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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBiden: Pope told him he should 'keep receiving Communion'
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-pope-francis-business-poverty-rome-b4675e7b3115c5f3ddd3a735f9ee1e25Biden: Pope told him he should keep receiving Communion
By JOSH BOAK, ZEKE MILLER and NICOLE WINFIELD
ROME (AP) President Joe Biden said Pope Francis told him he should continue to receive Communion, as the worlds two most prominent Roman Catholics ran overtime in highly personal discussions on climate change, poverty and the coronavirus pandemic that also touched on the loss of presidents adult son and jokes about aging well.
Bidens support for abortion rights and same-sex marriage has has put him at odds with many U.S. bishops, some of whom have suggested he should be denied Communion.
Biden said abortion did not come up in the meeting at the Vatican. We just talked about the fact he was happy that I was a good Catholic and I should keep receiving Communion, Biden said.
Video released by the Vatican showed several warm, relaxed moments between Francis and Biden as they repeatedly shook hands and smiled. Francis often sports a dour look, especially in official photos, but he seemed in good spirits Friday. The private meeting lasted about 75 minutes, according to the Vatican, more than double the normal length of an audience with the pontiff
LiberalFighter
(50,504 posts)Cuthbert Allgood
(4,867 posts)If it is, then he can't take communion. The purpose of communication is secondary to that.
Liberty Belle
(9,528 posts)These are certainly much happier images than when he met with the Trump family in that hideous photo that looked like the Adams Family.
paleotn
(17,781 posts)outside of being told at a very young age "Papists bad, very bad!" Can US clergy simply ignore the Pope and still refuse to give Biden communion? I assume it's a bit more complicated than the Pope making pronouncements?
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,147 posts)maxsolomon
(32,992 posts)The US Catholic Church is fully involved in the RTL movement. They have issued a letter or something saying they are really gonna do it, they're going to deny that baby killer the host, you just wait.
Il Papa told them to GTFO.
There's definitely a split. The US Catholic Bishops are much more like Ex-Pope Ratzinger than Francis - he's far too liberal and far too South American for them. Too Liberation Theology, not enough Opus Dei.
He got elected to restore a veneer of piety to the RCC and the Papacy after the child molesting scandals. The Ghost of the Roman Empire needed a nice Pope.
paleotn
(17,781 posts)is suffering from some of the same schisms that have plagued Protestant denominations for 50 years or more.
Cuthbert Allgood
(4,867 posts)He just has a better PR department. Which, again, they needed, but he isn't pushing the RCC to the left.
maxsolomon
(32,992 posts)He's not Ratzinger. At least that's my impression as a Post-Catholic.
There's a whole movie about it: The 2 Popes, if you want more. Don't ask me to champion Francis, I could GAF if the RCC vanished tomorrow.
Hangingon
(3,071 posts)Pope Frances is noted for not speaking clearly. His words are often taken to support things that he late disavows. The issue of abortion is the center of US Catholic Bishops problem with Biden.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains the official is clear.
Abortion
2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.72
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.73
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.74
2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:
You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.75
God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.76
2272 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. "A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,"77 "by the very commission of the offense,"78 and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law.79 The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.
2273 The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:
"The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being's right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death."80
"The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child's rights."81
2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.
Prenatal diagnosis is morally licit, "if it respects the life and integrity of the embryo and the human fetus and is directed toward its safe guarding or healing as an individual. . . . It is gravely opposed to the moral law when this is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion, depending upon the results: a diagnosis must not be the equivalent of a death sentence."82
2275 "One must hold as licit procedures carried out on the human embryo which respect the life and integrity of the embryo and do not involve disproportionate risks for it, but are directed toward its healing the improvement of its condition of health, or its individual survival."83
"It is immoral to produce human embryos intended for exploitation as disposable biological material."84
"Certain attempts to influence chromosomic or genetic inheritance are not therapeutic but are aimed at producing human beings selected according to sex or other predetermined qualities. Such manipulations are contrary to the personal dignity of the human being and his integrity and identity"85 which are unique and unrepeatable.
DenaliDemocrat
(1,472 posts)Technically speaking, it would be a grave matter, but for the most part, only God knows what sins are truly mortal.
Haggard Celine
(16,820 posts)that Catholic clergy cannot "ignore the Pope." That would be like someone in the executive branch of our government ignoring the President. You might get away with it for a little while, but ultimately, the big guy is going to be "the decider," as Dubya would put it. The RCC has had squabbles over and over through the centuries about the authority of the Pope, and what it came down to was that everybody who goes against the Pope's wishes either changes his mind or leaves the RCC. There might have been a couple of exceptions to this rule back in the time of the antipopes and when they had some confusion, but almost always, the Pope wins the argument.
Ocelot II
(115,280 posts)over other Catholic clergy, he doesn't have a lot of enforcement power unless he specifically directs someone to be removed from their position or, in the worst case, excommunicated, which seldom happens. He has the authority of God and his directions are considered infallible only when he is speaking ex cathedra, which is to say that he has officially defined a doctrine concerning faith that is to be held by the whole church.
Haggard Celine
(16,820 posts)for thousands of years, of people defying the Pope's wishes or having disagreements with him. All bishops are supposed to accept the primacy of Rome. If they don't, they're out of the church. If it really came down to it and the American bishops somehow were preventing Pres. Biden from receiving communion, after the Pope told him to continue to receive it, there would be a major controversy. I think Francis would be calling some people to Rome and giving them a dressing-down. If they didn't agree with the Pope ultimately and continued to defy him, I think Francis would probably have them defrocked, or at least move them from their positions into some form of exile. The Pope is going to remain in control of the RCC.
Irish_Dem
(45,640 posts)They have a long history of doing their own thing.
highplainsdem
(48,731 posts)luvs2sing
(2,220 posts)who looked so horrified by TFG?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-2028834/Twitter-erupts-Italian-translator-looks-bewildered-Trump.html