What I Cannot Swallow

 

The US Catholic Bishops would like Joseph Robinette Biden, President of the United States and observant Catholic, to be barred from the sacrament of communion because he holds, as a matter of conscience, that other people should also follow the dictates of their conscience with regard to the medical termination of pregnancy.

I am unbaptized and non-believing, so I can't speak for the practice of communion as a Christian, but I studied the odd bit of theology. Sharing in the body of Christ is a reminder that God so loved us, he became flesh, and we are closer to him through that gift. In the Bible, Christ asks us to recognize that we share oneness in the body--what you do to anyone, imagine you do to Him. The leaders of the Church in America are denying a member of their body communion with that body. They are cutting him off because he cares what happens to female-bodied people trying to access reproductive health care.

I'm not a person of faith, but I've been female-bodied my whole life, and my sex is one of the reasons why I've always felt the Church had nothing for me. Where was the culture of life for the children of the Magdalene laundries, or for the women themselves? Where was the culture of life for indigenous children in the United States, Canada or Australia? Where was the culture of life when children were and are sexually assaulted by church leaders? Whre was the culture of life when women stayed married to husbands without benefit of divorce, being abused and giving birth to child after child? If they never cared to deny the sacrament to warmongerers, or torturers, or supporters of the death penalty, why pick on Grandpa Joe Biden, who just thinks maybe people can choose whether they should have kids right now, and understands that these things are complicated? Because of any number of things, tragic and not. 

I don't know how significant it is to receive communion in the form of a religious ritual, because to me, communion is when you empathize with other human beings you meet along the way--and believe me, Biden does this. He is a gregarious, people-oriented person who can't not feel for others. I think the Church is actually diminished when it stoops to this kind of low political pettiness. I would greatly prefer it leave Biden's conscience alone, and consider the Church's own.