United States: The abortion question, set to be a major issue in the next presidential campaign

Source: FSSPX News

 

This is what the archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick, explained on his ad limina visit to Rome, at the microphone of Radio Vatican on April 28. – The background to this declaration - the controversy in the United States concerning the democratic candidate for the White House, John Kerry, who declares himself a practicing Catholic, and at the same time, affirms that he is in favor of abortion.

“I think that, in a certain sense, this debate has heightened the appreciation of the significance of Holy Communion for Catholics, (…) the Real Presence of Christ”, said Cardinal McCarrick. While underlining the existence of a division at the very heart of the Catholic community, he made it clear that “the media coverage has thrown this sin into sharper relief, certainly for the better”.

In order to appreciate the true value of the issue in this debate, it is useful to know, that Cardinal Arinze, on April 23, said during the press conference for the presentation of Redemptionis Sacramentum, that the position of the Church on abortion was well known. And to a journalist who asked him if Communion should be refused to a politician in disagreement with this position, the Cardinal responded in the affirmative.

The very same day, senator John Kerry reaffirmed his support for the right to abortion. And the following day, he received Communion at the Church he attends regularly, near to his home in Boston, Massachusetts. – In response to this, according to Associated Press, a spokesman for the archdiocese of Boston, said that the archdiocese had a policy of refusing Communion to no-one.

The behavior of John Kerry is arousing strong reaction among the Catholic hierarchy of the United States, notably that of the archbishop of Saint Louis, Raymond Burke, who has stated that Communion should be refused to John Kerry, as it was to the former governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, for the same reasons.

On Sunday April 25, between 500,000 and 700,000 women came from all over the United States and from around 50 other countries, to demonstrate in Washington against the “interference” of the Bush administration, in their right to abortion. There is no doubt that the abortion question will be at the center of the debates, during the forthcoming presidential campaign.