Father Kevin Gillespie believes the Catholic Church should not deny communion to President Joe Biden even though he persists in advocating for the killing of unborn babies in abortions.
Gillespie is a Jesuit priest at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown, where the president attends Mass regularly. The Atlantic reports the church is associated with liberal politics and politicians; it has a Black Lives Matter banner hanging outside, and its priests often speak about social justice issues.
In an interview with the news outlet, Gillespie weighed in on the contentious debate within the church about Biden, who claims to be a devout Catholic while pushing policies that contradict church teachings and jeopardize millions of innocent lives.
Gillespie said receiving the Eucharist is a “sacred and intimate moment,” and Biden sees it as a “gift that enhances his faith, and it energizes his witness.”
“It’s really an encounter with God,” he told the news outlet. “We most certainly encourage him to improve his intimacy with God through the Eucharist.”
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Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C. also has welcomed Biden to attend Mass and receive communion. Gregory said it is normal for Catholics to have disagreements; they are part of “being a family, a family of faith. The difficulty is too many people want to throw out of the family of faith people with whom they have disagreements.”
Gillespie said the church has received a lot of complaints about its decision to give Biden communion, including more than 100 letters, phone calls and emails in the past month, according to the report.
However, the priest said he will not back down on his decision. According to the report:
Gillespie checked with Gregory to make sure he had the cardinal’s backing, and both men are resolute: The sacrament of the Eucharist—through which Catholics believe they experience the presence of Jesus by consuming his body and blood, transformed from a wafer and wine—should not be used as a carrot or a stick. …
Sinners abound in politics. The question facing the Catholic hierarchy is whether to offer the most famous Catholic sinner in America an invitation to closeness with God, or to withhold Communion until the president falls fully in line with his Church’s teachings.
But the problem is not just sin but Biden’s refusal to acknowledge that his pro-abortion actions are a sin, repent and stop pushing his deadly agenda.
“By his actions during the course of his public life, Mr. Biden has demonstrated that he is not in full communion with the Catholic Church,” Philadelphia Archbishop emeritus Charles Chaput wrote at First Things last year. He criticized Biden for supporting a “grave moral evil” that has “resulted in the destruction of millions of innocent lives.”
Catholic Archbishop Joseph Naumann also said Biden is creating “a real problem for the church” by advocating aggressively for the killing of unborn babies while calling himself a devout Catholic.
Naumann said Biden’s pro-abortion actions are a “great evil” that “goes very much against fundamental Catholic moral teaching.” He lamented how Biden describes the killing of unborn babies in abortions as “health care.”
“I think that’s particularly offensive in that health care doesn’t involve destroying life,” Naumann said. “It’s to help lives, heal lives, protect lives.”
Biden already is making abortions a priority in his administration. Just a week after taking office, he rescinded the Mexico City Policy and restored tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which kills babies in abortions around the world and lobbies to legalize abortions in pro-life countries.
He also began rolling back President Donald Trump’s Title X policy, which defunded the Planned Parenthood abortion chain of more than $50 million taxpayer dollars.
If Biden does what he promised, abortions could increase across America. Not only does Biden plan to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law in case the U.S. Supreme Court overturns it, he also wants to end the Hyde Amendment and force taxpayers to pay for elective abortions.
About 900,000 unborn babies are aborted every year in America, and about 62 million have been aborted since 1973 when the U.S. Supreme Court forced states to legalize abortion on demand. Without the Hyde Amendment, researchers at the Charlotte Lozier Institute predict 60,000 more unborn babies could be killed in abortions each year.
Last April, Biden went so far as to call the killing of unborn babies an “essential medical service” during the coronavirus pandemic. His health care plan would expand abortions as well by forcing insurance companies to cover abortions as “essential” health care under Obamacare.
On religious freedom, Biden’s position also is deeply troubling. Biden has endorsed anti-religious freedom policies that would force nuns, religious charities and hospitals to violate their deeply-held beliefs by funding the killing of unborn babies in abortions and potentially even by helping to facilitate their deaths. He also promised to restore an Obama-era mandate that would force the nuns with Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious employers to fund contraception, including types that may cause abortions, in their employee health insurance plans.
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