Pro-Abortion Democrat US Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy Forbidden from Receiving Roman Catholic Sacrament of Holy Communion

If you don’t follow the essential teachings of the Catholic Church, why should one be able to receive Holy Communion? Here is a news flash to Catholics and so-called Catholic politicians … No one has a right to receive Holy Communion.

Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin has barred US Representative Patrick J. Kennedy to receive the Roman Catholic sacrament of Holy Communion because of his advocacy of abortion rights. Or so Patrick Kennedy claims.

“The bishop instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion,” Kennedy said in a telephone interview.

Kennedy said the bishop had explained the penalty by telling him “that I am not a good practicing Catholic because of the positions that I’ve taken as a public official,” particularly on abortion. He declined to say when or how Bishop Tobin told him not to take the sacrament. And he declined to say whether he has obeyed the bishop’s injunction.

Statement of Bishop in Response to Congressman’s Published Interview of November 22, 2009.

Honestly Rep. Kennedy, I do not think it says anywhere in Catholicism that you follow the teachings of the church one way as an individual and another way as a public official.

The Catholic Church is actually being consistent with it’s views of life. It was Kennedy who criticized the nation’s Catholic bishops for threatening to oppose an overhaul of the nation’s health care system. How dare anyone be against Obamacare that was for federally funding abortions. What would expect any church to do, but be of the side of life? Patrick, check out the First Commandment … Thou shall not kill.

“The point is, because of his obstinate … public support of abortion, which is clearly contrary to an essential teaching of the church of a matter of critical morality … he is then not properly prepared to receive Holy Communion,” Tobin said in an interview Sunday. “No one has a right to receive Holy Communion.”

The feud escalated after Kennedy told The Providence Journal in a story published Sunday that Tobin instructed him not to receive Communion. Kennedy also claimed the bishop had told diocesan priests not to give him communion, an allegation that Tobin denied.