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"Why won't the bishops simply say, 'abortion is a grave sin, and in order to protect the Holy Eucharist from scandal, we must insist that persons in public positions who endorse and promote the sin of abortion will not be permitted to receive Holy Communion'?"

The bishops won't say this because neither Pope John Paul II nor Cardinal Ratzinger themselves haven't said this. And the reason they won't is because the money received from the American Catholic Church and the money saved from the American government policy of non-taxation of Church assets would be jeopardized by the secular left and their own misguided leftist church members. A large number of whom are bishops and priests.

It's another example of the Catholic hierarchy, at the national and international levels, selling out Holy Mother Church and the faith community entrusted to their "pastoral care".

This is just the American scandal. If you watch what is happening in the Middle East and Asia, you would see Catholics being butchered, mutilated, and enslaved in the millions by Moslems, yet the Church would have us believe that the US and Israeli governments are the focus of evil in the world.

And I write this as a practicing Catholic!

The bishops won't say this because neither Pope John Paul II nor Cardinal Ratzinger themselves haven't said this. And the reason they won't is because the money received from the American Catholic Church and the money saved from the American government policy of non-taxation of Church assets would be jeopardized by the secular left and their own misguided leftist church members. A large number of whom are bishops and priests.

Bulls---. The stance of the Pope and the Church is perfectly clear.

58. Among all the crimes which can be committed against life, procured abortion has characteristics making it particularly serious and deplorable. The Second Vatican Council defines abortion, together with infanticide, as an "unspeakable crime".
... Especially in the case of abortion there is a widespread use of ambiguous terminology, such as "interruption of pregnancy", which tends to hide abortion's true nature and to attenuate its seriousness in public opinion. Perhaps this linguistic phenomenon is itself a symptom of an uneasiness of conscience. But no word has the power to change the reality of things: procured abortion is the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception to birth.
The moral gravity of procured abortion is apparent in all its truth if we recognize that we are dealing with murder and, in particular, when we consider the specific elements involved. The one eliminated is a human being at the very beginning of life. No one more absolutely innocent could be imagined. In no way could this human being ever be considered an aggressor, much less an unjust aggressor! He or she is weak, defenceless, even to the point of lacking that minimal form of defence consisting in the poignant power of a newborn baby's cries and tears. The unborn child is totally entrusted to the protection and care of the woman carrying him or her in the womb. And yet sometimes it is precisely the mother herself who makes the decision and asks for the child to be eliminated, and who then goes about having it done. ...
59. As well as the mother, there are often other people too who decide upon the death of the child in the womb. ... responsibility likewise falls on the legislators who have promoted and approved abortion laws, and, to the extent that they have a say in the matter, on the administrators of the health-care centres where abortions are performed. A general and no less serious responsibility lies with those who have encouraged the spread of an attitude of sexual permissiveness and a lack of esteem for motherhood, and with those who should have ensured-but did not-effective family and social policies in support of families, especially larger families and those with particular financial and educational needs. Finally, one cannot overlook the network of complicity which reaches out to include international institutions, foundations and associations which systematically campaign for the legalization and spread of abortion in the world. In this sense abortion goes beyond the responsibility of individuals and beyond the harm done to them, and takes on a distinctly social dimension. It is a most serious wound inflicted on society and its culture by the very people who ought to be society's promoters and defenders. As I wrote in my Letter to Families, "we are facing an immense threat to life: not only to the life of individuals but also to that of civilization itself".56 We are facing what can be called a "structure of sin" which opposes human life not yet born. ...
62. ... Given such unanimity in the doctrinal and disciplinary tradition of the Church, Paul VI was able to declare that this tradition is unchanged and unchangeable. Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, in communion with the Bishops-who on various occasions have condemned abortion and who in the aforementioned consultation, albeit dispersed throughout the world, have shown unanimous agreement concerning this doctrine-I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written Word of God, is transmitted by the Church's Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.
No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church.
Papal Encyclical "Evangelium Vitae", 1995

There is nothing ambiguous there at all. The Pope says that both Vatican II and he himself define abortion as unspeakable crimes against the moral code of the Lord Jesus. "Catholic" supporters of legal abortion, such as Senator Kerry, are heretics and abetters of murder.

The thought of them receiving communion, and the Bishops abetting them makes me physically ill. Communion is not to be given to heretics and murderers. Rather, such people should be publicly censured and excommunicated.