October 31, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — It is right and just that Joseph R. Biden was denied Holy Communion by a Catholic priest last Sunday.
For decades, and in front of millions of other souls, the former senator from Delaware has strongly expressed support for laws diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus Christ, causing grave scandal.
Abortion and homosexual “marriage” are two of the most egregious violations of God’s law that Biden is and has been in favor of. Both are singularly evil acts listed in the Bible as being among the four sins that cry to heaven for vengeance.
The most obvious reason Fr. Robert E. Morey made the right call this past Sunday, the Feast of Christ the King, is because Scripture — the infallible word of God — states, “Whoever eats and drinks the Body of Christ unworthily, eats and drinks judgment on himself.”
This is no lightweight warning.
While liberal priests like Fr. James Martin think it’s not possible to know if Biden was in danger of violating that teaching, Biden’s obstinate persistence in supporting manifestly un-Catholic policies indicates he would have received Communion unworthily, and that the priest was simply looking out for the well-being of his soul by stopping that from happening.
At the crux of the issue lies widespread and unfortunate confusion over just what Catholics believe the Eucharist is and how it “works.”
Pope Francis has said Holy Communion is “not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.” That’s true in a sense, but many take that to mean that any Catholic, regardless if he is in a state of grace or not, not only should receive it, but has a right to receive it, which is false.
When Catholics are given Communion — the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord — they, quite literally, welcome Christ under the “roofs” of their mouths. They become united with their Creator.
For the same reason that an ordinary citizen would tidy up his house if the mayor or governor were coming over, so too must a Catholic clean up his soul by way of confession when the King of Kings pays him a visit, so to speak. If one’s house is messy and polluted by sin, Christ, by necessity, is dragged into what 19th-century German priest Fr. Michael Mueller called “a dungeon,” where He is “chained” to “the passions which He loathes.”
Dom Lorenzo Scupoli, author of The Spiritual Combat, rightly said the Holy Eucharist is “the most terrible of all weapons to the infernal powers.” St. Francis of Assisi likewise wrote, “Let the whole world of mankind tremble, let the whole world shake and the Heavens exalt when Christ, the Son of the living God, is on the altar, in the Hands of a Priest!”
What this means is that no Catholic should dare approach the table of the Lord if he has not first gone to confession, begged for God’s pardon, and promised Him that he would amend his life and sin no more.
If, as it is claimed, Joe Biden is a “practicing Catholic” and has in fact gone to confession throughout his adult life, it certainly seems he hasn’t changed his ways, even in the slightest, or that he has the intention to live by the Church’s teachings.
In 2016, Vice President Biden officiated at a gay “marriage,” tweeting, “Proud to marry Brian and Joe at my house. Couldn’t be happier…two great guys.”
While on the campaign trail in Iowa last month, he bragged that he was “the first person nationally to come out [in support of gay ‘marriage’] and say in front of everyone that I didn’t have to go through any period of adjustment…I didn’t have to evolve.”
Not only does Catholicism teach that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered,” but it firmly and resolutely affirms that same-sex couples cannot “marry.”
Moreover, the Church holds that only a priest can witness the vows of men and women seeking to enter Holy Matrimony, one of the seven sacraments instituted by Christ. It is a grave violation of canon law to actively collaborate in a non-sacramental “wedding” of two men — a much worse violaton than, say, not doing enough to curb climate change.
Modernists on Twitter seem to think that denying Biden Communion won’t accomplish anything and that his longstanding support for “pro-choice” laws isn’t very different from conservatives who support the death penalty. “His soul isn’t in any worse a state than others who don’t live up to the Church’s teachings,” they reason. “Why single him out?”
There’s a discussion to be had about whether or not certain libertarian Catholics should be held more accountable for deviating from the Church’s social teachings, especially on economics. But the main point with Biden is this: he’s a national figure and has been for more than four decades. He’s shaped the lives of millions of people living on multiple continents. When he is cast before the throne of Almighty God, he will be judged “more strictly” (James 3:1) than others thanks to the influential positions he has enjoyed in this life. Like all persons who have ever lived, his fate will be determined by whether or not he lived in accordance with Christ’s laws and whether he used his state in life to help others do the same.
The priest who denied him Communion knows this. He had to get Biden’s attention and alert him to the danger he is in. He knows there is a hierarchy of sins and that supporting certain policies, like abortion, is worse than supporting other laws. He knows that Biden’s highly public and longstanding, unrepentant support for the intrinsic evil that is the killing of unborn babies is a big strike against his chances of getting past the pearly gates.
Biden, sadly, doesn’t seem to understand that. He believes that his Catholicism shouldn’t, or at least can’t, play a role in such matters. “I am personally opposed to abortion, but I don’t think I have a right to impose my view on the rest of society,” he said in his 2007 memoir.
Regardless of how many Catholics come to embrace this noxious, wholly misguided way of thinking, the Church’s teaching on politics and the Social Kingship of Christ is unchangeable: Jesus’s dominion extends to all nations, the baptized and the unbaptized. All “men are subject, and must recognize his empire.”
No one — not vice presidents, presidents, or senators — can escape this undeniable fact. “At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow — those in heaven, on earth, and those under the earth,” Philippians 2:10 states.
St. Alphonsus affirmed that doctrine when he taught, “An individual will save his soul by keeping the divine laws; a king, to save his soul, must keep them and make his subjects keep them, that is, reform bad morals and uproot scandal.”
Has Biden, in his role as a public servant, done this? To be fair, there are surely some laws he’s voted for that have improved the temporal well-being of everyday Americans. On the whole, though, he has caused much more harm than good, especially on the supernatural level.
In the mid-1800s, the aforementioned Fr. Mueller wrote a magnificent book titled The Blessed Eucharist: Our Greatest Treasure. In it, he said that whoever receives Communion unworthily commits a “heinous crime” and draws down upon himself a “terrible chastisement.” He recounts a story about how a young man concealed a mortal sin in the confessional out of shame and yet presented himself for Holy Communion:
On attempting to swallow the Host, he was seized with such excruciating pains that he was compelled to rush out of the church and to cast forth the Sacred Particle into the filth of the street. After this he felt instantly relieved. Our Lord gave him thereby to understand that the very filth of the street was more acceptable to Him than a heart that is defiled by sin.
More than anything, that story makes me reflect on our own sins and on my own failings before assisting at Holy Mass. It motivates me to get to confession every two weeks, if possible. I pray Joe Biden reads it someday, because when the Eucharist is administered to a soul stubbornly persisting in its support of sin, it is like putting Christ into a torture chamber and making Him feel all over again the sorrow and pain He felt when He was scourged at the pillar.
Below is an excerpt from Fr. Mueller’s book that should terrify anyone who dares to support — in the public manner Vice President Biden has — homosexual “marriage” and abortion and still present himself for Holy Communion. Moreover, it should cause priests to pause and think about what they are doing to Christ when they give Holy Communion to politicians who pertinaciously support laws that war against the teachings of Christ:
To receive Our Lord into a heart that is defiled by mortal sin is to bring Him into the power of His greatest enemy; it is to treat Him with even greater cruelty than Herod. Herod was an unbelieving Jew, but those who receive Him unworthily are Christians and Catholics. They know Whom they maltreat; Herod did not know Him.
Judas was a traitor! He was guilty of the blackest ingratitude, the basest treachery. He professed to be the friend of Jesus; he had received innumerable benefits from Him[.] … He came into the garden where Our Lord was praying with His disciples; he gave Him a kiss[.] … Immediately, the armed multitude he had brought with him seized upon Our Lord, bound Him and carried Him captive to the palace of the High Priest[.] … How painful must it be to Our Lord to receive a false caress, to be folded in a sinful embrace, to be brought [by way of an unworthy communion] into the loathsome prison of a sinful heart!
