Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington, centre, with other US bishops during a Mass at the Basilica of St
Paul Outside the Walls in Rome.
Photo: CNS 
J.D. Flynn
Washington’s Cardinal, made a cardinal last weekend, told a journalist on November 24 that in his diocese, he will not deny Communion to a politician who has pledged to enshrine access to abortion in federal law and permit federal funding of abortions. That politician is President-elect Joe Biden.
Archbishop Wilton Gregory’s comment is sure to raise questions about the Church’s pro-life witness. But for some Catholics, the remark might also raise questions about the sincerity of US bishops on the topic of ecclesial reform.
In 2004, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then head of the Church’s doctrinal office, told US bishops in a memo that a Catholic politician “consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws” is engaged in “manifest” and “formal cooperation” in grave sin.
In such a case, the politician’s “pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist,” Cardinal Ratzinger wrote.
If the Catholic perseveres in grave sin and still presents himself for Holy Communion, “the minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it”.
Canon 915
Cardinal Ratzinger’s memo was an application of canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law, which says that Catholics “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Communion”.
In short, Cardinal Ratzinger’s memo gave bishops instruction on how to apply the Church’s law. On November 24, Archbishop Gregory said he has no plans to do so.
Some Catholics will soon raise objections to Archbishop Gregory’s remark.
Pro-life activists will say bishops should stand up for the unborn, and that distributing the Eucharist to pro-choice politicians implies that abortion is not a serious moral issue. Some will accuse the Cardinal of preferring secular approval to uncomfortable evangelical witness.
Those are exactly the arguments Catholics made when Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York said in 2019 that he would not deny the Eucharist to New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo, who signed one of the most permissive abortion laws in the country’s history, and again in October of that year, when Cardinal Dolan said he would not deny Mr Biden the Eucharist.
If history is predictive, other Catholics will praise Archbishop Gregory as a witness of civility and tolerance. They will say that no one should politicise the Eucharist, and that denying Communion is not pastoral, or prudent.
They will not be the first to use that language.
In 2004, when US bishops discussed pro-choice politicians and the Eucharist, one cardinal among them was charged with summarising the memo sent from Cardinal Ratzinger to bishops on the subject, as few of them had yet received it. The cardinal downplayed the memo, saying addressing the matter at all was
“The question for us is not simply whether denial of Communion is possible, but whether it is pastorally wise and prudent,” the cardinal said.
That cardinal was Theodore McCarrick.
Spring meeting
At the 2004 spring meeting of US bishops, which took place in Denver, he inaccurately summarised the instructions of the Vatican on Communion, omitting Cardinal Ratzinger’s normative direction. Under the former cardinal’s influence, the bishops decided the best way to handle the question was to defer to the individual judgement of bishops.
The memo, incidentally, was sent ahead of the meeting to two US bishops: McCarrick, and the president of the US bishops’ conference, Bishop Wilton Gregory.
In the wake of McCarrick’s more recent scandal, pro-lifers will not be the only ones to lament Archbishop Gregory’s decision about Mr Biden. Catholics concerned with ecclesial reform are also likely to have concerns.
Archbishop Gregory is charged with leading the Archdiocese of Washington after the scandal of McCarrick, and in the wake of serious questions raised about his immediate predecessor, Cardinal Donald Wuerl. The ttt is charged with promoting healing, and enacting reform, and he’s pledged to do so.
Critics
But his critics are likely to see his remarks on Mr Biden as a setback to reform. Some will argue that Archbishop Gregory has substituted his own judgment for the law of the Church, and the Vatican’s instructions on how to apply it. That practice, they’ll say, is the kind of clericalism that made the McCarrick scandal possible.
Archbishop Gregory may not see that matter that way, or believe himself to be flouting canon 915. But if his priests think he is not taking seriously ecclesiastical law, his reform agenda may be seriously jeopardised.
Archbishop Jose Gomez said last week that a Biden presidency promises “certain challenges” for the bishops of the US. As Archbishop Gregory wades into controversy over canon 915, the reach of those challenges may soon become apparent.
