Holy Smoke: Has Pope Francis just thrown Joe Biden under the bus on abortion?

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🗓️ 17 September 2021

⏱️ 18 minutes

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Summary

Say what you like about Pope Francis, but he's incapable of giving a boring in-flight interview. On Wednesday, coming back from Hungary and Slovakia, he was asked about the problem of pro-abortion Catholic politicians receiving Holy Communion. He immediately launched into a ferocious denunciation of abortion, describing it as homicide, saying there was no middle way and stating that support for abortion was grounds for 'excommunication'.

Francis then slightly qualified this by explaining that these 'excommunicated' Catholics needed to be lovingly shown the error of their ways, but it was hard to escape the obvious conclusion. The Pope regards the President as barred from Communion – which drives a horse and cart through the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy of Biden's own bishop, Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington.

In this week's Holy Smoke, Dr Ed Condon, canon lawyer and editor of the brilliant Catholic website The Pillar, offers us an admirably lucid 'explainer' on this complicated topic. His conclusion is basically the same as mine. Though Ed wouldn't put it this way, the Pope has just thrown the fanatically pro-choice President of the United States under the bus.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Holy Smoke, the Spectator's Religion podcast.
0:07.0	I'm Damien Thompson.
0:09.0	And the question I'm asking this week is, has Pope Francis thrown Joe Biden under the buff?
0:16.0	Now, if I'm being honest, that's perhaps a bit sensationalist because I just love that American
0:21.1	expression throwing under the bus. But something really rather extraordinary did happen this week.
0:29.2	On his flight back from Slovakia and Hungary on Wednesday, Pope Francis was asked about
0:34.7	politicians who support abortion but receive communion.
0:38.8	And he said, knowing perfectly well that it was a question about Joe Biden, those who are not
0:44.2	in the community cannot receive communion. Out of the community, excommunicated, it's a harsh word,
0:49.8	but they don't belong in the community because they weren't baptized or because they're
0:53.2	estranged from it.
0:55.0	Abortion is more than a problem, said the Pope. It's a homicide, no middle way.
1:00.0	Whoever does an abortion kills. For the church to countenance legal abortion is morally acceptable
1:05.6	would be for the church to accept daily homicide. Catholic politicians who champion legal protections for abortion
1:12.8	don't present a theological problem to be addressed, the Pope explained, because the theology is simple.
1:19.6	And he then went on to talk rather less simply and rather less clearly about how pastors need to
1:25.4	accompany people who are outside the church by virtue of their
1:28.4	support for or participation in abortion. But there was no mention in what he said that they
1:33.7	should be allowed to receive communion. Indeed, absolutely nothing, he said, implied that he,
1:39.7	as Pope, was happy for the second Catholic president of the United States Joe Biden to receive
1:45.3	Holy Communion every week, as he does with the support of his bishop, Cardinal Walton Gregory,
1:51.4	who's one of those very partisan, democratic supporting bishops led by Cardinal Supich for Chicago,
	...

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