Pro-choice, no Communion

last updated 8 January 2015

Vatican City

A top Vatican official said last week that Roman Catholic politicians in the U.S. who were “unambiguously pro-abortion” should be denied Communion. The statement was interpreted as a swipe at Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate. Kerry has vowed to champion abortion rights if elected, even though he says he is personally opposed to the procedure. Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis said in January that he would deny Kerry Communion, but several other bishops said it was improper to use the sacrament as a political weapon. “When people come forward to receive Communion,” a Catholic official said in Kerry’s hometown of Boston, “we give them Communion.”