Pope Francis answers questions from journalists aboard his flight from Bratislava, Slovakia, to Rome September 15. Photo: CNS. The debate about denying Communion to politicians who support abortion must be handled in a pastoral way, not by public condemnations that seek to “excommunicate” Catholics who are not in line with Church teaching, Pope Francis said.
During his return flight from Bratislava, Slovakia, September 15, the Pope said that while there is no question that “abortion is homicide,” bishops must look take a pastoral approach rather than wade into the political sphere.
“If we look at the history of the Church, we can see that every time the bishops did not act like shepherds when dealing with a problem, they aligned themselves with political life, on political problems,” he said.
The Pope told journalists that when defending a principle, some bishops act in a way “that is not pastoral” and “enter the political sphere.”
“And what should a shepherd do? Be a shepherd. Not going around condemning,” the Pope added. “They must be a shepherd, in God’s style, which is closeness, compassion and tenderness.”
“A shepherd that doesn’t know how to act in God’s style slips and enters into many things that are not of a shepherd.”
The Pope said that he preferred not to comment directly on the issue of denying Communion in the United States “because I do not know the details; I am speaking of the principle” of the matter.
When asked if he had ever publicly denied Communion to someone, Pope Francis emphatically said, “No, I have never denied the Eucharist to anyone; to anyone! I don’t know if someone came to me under these conditions, but I have never refused them the Eucharist, since the time I was a priest.”
But, he added, “I was never aware of anyone in front of me under those conditions that you mentioned.”
Recalling his apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, the Pope said that “Communion is not a prize for the perfect,” but rather “a gift, the presence of Jesus in his Church and in the community. That is the theology.”
Understood
However, Pope Francis also said he understood why the Church takes a hard stance because accepting abortion “is a bit as if daily murder was accepted.”
“Whoever commits an abortion, murders,” he said. “Take any book on embryology, those books on medicine. At the third week of conception, many times before a mother even realises it, all the organs are there. All of them, even their DNA.
“It is a human life. Period,” the Pope added. “And this human life must be respected. This principle is very clear.”
He also recalled the reaction to his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, and the debates surrounding giving Communion to divorced or remarried Catholics.
Some called it, “heresy, but thank God for Cardinal (Christoph) Schönborn, a great theologian, who cleared a bit the chaos,” he said.