ATLANTA — Roman Catholic bishops in three Southeastern U.S. dioceses said in August they will deny Holy Communion to politicians who consistently support pro-abortion legislation unless they publicly recant. The bishops of the dioceses of Atlanta, Charleston, S.C., and Charlotte, N.C., released a joint statement calling abortion “intrinsically unjust” and saying that “Catholic public officials who consistently support abortion on demand are cooperating with evil in a public manner.”
The bishops concluded that Catholic public officials who support pro-abortion legislation “participate in manifest grave sin, a condition which excludes them from admission to Holy Communion as long as they persist in their pro-abortion stance.”
Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis said in January he would refuse communion to Democrat John Kerry, a Catholic who supports abortion rights. However, the three Southern bishops went further by setting up strict requirements for the prohibition to be lifted.
The banned Catholic lawmakers could resume taking the sacrament “only after reconciliation with the church has occurred, with the knowledge and consent of the local bishop, and public disavowal of former support for procured abortion,” the clerics said.
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