Thomas Reese doesn’t seem to understand that politics can exist in virtually any arena, as he tries to explain why anti-Biden no Communion for you! news isn’t news at all:
Recently, a handful of American Catholic bishops have issued statements questioning whether anyone who supports abortion rights should be receiving Communion, and journalists immediately pounced: Will President Joe Biden, they wanted to know, be denied Communion by the U.S. bishops’ conference because of his pro-choice position on abortion?
Journalists, here’s your answer: This is a stupid story for canonical, theological and political reasons.
First, and foremost, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops does not have the canonical authority to tell Biden that he cannot go to Communion.
During the papacy of John Paul II, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, emphasized the limited authority of bishops’ conferences. Who can or cannot go to Communion in a diocese is to be decided by the local bishop, not the bishops’ conference. The most the conference can do is make recommendations to local bishops. [Religion News Service]
While it’s lovely to think that Catholicism, one of the most political of animals, runs by the rules, the truth of the matter is that even if the rules are followed here – and I’m sure that, in the glare of world-wide news coverage, they will be – it’s not the rules that matter.
It’s the influence.
Something called a U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is going to have influence simply because it’s an aggregate of important people. They wield influence over the affairs of the church, they’ll remember who crossed them, and they’ll stay in communication with each other.
And if someone has ambition to move up the clerical ladder, they’ll have to remember who not to cross.
And that’s why I can’t take Reese’s claim seriously.
