USCCB Meets, Big Questions Will Wait

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

As we go to press, America’s bishops are meeting online for discussion, debate, and voting on a variety of issues. Agenda item number seven, which will be voted on Friday, June 18, has received the most attention. Presented by Committee on Doctrine Chairman Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, it reads, “Does the body of bishops approve the request of the Committee on Doctrine to proceed with the drafting of a formal statement on the meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the Church?”
The question seems so innocuous that one wonders, why would the bishops even have to debate it? Don’t they have an old copy of the Baltimore Catechism lying around somewhere?
But it’s not that simple. In fact, this question addresses the challenge that our bishops have avoided for years — what to do about Canon 915. Since January, the question has acquired a renewed intensity. It boils down simply to this: what to do about Joe Biden.
In recent weeks we have recounted the extraordinary maneuvers that have preceded this vote — the most curious of which was a letter signed by some sixty bishops demanding that the issue not be raised this week at all.
Even more curious is The New York Times conjuring up stale news this week to coincide with the USCCB gathering. “The Vatican has warned conservative American bishops to hit the brakes on their push to deny communion to politicians supportive of abortion rights — including President Biden, a faithful churchgoer and the first Roman Catholic to occupy the Oval Office in 60 years,” the Times “reports.” The Times refers to the “Ladaria Letter” that we described in detail a month ago, but adds its own palaver to deliver a thinly veiled warning to those bishops who might fear bad press from the likes of The New York Times.
Alas, many bishops fit that description, and now the rubber is hitting the road. Are the bishops really going to call out “Catholic Joe” Biden for “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin”?
“It’s actually not Biden on trial right now, but the bishops,” Catholic University Theology Professor Chad Pecknold tells Catholic News Agency. “Biden is almost a perfect pro-abort politician and yet he claims to be a devout Catholic. The bishops must make a clear statement about precisely that contradiction.”
But it’s precisely the precision about that contradiction that countless bishops have spent years trying to avoid. Will they finally bite the bullet and face the music?
Unfortunately, they won’t. They might agree to “proceed with the drafting of a formal statement,” but Joe Biden will be long gone and back in his basement before a final text comes before the conference for discussion and a vote. At that time, it will be either shelved or watered down to the point of irrelevance.
This well-worn path is trodden not because of theology — indeed, Professor Pecknold is of course correct. No, it is due to politics. Too much is at stake — the billions in federal aid to the USCCB’s secular NGOs, the support of Biden and the Democrats for the bishops’ social agenda, the potential for investigations by a Justice Department that has gone rogue with countless personal vendettas . . . there’s just too much at stake.
A final note: the Times can’t resist quoting the notorious Vatican Jesuit Antonio Spadaro: “The concern in the Vatican is not to use access to the Eucharist as a political weapon,” Spadaro says — when in fact it is he and Biden’s other clerical advocates who are wielding politics as a weapon to formalize the desecration of the Eucharist with a Vatican imprimatur.

Is Some Outreach Missing?

Another agenda item comes from Bishop James Wall’s Subcommittee on Native American Affairs. “Do the members authorize the development of a new formal statement and comprehensive vision for Native American / Alaska Native ministry?”
Here arises another curiosity. Our bishops offer outreach programs and offices for African Americans, Asian and Pacific Islanders, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Migrants, Refugees, & Travelers. They even have one for European-American Young Adults.
Taking note of these worthy efforts, Fr. Jerry Pokorsky, a pastor in the Arlington Virginia Diocese, has a suggestion.
“Why don’t diocesan ‘multicultural ministry’ programs include a ‘Caucasian ministry’ segment,” he asks. “It seems the multicultural professionals do not think it’s necessary to target white people (except, perhaps, for fundraising purposes). With mostly white people in charge of multicultural ministries, the programs suggest a ‘systemic racism’ of implicit white condescension.”
Well, now, there’s some food for thought. Consider: In the Catholic hierarchy and among the broader American elites, it’s white folks who are in the lead condemning other white folks (themselves excepted) for being “racists.” In fact, the bishops have taught for decades that only white folks can be racists, that most of us are, and that no one else can be.
With outreach like that, who dares ask for more?

Detritus

The G7 (Group of 7), of which the U.S., is a member, has just issued its “Shared Agenda for Global Action to Build Back Better.” The agenda reaffirms “our full commitment to promote and protect the sexual and reproductive health and rights.” Translated, that last phrase means “universal abortion on demand.”
Vatican News reports that Caritas International sent an appeal to the G7 attendees: “It is impossible to ‘build back better’ without cancelling the debt of poor countries and reinvesting these funds in Covid-19 response and recovery and to combat the climate crisis,” they wrote.
Caritas International, which describes itself as “the helping hand of the Church,” made no mention of abortion in its appeal, but it will undoubtedly please the international bankers who made the high-interest, high-risk, and often fraudulent loans in the first place.
Historically, the U.S. government has routinely “relieved the debt of poor countries” by billing the taxpayer for “bailouts.” These funds, in turn, allow “poor countries” to pay off the banks. “The money leaves the Federal Feserve, goes to the Third-World country, and comes right back to the New York banks on a rubber band,” testified financial analyst Sol Sanders before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee some forty years ago.
This past Tuesday, USCCB officials demanded that Congress grant a “path to citizenship” for millions of illegal aliens now in the U.S. On the same day Texas Gov. Greg Abbott took a different tack.
“The Biden administration is not just incompetent, they are completely ignoring what is going on in the Rio Grande Valley along the Texas border,” he told Fox News. “We’ve seen so many people coming across the border who are harming Texans…as governor, I cannot allow my fellow Texans…to have a gun put to their head.
“First, we are increasing arrests,” Abbott continued. “If you’re stepping into the state of Texas, you’re going to be stepping into a no trespassing zone….We want to arrest people and put them in jail for a long time, so they will know they’re no longer going to be getting the red carpet treatment. They’re going to be going to jail if they come into Texas.”
Abbott said that Texas would also continue Trump’s border wall project that Biden suspended. We will “build the wall, arrest people, and make Texas safe and send a message to Washington, D.C.: ‘Stand up and do your job’,” he added.
On Tuesday, Merrick Garland, Biden’s attorney general, announced that: “In the FBI’s view, the top domestic violent extremist threat comes from racially or ethically motivated violent extremists, specifically those who advocate for the superiority of the white race.”
Our abiding gratitude goes to Sen. Mitch McConnell for keeping this radical off the Supreme Court five years ago.
And finally, The Washington Post has begun a campaign to condemn the “racist legacy” of birds that links them to “racism and white supremacy.”