Cardinal: Officials who support abortion should not receive Communion

From Catholic News Service in May 2014

ROME (CNS) -- Catholic politicians and judges who support laws in conflict with church teaching on abortion, euthanasia, marriage and related issues commit "sacrilege" and cause "grave scandal" if they receive Communion, said the U.S. cardinal who heads the Vatican's highest court. "The church's discipline, from the time of St. Paul, has admonished those who obstinately persevere in manifest grave sin not to present themselves for Holy Communion," Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature and a former archbishop of St. Louis, said May 3. The cardinal explained that the "discipline is not a punishment but the recognition of the objective condition of the soul of the person involved in such sin. It prevents them from committing sacrilege by violating the incomparable sanctity of the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ, and safeguards the Christian community at large from scandal, that is, from being led to believe that the violation of the moral law, for example in what pertains to the inviolable dignity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the family, and the freedom of conscience, is not sinful, does not gravely break communion with our Lord." 

Cardinal Burke spoke at an international conference of pro-life organizations the day before Italy's fourth annual March for Life.

Above from:  Catholic News Service - Cardinal: Officials who support abortion should not receive Communion