While some US Catholic bishops continue to denounce President Joe Biden for his support of legal abortion, their conference as a whole is likely to avoid direct criticism of him at its upcoming national meeting. “We just talked about the fact he was happy that I was a good Catholic and I should keep receiving Communion,” Biden said. One conservative bishop, Thomas Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island, had urged Francis to confront Biden over abortion. “Please challenge President Biden on this critical issue,” Tobin tweeted before the Vatican meeting. The friction between U.S. bishops and Catholic politicians who support abortion rights is a decades-old phenomenon; it reached a notably intense phase in 2004 when John Kerry, a Catholic, won the Democratic presidential nomination.

Source: thestar November 15, 2021 01:00 UTC