If anything, he sugar-coated it.
OSV | Newsweekly | November 16, 2008
The Church's growing difficulties became embarrassingly clear during the campaign when Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), also a Catholic, misrepresented Catholic teaching on abortion on national television.
In response, many bishops issued statements attempting to set the record straight, but Catholics of the left then accused them of inappropriately working for Obama's defeat. Worse still, bishops fell to disagreeing publicly among themselves about whether they were putting too much emphasis on abortion.
The hierarchy might find help in something Pope Benedict XVI said in France last September. While approving church-state separation, the pope spoke of the Church's "irreplaceable role" in forming consciences and helping to create "a basic ethical consensus in society."
In a sense, the Church in America has tried to do that for years. But the events of 2008 suggest that uncoordinated, scattershot efforts have diminishing results.
When one hears that the bishop of Joe Biden's diocese doesn't want to "politicize" abortion, it makes the faithful wonder if that bishop hasn't missed the purpose of his role in teaching his flock. Either he has failed to communicate with Mr. Biden on the necessity of sitting out during communion or risking the embarrassment of being refused.
If a person is not able to receive communion because he or she is living in an invalid marriage, they are expected to do the same.
Posted by: Victress Jenkins | November 16, 2008 at 02:55 PM