Pope Francis says U.S. bishops debating Biden Communion should be pastors, not politicians

“God’s style is closeness, compassion and tenderness,” Francis said.

Francis, speaking to reporters as he returned from a four-day trip to Hungary and Slovakia, was asked specifically about the situation in the United States, where Biden’s election has elevated a long-simmering question about how to treat Catholic politicians who support abortion rights. While Francis reiterated that abortion is “murder,” his comments appeared like a rebuke of bishops who have advocated for taking a hard line against Biden and other politicians.

Francis said he has “never denied the Eucharist to anyone — to anyone.”

Though the pope said he was speaking generally, and did not know the specifics of the situation in the United States, his comments will add to the pressure facing U.S. bishops on how to handle their highest-profile Mass-goer.

In June, U.S. Catholic bishops voted 168-55 to draft a “teaching document” on the Eucharist, and they are slated to discuss the draft at their next meeting, in November. Though conference members agree it will still be up to individual bishops to decide whether to grant politicians in their dioceses Communion, their collective stance has created a fault line between the church and Biden, America’s second-ever Catholic president and the first to support abortion access.

Recent popes refrained from setting doctrine on who may be denied Communion, preferring to emphasize church teachings, including that abortion is a grave sin. They have also tended to treat Communion as a matter between a Catholic, their consciences, God and their priest.

U.S. Catholic politicians who support abortion rights — as well as those who seem to be afoul of church teachings on other matters, such as the death penalty, racism and the treatment of immigrants — have received Communion at papal masses in the United States presided over by Francis and by his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. Pope John Paul II also gave Communion to abortion rights supporters.

Francis’s comments aboard the papal plane were not the first time he has referenced Communion amid the U.S. bishops’ debate. This summer, he said in a homily that Communion “is not the reward of saints, but the bread of sinners.”

When U.S. bishops wrote to the Vatican that they were going to take up the document, which some conservatives hoped would become a policy-like statement, Francis’ top doctrine official wrote back, urging them to prioritize unity and not to elevate abortion as the only grave matter to consider. Cardinal Luis Ladaria, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of The Faith, said bishops must talk first with politicians who support abortion rights.

Emphasizing teaching on abortion rather than ecclesial punishment of public officials has also been the approach of bishops selected to lead Catholics in the nation’s capitol. D.C. archbishops have not interfered with Biden receiving Communion in Washington as president or vice president.

Last week, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, archbishop of Washington, was asked at a public talk about a recent comment by Biden, saying Biden doesn’t agree that life begins at conception.

“The Catholic Church teaches, and has taught, that life — human life — begins at conception,” said Gregory at a luncheon of the National Press Club. “So, the president is not demonstrating Catholic teaching.”

Boorstein reported from Washington.