By Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing, June 14, 2021
Dr. Robert Royal is editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing, president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C., and currently serves as the St. John Henry Newman Visiting Chair in Catholic Studies at Thomas More College. …
The American bishops will begin their regular June meeting (virtually) the day after tomorrow. High on the agenda: a “Catholic” president who not only flouts teachings on abortion, sex, and marriage but whose administration is hell-bent on curtailing religious liberty when it resists the sexual revolution. Or in formal language: the question of “Eucharistic coherence.” For the uninitiated, this abstract term raises a simple question: Should persons like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and hundreds of others who promote the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents yearly, and give grave public scandal, present themselves to receive Communion?
The answer is: No.
The term “Eucharistic coherence” was first used in a 2007 document issued by the Latin American bishops at Aparecida, Brazil. The chair of the drafting committee: Jorge Bergoglio, then cardinal archbishop of Buenos Aires, now Pope Francis. The Aparecida Document (click here) says clearly and forcefully: …