The Tablet July 14, 2021
My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord,
In this week’s column, I will attempt to shed some light upon the current state of confusion sometimes caused by the secular media and the lack of a prompt response from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) regarding the general impression that the US Bishops are moving toward banning pro-choice elected officials from the reception of Communion.
This issue was so publicized by the media that 60 Catholic members of the United States House of Representatives wrote a letter to the USCCB that the abortion issue should not be the one on which they are denied from receiving Communion. It has become obvious that there exists enough confusion on this issue that it merits some clarification, and I am pleased to do so.
The weaponised Eucharist
The debate among American bishops around whether President Biden and other Catholic politicians should be denied Holy Communion because of their policies on abortion is an important and unsettling one. Let me say at the start that I think it would be a tragedy if the bishops were to venture down this path.
For the nation’s bishops, the continued injustice of abortion remains the
‘preeminent priority.’ In a statement congratulating President Biden on his election victory, Archbishop Gomez, the President of the US Bishops Conference, noted that: ‘Preeminent does not mean only ’. We have deep concerns about many threats to human life and dignity in our society. But as Pope Francis teaches, we cannot stay silent when nearly a million unborn lives are being cast aside in our country year after year through abortion’
What a 60-year-old excommunication controversy tells us about calls to deny Biden Communion americamagazine.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from americamagazine.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Clarion Herald
Father Ronald J. Braud, a retired priest of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, died Jan. 10 at Chateau de Notre Dame. He was 81 and had served for 56 years as a diocesan priest, including 20 years as a chaplain and religion teacher at Archbishop Blenk High School in Marrero.
“He was someone who was calm, cool and collected,” said Msgr. Lanaux Rareshide, the homilist at a Jan. 18 Funeral Mass who was friends with Father Braud in the Jesus Caritas Priests’ Fraternity. “He was a very pleasant fellow. In his final years, he had some pain in his life with medical problems.”