Catholics across the United States have for years wondered if and when pro-abortion “Catholics” like Nancy Pelosi or John Kerry would be told not to present themselves for Communion because they are out of step with Catholic Church teachings on the sanctity of human life.
Cardinal Raymond Burke, the former archbishop of St. Louis and now the chief justice at the Vatican’s highest court saying prohibiting Pelosi and Kerry from receiving Communion”makes perfect sense,” according to a new interview Burke gave to EWTN.
As CNS News reports on the interview:
In an interview with EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo on Dec. 13, Cardinal Burke explained that it is necessary to protect the Sacrament, the
Communion wafer offered at Masses, from “being profaned, being violated by someone receiving unworthily,” someone “who knows that he or she is unworthy and yet presumes to come forward and to take the Holy Eucharist.”
Host Arroyo then asked, “Now, over the years, you have said everybody from John Kerry to Nancy Pelosi to Rudy Guiliani — these are public figures who are, by and large, pro-choice, in their public pronouncements, and manifestly so — you’ve said they shouldn’t receive the Sacrament. Now, over the years, you have received such scorn, for that clear teaching, do you ever stop and say, ‘Maybe I should back off a little bit’?”
Cardinal Burke, whose official title is Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, or chief of the Vatican’s highest court, said, “I’ve thought about it because I’ve received very severe criticism, both at the time that I was insisting on applying the discipline and also in my writing and other situations. But I have to say that, I think about it again, the discipline itself, and it’s a consistent discipline from the time of St. Paul, from the very first years of the Church, and it makes perfect sense.”
“In fact, it makes such fundamental sense that I can’t feel badly about it or question [it],” said the cardinal. ‘The question in my mind is, ‘Why don’t more people understand this?’ Because I don’t consider it to be rocket science or some kind of very unusual insight. It’s something that is natural to our Faith.”The cardinal continued, “The Holy Eucharist is the most sacred reality. It is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. And I simply wouldn’t approach to receive Holy Communion if I was in a state of sin, and neither would I give Holy Communion to someone who I knew was in a state of sin.”
This isn’t the first time Burke has said they should not receive communion.
In a September interview with The Wanderer, a Catholic newspaper, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura in Rome, sheds light on Pelosi and communion. He issues a call for pro-abortion politicians to be denied the sacrament — saying that Catholic Canon law must be applied to them.
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In July, Pelosi was at it again — with another crass comment on the abortion issue. This time, she went after pro-life Republicans saying they need a lesson in Sex Education 101. She attacked pro-life legislators in state legislatures across the nation who are passing new pro-life laws to limit abortions in places like Texas and North Carolina, saying they needed a lesson on “the birds and the bees.”
The recent comments come after Pelosi put her foot in her mouth during a press conference, calling the battle to keep late-term abortions legal sacred ground.
