Issue rebuke. Leave the rest up to the ordinaries

Despite the “polarizing” nature of election-year politics, the bishops wrote, “Respect for the holy eucharist, in particular, demands that it be received worthily and that it be seen as the source for our common mission in the world.”

The bishops’ statement also calls for withholding signs of public approval from politicians who support legalized abortion.

“They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions,” the bishops wrote.

And from the NYTimes

Leslie Tentler, professor of history at the Catholic University of America and director of the university’s Center for American Catholic Studies, said in a telephone interview: “It’s obviously a compromise statement. The general tenor seems to me very much one of conciliation. Look at the verbs and nouns they use: `teach, persuade, dialogue, engagement’ with politicians. On the other hand they don’t slap the hands of the bishops who say they would deny politicians communion. They point out what’s absolutely true, and that is that bishops can make decisions on matters of this sort in their own dioceses.”

The statement was drafted, then adopted by a vote of 183 to 6, at a closed-door meeting at the Inverness Hotel and Conference Center in Englewood, Colo. The prelates had been scheduled to gather not to make policy, but to pray and get to know one another, as they do every five years. A task force studying how bishops should relate to Catholic lawmakers was not scheduled to issue recommendations until after the November election.

….One of those who oppose refusing communion, Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, reiterated that position in a statement issued last night, saying, “The archdiocese will continue to follow church teaching which places the duty on each Catholic to examine their consciences as to their worthiness to receive holy communion. That is not the role of the person distributing the body and blood of Christ.”

Bishops on both sides of the divide who visited the Vatican in recent months for routine meetings returned home saying that Vatican officials supported their viewpoint.