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There is, however, a problem with the Church attempting to control the President of the United States in this manner. This will (or should) cause some folks to seriously question whether the American Bishops are thinking clearly.

I don't think this has anything to do with control, and everything to do with the shift of shame and blame in modern culture.

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(1) The Bishops obviously believe that Biden is a devout Catholic and that communion is important to him. If they don't then this isn't a threat at all. Their calculation is that communion is very important to Biden.

Or they believe that it's a bad look for an outspoken proponent of abortion, who seeks to fund it with public tax dollars and even greater rates, to take communion.

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(2) The Bishops are proposing using Biden's Catholic faith and desire for communion with God as a tool to control the President and dictate the policy of the United States of America. The message is to Biden, "Do what we dictate or you will lose your communion with God."

Or they are asking one of the most public figures in the country who claims to be devout to actually live the faith.

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(4) So the question I have is, why are they doing this?

Because, even if people had private beliefs contrary to doctrine, typically as a Christian country, those beliefs were held in private and espousing normal Christian attitudes was what we did, and what Politicians did or not. We're all sinners, we aren't supposed to lead people to sin, that's another sin. And a big one. See Obama believing marriage was between a man and a woman shortly before being President. That was the norm.

It isn't a perfect system, but at least Obama wasn't actively leading the public, in public declarations, to sin.

Things are different, and there are are more "devout Catholic" Politicians who are far more brazen and careless with the faith. That is an issue when it is done so openly and aggressively.

It's a new problem.

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No one has ever asked me in the communion line to declare my adherence to Church policies on abortion or anything else. That's because I am not the President.

But if you stood in front of a priest and said "I support abortion, and homosexual marriage," they'd have every right to not give you communion. You don't ask and those sins are between you and God, if you have them. What you do isn't public.

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This is 100% an attempt to manipulate Biden, as President, under the hope that Biden will pledge allegiance to the Church above his allegiance to America. It's a mistake.

No. It's 100% an attempt to get control of the faith back from people like Biden and not let them control the identity of the faith, because we are a far more open and shameless society. We don't have other mechanisms to keep us pointed in the right direction, unfortunately.

I say all of that saying that I don't necessarily Disagree with having very strict guidelines about how and why, and how they scope it, because it is dangerous territory, but we live in a different kind of world. This has to be done carefully, so your warnings of the severity aren't wrong, but they are misaligned to what is actually going on.

The Bishops KNOW Biden will give up his "faith," and I think that's the danger. Catholicism will be teetering on the edge of being culturally irrelevant if they press this. That COULD be ok, but that is a definitely possible result.

ETA: Can you agree that Biden, obviously not a devout Catholic, is using his faith Politically already by having it and "espousing" belief in it to win points? He doesn't believe in Catholic Doctrine, and doesn't agree with the Church on multiple issues. For him, the faith is ALREADY a Political tool.

This post was edited on 6/23/21 at 12:32 pm