Weaponizing the Eucharist?

                                                          Last Supper Paulo Medina

Come to Christ’s table not because you must, but because you may.

Come not because you are fulfilled, but because in your emptiness

you stand in need of God’s mercy, forgiveness, and assurance.

Come not to express an opinion 

 but to seek Christ’s presence and receive the Holy Spirit.

Come to this table, then, sisters and brothers, as you are. 

I                            Invitation to the Communion Table

 Today Roman Catholic bishops in the United States gather, the beginning of three days of virtual meetings. The theologically conservative bishops have included an agenda item which can't possibly receive the support needed to make it policy but is contentious, just the same. The goal is to deny communion to politicians supportive of abortion rights — including President Joe Biden.  No matter that Biden a faithful churchgoer and the first Roman Catholic to occupy the Oval Office in 60 years. There is a group of bishops and other clerics in the US who are obsessed with abortion and supported the execrable Emperor Trump, a  man who violated virtually every notion of decency and was thrice married (an RC no-no) because he was supposedly anti-abortion. Biden has the temerity to separate church and state and to respect the reproductive choices and rights of women, regardless of his own convictions.

I wrote about this before but there has been an intriguing development. The Vatican and Pope Francis has pointedly directed the bishops not to pursue this wrong-headed censure of the president. According to a New York Times report: 

“The concern in the Vatican,” said Antonio Spadaro, a Jesuit priest and close ally of Francis “is not to use access to the Eucharist as a political weapon.” Pope Francis, who has explicitly identified the United States as the source of opposition to his pontificate, preached this month that communion “is not the reward of saints, but the bread of sinners.” His top doctrinal official, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, wrote a letter to the American bishops, warning them that the vote could “become a source of discord rather than unity within the episcopate and the larger church in the United States.”

I appreciate that phrase communion "is not the reward of saints, but the bread of sinners."  I do wonder whether the fixation on abortion and the "right to life" is part of the denial of the appalling secrecy around sexual abuse by priests in the United States and around the world. Untold thousands had their right to a full and meaningful life compromised by these predators, and they had no choice. There is also the undertone of misogyny amongst some conservative Roman Catholic leaders which is disturbing. 

I'm glad the Vatican is emphasizing healthy theological and sacramental practice rather than the manipulative tactics of what we can pray is an unsuccessful minority.