Should Catholic Bishops deny communion to President Biden?
It being the third Sunday of the month, my husband and I had the great privilege recently to partake of Holy Communion.
Depending on your religious upbringing, the rite, also known as the Lord’s Supper is considered an ordinance or a sacrament and taken in remembrance of what Jesus did on the cross.
The bread represents His broken body before and during the crucifixion; the cup his shed blood.
Unlike in the Catholic church where communion can be had every day, communion is served only once a month at most Baptist churches, including at Antioch Baptist Church North, where my husband and I have been members the last 20 years.
As far as I know no one has ever been told they could not partake because of some sin in their lives or as in the case of President Joe Biden because of their position on abortion or some other issue.
We are admonished, however, to examine ourselves for, according to 1 Corinthians 11:28–34, “he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.”
If that doesn’t make you tremble, I don’t know what will.
From the moment I read, sadly, that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wanted to deny the President communion for his stance on abortion that scripture has played in my mind. Now that the conference has voted overwhelmingly — 168 in favor 55 against — to move forward with their rebuke, it plays still. Only louder.
For Catholics and their church, the controversy is no small matter. The Eucharist, according to the Rev. Bruce Wilkinson, is the centerpiece of Catholic worship.
For Holy Communion, he said, the bread and wine is believed to become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The church teaches that those who participate in the sacraments experience the love and power of God that flows from Christ’s passion, death and resurrection.
As such, the church teaches that the Eucharist must not be received unworthily.
Although the church rightly notes that it cannot subjectively know the mind and heart of the person involved, that that would be between that individual and God, they seem to have forgotten this when it comes to President Biden.
Wilkinson told me that the debate surrounding Biden and communion has been circulating ever since he announced his run for the presidency but that he never believed anything would come of it.
“When he won, they felt a line had been drawn in the sand and began meeting to come up with a proposal,” he said of members of the conference. “I believed naively that it would disappear. Then the Vatican came out and said look y’all need to drop this because you’re going in a direction contrary to the church’s teachings. When that happened I thought we’re all on the same page and surely everything would go on without any big controversy. Much to my surprise they weren’t going to let this go.”
Turns out I haven’t heard so much about communion in the media since 1998 when President Bill Clinton, a Southern Baptist, and his wife, Hillary, a United Methodist, received Holy Communion from a Roman Catholic priest in South Africa.
As I remember it, the controversy boiled down to whether a non-Catholic Christian may receive communion from a Catholic priest and left the Clinton White House and the Vatican scrambling for an explanation.
Biden’s White House hasn’t had much to say about his rebuke but the president doesn’t seem worried. He said recently it was a private matter.
He’s right. As far as I’m concerned it’s a private matter between Biden and the good Lord.
Those 166 Bishops should know that.
Wilkinson told me their vote saddened him.
“As a minister, we all know what people do but it’s not for me to make judgments,” he said. “If they approach the altar and want communion, I give them communion.”
Instead of embroiling themselves in political debates, Wilkinson said the Bishop’s time could be better spent addressing the many issues impacting church members, including how to bring them back into the fold.
Well, if you’ve been wondering why more and more people are fleeing the church, here’s one of the reasons.
If I listened to how others define Christian identity, I could never receive Holy Communion at a Roman Catholic altar either. Not because I’m Baptist but because many of my views and the sins which so easily beset me wouldn’t square with the church leadership.
I doubt that would surprise an all knowing God. I’m pretty sure, however, that it would cause him to pull me closer, not push me farther away.
To me the Bishop’s vote is a way to compel a certain behavior.
It’s troubling when people do that and most especially when any church does it.
Jesus gave the bread and wine at the Last Supper to all who were present, including his betrayer Judas Iscariot. Talk about loving your enemy.
Like his love and salvation, communion is a gift, not something we can earn.
Not even a majority vote by the Conference of Catholic Bishops can change that.
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