An editorial at Christianity Today

Some bishops don’t want to use Communion as a threat when dealing with prochoice Catholic politicians. But it is certainly appropriate. Communion is the moment in church life at which we most deeply realize our connectedness, both to Jesus and to all his followers.

Our age idolizes personal autonomy. Both sexuality and Communion, by their very nature, create and foster interdependence. Our culture fights sexual interdependence by promoting abortion-on-demand and the misuse of contraception to help people bypass normal family and reproductive life. Sexual liberalism fosters the philosophy of personal autonomy—and that is in direct conflict with the interdependence created by both biblical sexuality and participation in Communion.

The religious schizophrenia of some politicians reveals the unintended fruit of hypermodern individualism. In many churches, this same spirit causes members to forget who they are: members, in the antique sense of “body parts.” Writing about how believers receive the body of Christ in the Communion bread, Augustine of Hippo said, “The faithful know and receive the Body of Christ if they labor to be the body of Christ; and they become the body of Christ if they study to live by the Spirit of Christ: for that which lives by the Spirit of Christ is the body of Christ.”

If church discipline of a public figure takes the form of denying him Communion, it is only a recognition of a disconnect that already exists. In a culture that emulates celebrities, high-profile individualism, when it goes unopposed, suggests to the rank and file that anything goes. Church leaders owe it to both the body of Christ and the body politic to help form the consciences of their members—including, and especially, politicians.