the Intrinsic Evil of abortion to be on the same level of, or below, other social issues.
usccb.org/faithfulcitizenship/FCStatement.pdf

1. Pope John Paul II explained the importance of being true to fundamental Church teachings:

“Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf
of human rights—for example, the right to health, to home,
to work, to family, to culture—is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other perrsonal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.” (Christifideles Laici, no. 38)

Evangelium Vitae

1. “Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves ?the creative action of God’, and it remains forever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can, in any circumstance, claim for himself the right to destroy directly an innocent human being”.41 With these words the Instruction Donum Vitae sets forth the central content of God’s revelation on the sacredness and inviolability of human life.
2. If such great care must be taken to respect every life, even that of criminals and unjust aggressors, the commandment “You shall not kill” has absolute value when it refers to the innocent person. And all the more so in the case of weak and defenceless human beings, who find their ultimate defence against the arrogance and caprice of others only in the absolute binding force of God’s commandment./COLOR]

In effect, the absolute inviolability of innocent human life is a moral truth clearly taught by Sacred Scripture, constantly upheld in the Church’s Tradition and consistently proposed by her Magisterium.

Faced with the progressive weakening in individual consciences and in society of the sense of the absolute and grave moral illicitness of the direct taking of all innocent human life, especially at its beginning and at its end, the Church’s Magisterium has spoken out with increasing frequency in defence of the sacredness and inviolability of human life. The Papal Magisterium, particularly insistent in this regard, has always been seconded by that of the Bishops, with numerous and comprehensive doctrinal and pastoral documents issued either by Episcopal Conferences or by individual Bishops. The Second Vatican Council also addressed the matter forcefully, in a brief but incisive passage. 50

Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, and in communion with the Bishops of the Catholic Church, I confirm that the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral. This doctrine, based upon that unwritten law which man, in the light of reason, finds in his own heart (cf. Rom 2:14-15), is reaffirmed by Sacred Scripture, transmitted by the Tradition of the Church and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.

The deliberate decision to deprive an innocent human being of his life is always morally evil and can never be licit either as an end in itself or as a means to a good end.

Nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a fetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying. 52

[55. This should not cause surprise: [COLOR=“red”]to kill a human being, in whom the image of God is present, is a particularly serious sin. Only God is the master of life! The deliberate decision to deprive an innocent human being of his life is always morally evil and can never be licit either as an end in itself or as a means to a good end. It is in fact a grave act of disobedience to the moral law, and indeed to God himself, the author and guarantor of that law; it contradicts the fundamental virtues of justice and charity. “Nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a fetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying. Furthermore, no one is permitted to ask for this act of killing, either for himself or herself or for another person entrusted to his or her care, nor can he or she consent to it, either explicitly or implicitly. Nor can any authority legitimately recommend or permit such an action”.

52.As far as the right to life is concerned, every innocent human being is absolutely equal to all others. This equality is the basis of all authentic social relationships ordinary and universal Magisterium.

73 No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church.
the face of the earth. Before the demands of morality we are all absolutely equal".53