Cardinal Says Catholic Politicians Backing Abortion Should Be Excommunicated

by christiannewsjournal
unborn baby

Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke shared on his website that politicians who support abortion rights are guilty of apostasy and should be excommunicated and denied communion. Ordained as a bishop in 1995 by Pope Saint John Paul II, Burke served for almost nine years as Bishop of La Crosse, where he founded the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and spent over four years as Archbishop of St. Louis. 

“It is sometimes said that the denial of Holy Communion to politicians who obstinately persevere in grave sin is the use of Holy Communion by the Church for political purposes,” said Burke who was named cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010. “On the contrary, it is the Church’s solemn responsibility to safeguard the holiness of the Holy Eucharist, to prevent the faithful from committing sacrilege, and to prevent scandal among the faithful and other persons of good will.”

He also wrote it’s the Catholic politician, who publicly and obstinately promotes what is contrary to the moral law and yet dares to receive sacrilegiously Holy Communion, “who uses the Holy Eucharist for political purposes. In other words, the politician presents himself or herself as a devout Catholic, while the truth is completely otherwise.”

Burke did not mention any politician by name.

Pew Research found 67 percent of U.S. Catholics believe President Joe Biden “should be allowed to receive communion” regardless of “his views on abortion.”

President Biden is America’s second Catholic president, after John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, elected in 1961. JFK was only the second Catholic presidential candidate in American history.

Bishop Joseph Strickland, head of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas called out Biden in a February tweet, posting that the president is “not a real Catholic.

Archbishop Jose Gomez is the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and said in a January statement, “I must point out that our new president has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender.”

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—By CNJ Staff

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