I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Monday, June 21st.

The Roman Catholic bishops of the United States are laying the groundwork to prevent President Biden, a devout Catholic,

from receiving communion over his support for abortion rights. If you were on the New York

Times website yesterday, you may have seen the article titled, In Rift with Biden, a dramatic show

of force by a conservative Catholic movement. Well, if you missed it,

the article gave an update to that controversial campaign from a group of bishops against

this country's second ever Catholic president, Joe Biden. Just last week, the United States

conservative bishops voted overwhelmingly to draft guidelines for communion

because of his support of abortion rights, although one stance on abortion, we should say,

is not something usually disclosed at church. And apparently it doesn't stop there. The movement

has even drawn scrutiny from the Vatican. Pope Francis preached this month that communion, quote, is not the reward of saints, but the bread of sinners, unquote.

And the Times also quoted Antonio Spadaro, a Jesuit priest, and close ally of Francis, who said the concern in the Vatican is not to use access to the

Eucharist as a political weapon. But according to one of the bishops, Kevin C. Rhodes, from a

diocese in Indiana, there is a special obligation of those who are in leadership because of their

public visibility. So Catholic listeners,

this is a call-in segment, and we're throwing it open for you. What is your opinion of this

standoff? Do you think the bishops have the right, no matter what your stand on abortion rights,

do they have the right to stipulate the sacrament? Larry and Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Larry.

Hey, hi. And thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to say, you know, I read the several

Times stories on this issue. And I just want to point out that Times tends to exaggerate this

a bit. We went through this quite a while ago with John Kerry under a much more

conservative pope, and it still didn't happen, that the USCB approved any document requiring

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