Bishops have a ‘duty’ to deny pro-abortion politicians Communion, American Cardinal says

The belief by many Catholics in politics, supported by many in the Catholic hierarchy and clergy, that it is possible to be in active support of legalised abortion and remain in good standing with the Church, has become a notorious source of scandal in the U.S., Canada, Britain, and Europe. One of the world’s most resolute defenders of the Church’s teaching is Raymond Leo Burke, the Cardinal Prefect of the Vatican’s highest court. The American Cardinal told an Irish newspaper last week, again, that a person who persists in the “grave sin” of supporting abortion in law must both refrain from presenting himself for reception of Communion, but must be refused when he does so.

In a lengthy interview with the Irish newspaper Catholic Voice, the Cardinal Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican’s highest court, said again that it is not possible to remain in good standing as a Catholic and support the killing of children in the womb as a politician.

“There can be no question that the practice of abortion is among the gravest of manifest sins and therefore once a Catholic politician has been admonished that he should not come forward to receive Holy Communion,” he said.