The Catholic Church is officially against abortion. But there are millions of Catholics around the world--including President Joe Biden--who are pro-choice politically. Only the 2nd Catholic president in our history, one would think that the Church, especially the Conference of Bishops, would be ecstatic to have Biden in the White House. But in a vote that portends an escalating culture war, recently the American Bishops took a vote that many saw as the first step in denying Biden and other pro-choice Catholics communion. Many see this as a fool's errand that could end up alienating even more young people, women, and members of the LGBTQ+ community than before. A group of pro-choice Catholic members of congress has already signed a letter warning against the escalation of this issue within the American Church.
The question is why this move and why now? Why attack the first Catholic President since JFK? Why alienate so many American Catholics who hold complex political and social identities while remaining faithful to the Church?
In order to figure out why the US Conference of Bishops decided to make this move now and what it means for the Biden administration and American politics going forward, Brad spoke with Dr. Annie Selak, Associate Director of the Women's Center at Georgetown University. Dr. Selak is an ecclesiologist by training whose work focuses on power relations within the Catholic Church. Her work has appeared at the Washington Post, America Magazine, Commonweal, and in several edited volumes.
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Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi.
Our show is hosted in partnership with the Kapp Center at UCSB, and today I have a special guest, somebody who's going to really help us understand something I think is very important, and that is Dr. Annie Selleck, who's the Associate Director of the Women's Center at Georgetown University.
She earned her doctorate in Systematic Theology at Boston College, and by training is an ecclesiologist who studies power in the Catholic Church in the United States.
Her academic research is multivalent, includes research into rape culture on Catholic college campuses, responding to the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, feminist and liberation theologies, and racism and sexism.
in the church.
Her research has appeared in Modern Theology, the Journal for Catholic Social Thought, America Magazine, The Washington Post, Commonweal, and several edited volumes and collections.
So, Dr. Selleck, thank you so much for joining me today.
Thanks.
It's great to be with you.
Well, I reached out to you to see if you could come on and help us understand what's going on with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and their recent vote on, among other things, abortion and a formal statement on the meaning of the Eucharist in abortion and a formal statement on the meaning of the Eucharist in the So, in kind of plain language, that means there was a vote, and I'm going to let you explain it.
You're the expert, and you're going to do this way better than me, but there was a vote last week Among the United States or the American bishops, that seems like it could have been the first step in maybe denying communion to President Biden because of his pro-choice stance and perhaps other political leaders.
And so could you just help us understand, first off, what happened here?
What's going on exactly?
So last week was a gathering of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, or what we say is the USCCB.
So the bishops all gathered and this was on Zoom, which is an important context because as we all know at this point, Zoom is not conducive to nuance or details or good conversation.
So they met on Zoom and the vote that they took up, they covered lots of things at this conference.
But the particular vote that we're looking at was a vote whether to advance the drafting of a document on what they're calling Eucharistic coherence.
Now, if that's a term you've never heard before, then you are like 99% of theologians, let alone Catholics, right?
So they are trying to look at what is the role of the Eucharist?
What is the role of communion in the life of the church?
Now particularly as it corresponds to politicians surrounding abortion.
So this is not a formal vote on whether politicians who support abortion should receive communion.
It's a vote to say that they want to draft a document and then in this fall's in-person meeting they'll vote on that document.
And if they vote on that document and everything moves forward, would that then lead to a situation where someone like President Biden or Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or other Catholic politicians who are pro-choice in some form, would that lead to them being in danger of being denied communion if they attend mass and so on?
I think that's the logical conclusion of where it looks like this is heading.
However, This is where we start getting into church politics.
So, the Vatican would have to approve that.
So, in order for that to pass, they would need three-quarters of the bishops to agree, or I'm sorry, two-thirds of the bishops to agree, and then the Vatican would have to approve.
So, this is where it starts getting a little trickier.
So, prior to this meeting this spring, or this summer, this June meeting, The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is kind of known as the Vatican Watchdog, they wrote to the U.S.
bishops and said, look, please don't do this.
Please do not take up this issue.
We think the only reason you should bring up this issue is if it's something that will unite the church.
And if it's not going to unite the church, please don't do it.
So actually, a lot of people were surprised that the U.S.
bishops brought up this issue, since the Vatican had said, please, we're just asking you, take a deep breath, right?
Like, take a beat, make sure this is what's going on.
We also know that through a leaked letter, a group of bishops had written to the president of the U.S.
CCB And said, look, again, please do not bring this up now because we think it's important that we're in person, right?
The church is so polarized right now that if we do this over Zoom, everyone's going to fight.
And if we actually want to be leaders of the church, we should do this in person.
So the fact that it's brought up is significant politically.
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