On Sunday, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine was given a standing ovation by his Catholic parish, California Catholic Daily reported. While his fellow parishioners are celebrating him as Hillary Clinton’s pro-abortion running mate, many Catholics are speaking out against him because of his position on abortion.
Kaine and his wife attend Mass at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Highland Park, Virginia. The priest at St. Elizabeth, the Rev. Jim Arsenault, told NPR that Kaine was “personally pro-life” — despite Kaine’s pro-abortion voting record.
“I know that he’s definitely against capital punishment and works to help defend those who are on death row,” Arsenault said. “The church has a teaching with regard to we’re pro-life, and we believe in that seamless garment of life. We respect sometimes lawmakers make difficult decisions.”
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However, the U.S. Senator from Virginia has consistently proven himself to be pro-abortion. Kaine voted against the pro-life position every chance he got. Kaine voted to allow government funding of abortion providers, and he voted against legislation to require an abortionist to notify at least one parent before performing an abortion on a minor girl from another state.
Kaine took his most extreme pro-abortion action yet with his recent co-sponsorship of the so-called “Women’s Health Protection Act” (S.217), known to pro-lifers as the “Abortion Without Limits Until Birth Act.” This bill would nullify nearly all existing state and federal limitations on regulation of abortion, and prohibit states from enacting meaningful pro-life laws in the future. This revamped version of the long-stalled “Freedom of Choice Act” is a priority of the pro-abortion forces in Washington, D.C.
Kaine says on his own website that he doesn’t want to put any limits on the Roe v. Wade decision that allowed virtually unlimited abortions throughout pregnancy for any reason and has resulted in 55 million abortions.
“I strongly support the right of women to make their own health and reproductive decisions and, for that reason, will oppose efforts to weaken or subvert the basic holding of Roe v. Wade,” Kaine says, adding that he doesn’t support “criminalizing women’s reproductive decisions.”
Many argue that Kaine’s political actions should prohibit him from receiving communion, according to the Catholic Church’s teachings. Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law states that individuals “perservering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.” Because of this, many Catholic priests and bishops are speaking on this matter.
The Rev. Thomas Petri, a Catholic priest in Washington, D.C., tweeted the Senator to stay out of his communion line: “Senator @timkaine: Do us both a favor. Don’t show up in my communion line. I take Canon 915 seriously. It’d be embarrassing for you & for me.”
Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin also spoke out on how Kaine’s political position on abortion is in direct contradiction to the teachings of the Catholic Church.
“Senator Kaine has said, ‘My faith is central to everything I do,’ but apparently, and unfortunately, his faith isn’t central to his public, political life,” Tobin told the Province Journal.
