Breda O'Brien
The View
A midst the ongoing controversy about whether US President Joe Biden should be excommunicated for his stance on abortion, important points are being missed. There needs to be sustained teaching on the nature of the Eucharist before people will understand excommunication. (This is not to suggest a moratorium on excommunication until all Catholics understand Church teaching, just a call for sustained teaching on the Eucharist.)
In 2019, Pew Research found that just one-third of US Catholics say they believe that “the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus.”
Even among regular Mass goers, only 63% of US Catholics accept transubstantiation. While 43% of US Catholics believe that it is the official teaching of the Church that the bread and wine are symbolic. Even when they know the Church’s teaching, one in five Catholics (22%) reject transubstantiation.
Ireland position
We can presume that the position is no better in Ireland. Like the old joke about the Kerryman giving directions, you would not start from here to try to give a rationale for denying President Biden the Eucharist until he shows evidence of sincere repentance for his support for increased access to legalised abortion.
In order to understand excommunication, it is necessary to understand worthy and unworthy reception of the sacrament. None of us is worthy or deserving to receive our Lord. We are all equally undeserving, crying out with the centurion for healing – “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”
Perhaps a better distinction might be between respectful and disrespectful reception of the sacrament, an idea which is described by the term eucharistic coherence – in other words, that there should be a unity between the kind of life you are leading and the reception of the Eucharist.
Anyone in mortal sin should not receive the Eucharist. Nor should the Eucharist ever be received casually. If someone has missed Mass for months not due to Covid-19 restrictions but because of indifference or laziness, he or she should not just present themselves at the altar to receive, but instead, go first to Confession.
If a person is out of communion with the Church on basic teachings, whether it be the right to life, or the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, or the obligation to see Christ in the poor and to act on that insight, it is not respectful to receive the sacrament.
Excommunication is meant to be a kind of medicine, a natural consequence of taking particular stances, which encourages the person to reflect and be reconciled with the Church.
Some people believe that it wrong to single out abortion as a cause for public excommunication. For example, in Amoris Laetitia, drawing on earlier writings by Pope emeritus Benedict in Deus Caritas Est, it says: “When those who receive [the Eucharist] turn a blind eye to the poor and suffering, or consent to various forms of division, contempt and inequality, the Eucharist is received unworthily.” (186).
The right to life, however, is foundational. Without a right to life, no other rights can be exercised. President Biden represents many within the Church who believe themselves to be good Catholics while in flagrant breach of basic teachings. Yet it could be argued that William Barr, President Trump’s attorney general, was in flagrant breach of Church teaching when he facilitated a slew of federal capital punishments taking place in the last days of Trump’s administration.
In September 2020, Mr Barr received the Christifideles Laici Award from the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast Association. The award recognises a member of the laity whose work “exemplifies” the teaching of the Catholic Church.
Death penalty
Three successive Popes have questioned the death penalty, with Pope St John Paul II reserving it for situations in which there was no other way to protect society from further violence – which in the modern world, effectively outlawed it completely. In 1999, on a trip to the US, John Paul called “for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary”. Pope Francis built on that foundation in 2018.
Yet William Barr actively participated in facilitating 13 federal executions, some using drugs which anti-death penalty advocates say replicate the experience of drowning as the lungs fill with fluid. It gave President Trump the dubious distinction of being the American president who has executed the most prisoners for 130 years.
If the US bishops choose to excommunicate President Biden, they should excommunicate William Barr at the same time. They will thereby show that they respect all human life and that the decision to excommunicate is not partisan. They will also send a powerful message that those in public life cannot pick and choose among the Church’s central teachings and expect to be Catholics in good standing.