Catholic congressman barred from Communion responds in article

Published: 2004-08-10

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A Catholic congressman who said he has been told not to take Communion because of his support for some laws permitting or funding abortions responded to the ban in a five-page article in the latest issue of America magazine. "While I detest abortion and agree with Catholic teaching that in most instances it is morally wrong, I decline to force my views into laws that, if adopted, would be unenforceable and would tear this society apart," said Rep. David R. Obey, a Democrat who has represented Wisconsin's 7th District for 35 years. Writing in the Aug. 16-23 edition of America, the New York-based national Catholic weekly magazine published by the Jesuits, Obey said he was told last November by Bishop Raymond L. Burke of La Crosse, Wis., "to refrain from receiving Communion if I did not conform to his wishes" outlined in earlier letters. Soon afterward, Bishop Burke was named archbishop of St. Louis. "Two issues seemed especially to trouble the bishop" -- abortions in military hospitals and stem-cell research, Obey said. On the military question, he said, "I told him that I hoped that no member of the armed forces would seek an abortion, but that I was simply not prepared to deny to any woman stationed in Iraq, wearing the uniform of the United States, the use of a military hospital for any purpose." On the issue of stem-cell research, Obey said he told Bishop Burke that, "in my estimation, the church had no better chance to stop research into regenerative medicine than it had centuries ago in trying to stop Copernicus and Galileo from positing that the earth revolved around the sun rather than the other way around." A spokesman for the Archdiocese of St. Louis said Aug. 9 that Archbishop Burke had not commented on Obey's America article.

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