‘Unique problem’: Catholic bishops split over Biden’s support for abortion rights

US bishops to debate whether the president should be denied communion over his pro-choice stance

Harriet Sherwood religion correspondent
@harrietsherwood
Sat 12 Jun 2021 08.00 BST

At some point this weekend, Joe Biden will take his place in a line of people approaching the altar of a Catholic church to receive communion.

The US president, a devout Catholic whose speeches regularly include biblical references and who carries a rosary that belonged to his late son, attends Mass every weekend – in Washington, his home town of Wilmington in Delaware, or wherever he happens to be traveling. If the traditional Sunday morning Eucharist service is not possible because of his schedule, he will receive the sacrament on Saturday evening as permitted by the Roman Catholic church.

“It’s really an encounter with God,” Father Kevin Gillespie of Holy Trinity in Washington, the church Biden usually attends in the capital, told the Atlantic earlier this year. For Biden, this “sacred and intimate moment” is a “gift that enhances his faith”, and “we most certainly encourage him to improve his intimacy with God through the Eucharist”.

But not everybody in the Catholic church in America is quite so keen on Biden receiving communion. Next week, a national online meeting of US bishops will discuss whether the president and other high-profile political figures should be denied the sacraments because of his stance on abortion rights.

“How can he say he’s a devout Catholic and he’s doing these things that are contrary to the church’s teaching?” archbishop Joseph Naumann, chair of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) committee on pro-life activities, asked last month. Biden’s position was a “grave moral evil” which presents a “unique problem” for the church, Naumann said.

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