by Sofia Vazquez-Mellado
LA PAZ, Bolivia, August 23, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Secretary General for the Bolivian Episcopal Conference (BEC), Monsignor José Fuentes, has declared that government authorities who support abortion “shouldn’t receive communion,” because their view is clearly incompatible with the Church’s teachings.
The influential Bolivian newspaper Página7 reported this under a headline the bishops considered misleading: “Bolivian Bishops excommunicate four Ministers for being pro-abortion.”
The BEC has issued a public statement saying these publications were untrue. The media “shows ignorance towards the norms and procedures that govern the Catholic Church in these matters,” they wrote.
“We have expressed on many occasions that any person considering himself to be Catholic, who manifests his or her approval of abortion, is not being coherent with their own faith and is therefore not in communion with the Gospel’s teaching and the Church.”
“This doesn’t mean in any way a decision to excommunicate,” the statement continues. “The Church’s fundamental mission in society is not to emphasize punishment, but to preach forgiveness and reconciliation.”
“An extreme measure, like an excommunication of someone within the Church, is a serious and responsible process of analysis and research that has later to be made known in an official document by the competent authorities,” they corrected. “Such procedures have not taken place in this case.”
Canon 915 however does forbid the administration of Holy Communion to those who are “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin.”
According to the 2004 document Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion written by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratziner, this includes those who consciously and voluntarily promote public campaigns that support abortion and those who approve its legalization, particularly legislators, judges and authorities.
Página7 corrected their report and took down its online version.
Nevertheless, Bolivian president Evo Morales, who seemed unaware of the correction, later declared that he “forgave” the bishops.
“Some bishops still have the Inquisition mentality,” he said.
He expressed his support for the four pro-abortion ministers – Amanda Dávila, Claudia Peña, Teresa Morales and Roberto Aguilar – through the Bolivian government’s news service.
Morales, who calls himself Catholic, said he was being “tolerant.”
“Like Jesus Christ, who has given his life for others,” Morales said he was willing to offer “the other cheek” in this incident.
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