Cardinal Arinze and Communion by Pro-"Choice" Politicians

Cardinal Arinze in his no-nonsense honesty explains:



This was covered by LifeSiteNews who wrote:

April 29, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The question of whether Catholic politicians who support abortion should receive or be denied Holy Communion has been a source of contentious debate amongst many bishops and theologians. But according to one of the Vatican’s most senior cardinals, the answer to the question is so simple that even schoolchildren intuitively know it. 

In an exclusive video interview with LifeSiteNews.com this week, Cardinal Francis Arinze observed that he is often asked about pro-abortion Catholic politicians and Holy Communion. “Do you really need a cardinal from the Vatican to answer that?” the cardinal said he tells his questioners. “Is that really a difficult question?” 

Instead, says Arinze, he suggests that people who are confused about the issue should go ask a class of children preparing for their First Communion.

“Explain it to them,” he said. “They will ask you, ‘What is abortion?’ Don’t use euphemism. Tell them what it is. It is killing a child not yet born in the mother’s womb. And then tell them if a person is for that, and says that he will continue to support the killing of such children, should such a person receive Holy Communion?”

The cardinal said that one parish priest told him he tested this out on a First Communion class, and they all responded, “No, he should not!”

“These children did not study dogmatic theology at the Catholic University of America or at the Gregorian university in Rome,” said Arinze. “And they saw immediately that killing an unborn child is wrong!”

Arinze, a Nigerian cardinal, currently serves as Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, having served as prefect from 2002 to 2008. He was widely considered a leading contender to be elected pope at the last conclave.

Canon 915 of the Church’s Code of Canon Law states that those who are “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.” 

Though some bishops and cardinals have opposed the use of the canon, the Vatican has been clear in upholding it. In 2004, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then-head of the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith, wrote a letter to the U.S. bishops exhorting them to deny Communion to pro-abortion politicians after attempting to reach out to them.