Here is a fairly long and comprehensive article looking at the issue. We have only a short excerpt below; hit the link to read the article in it's entirety -
Focus - Dettaglio articolo | Chiesa Obama's pick for Vice-President is Catholic. But the Bishops deny him communion
ROMA, August 27, 2008 – On the eve of the Democratic party convention in Denver, the party's candidate for president of the United States, Barack Obama, chose a Catholic as his vice presidential running mate, Senator Joseph Biden (in the photo).
The choice immediately reignited the controversy over whether or not Eucharistic communion should be given to pro-abortion Catholic politicians.
Biden is one of these. The son of working class Irish parents, as a boy he thought about entering the seminary and has his rosary always in his pocket. He goes to Mass every Sunday and receives communion at his parish, St. Joseph's in Greenville, Delaware.
But as a politician, he has always vigorously upheld the Roe v. Wade decision of the supreme court, which opened the way to legal abortion in the United States. He says that he accepts the teaching of the Catholic Church on life, beginning from conception, and he voted for a law prohibiting abortion in the last weeks of pregnancy, but he maintains that the Roe v. Wade decision is correct for a society that has different views on abortion.
In an interview with the "Christian Science Monitor," Biden said that he believes his positions are "totally consistent with Catholic social doctrine."
But this is not the view of Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver, the city in which the Democratic party is officially presenting Obama and Biden as its candidates for the presidential election.
In interview with the Associated Press, Chaput said that Biden's support for the so-called "right" to abortion is a serious public error. And he added: "I presume that his integrity will lead him to refrain from presenting himself for Communion."
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