Discussion continues on pols, Communion

WASHINGTON (CNS) — In a scene that may be repeated across the country as U.S. bishops take their own advice to talk with Catholic politicians about abortion, Archbishop Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis met with a U.S. congressman from Missouri July 12.

Archdiocesan spokesman Jim Orso said the Archbishop’s half-hour meeting with Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, took place in the congressman’s St. Louis office. Because it was a "pastoral meeting," Orso added, both parties agreed not to make any public comment about it.

Clay, who is Catholic and has supported legislation backing abortion rights, criticized Archbishop Burke several weeks ago after the Archbishop stated that Catholics commit a mortal sin by voting for politicians that support abortion. Clay also was among some Democratic congressmen who wrote to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., complaining of bishops who have said they would deny Communion to pro-abortion Catholic legislators.

Archbishop Burke, who will issue a pastoral letter on the voting issue, said he wasn’t stating anything new but reiterating Church teaching and Pope John Paul II’s writings about proper reception of the Eucharist. In his statement three weeks ago, the Archbishop did not name candidates or political parties.

From the St. Louis Review