Colorado Bishops Call for Pro-Abortion Officials Not to Receive Communion

Pro-life demonstrators march during the "Right To Life" rally on January 15, 2022 in Dallas, Texas. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

The Catholic Archbishop of Denver and three fellow religious leaders in Colorado have written an open letter urging Catholic legislators who live or worship in the state to refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for HB22-1279, the Reproductive Health Equity Act, which Gov. Jared Polis signed into law on April 4, but which the authors of the letter call “one of the most extreme abortion bills in the country” and a bill based on “morally bankrupt logic.”

The bill enjoyed equally strong support from Colorado’s Democratic officials. When the bill became law, State Senator Julie Gonzales said, “I couldn’t be prouder. . . . We trust Coloradans to make their own public health decisions.”

The letter’s authors are Samuel J. Aquila, Archbishop of Denver; Jorge H. Rodriguez, Auxiliary Bishop of Denver; Stephen J. Berg, Bishop of Pueblo; and James R. Gulka, Bishop of Colorado Springs.

Drafted in the wake of the leaked Supreme Court opinion concerning Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and widespread anticipation that the court may overturn the landmark 1973 decision Roe v. Wade making abortion legal throughout the country, HB22-1279 bars state and local public entities from “depriving, through prosecution, punishment, or other means, an individual of the individual’s right to act or refrain from acting during the individual’s own pregnancy based on the potential, actual, or perceived impact of the pregnancy, the pregnancy’s outcomes, or on the pregnant individual’s health.”

HB22-1279 is an example of the continuing support for legal abortions among some state legislators and an illustration of the predictions of some observers, in the wake of the widely reported leak, that overturning Roe v. Wade will not mean the outlawing of abortion throughout the United States, but rather will result in a patchwork of contrasting and conflicting rules and regulations in different states, some favorable to legal abortions and some not.

The authors of the letter take exception to what they view as HB22-1279’s aim of making Colorado a “safe haven” drawing pregnant mothers from other states in the event that Roe v. Wade is overturned. The letter criticizes the “morally bankrupt logic” of making it legal in Colorado to end the lives of unborn children on the basis that a fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus has “no independent or derivative rights.”

“It causes us profound sadness and distress to know that some Catholic legislators voted for this,” they write. “Efforts have already been made to speak with several of these lawmakers, but unfortunately, very few of them have accepted the invitation to meet.”

The letter singles out for thanks those Colorado lawmakers who voted against the bill, identifying by name Sens. Kevin Priola, Barbara Kirkmeyer, and Jim Smallwood, and Representative Andres Pico, calling them “Catholic lawmakers who voted to protect the unborn and against allowing our state to strip them of their God-given right to life.”

At the same time, it denounces voting for the bill as participation in “a gravely sinful action because it facilitates the killing of innocent unborn babies,” and argues that “those Catholic politicians who have done so have very likely placed themselves outside the communion of the Church.”

The conclusion that the authors reach is unambiguous.

“Until public repentance takes place and sacramental absolution is received in Confession, we ask that those Catholic legislators who live or worship in Colorado and who have voted for RHEA, to voluntarily refrain from receiving Holy Communion,” they write.

The Epoch Times has reached out to State Sen. Gonzales for comment.