On Monday, a group of Colorado bishops asked several Catholic lawmakers in the state Legislature to ''voluntarily refrain from Holy Communion'' after voting in favor of legislation that supports abortion rights earlier this year, the Religion News Service reported.
The letter, which includes the signatures from the archbishop of Denver and the bishop of Colorado Springs, specifically took issue with the Reproductive Health Equity Act signed on April 4.
The new bill codified abortion rights into state law following Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's leaked draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. Should that opinion stand, it will overturn the nearly 50-year Roe v. Wade precedent, thus kicking the abortion issue back to states.
''Voting for RHEA was participating in a gravely sinful action because it facilitates the killing of innocent unborn babies,'' the letter read.
''We pray that this letter and our request to refrain from receiving Jesus in the Eucharist spurs sincere reflection and conversion in the hearts of those who have participated in allowing this grave act of injustice to become law,'' it added.
The bishops wrote that they tried to contact Catholic lawmakers who voted for the bill but had minimal success, with only a few accepting the invitation to meet. They also thanked four Catholic lawmakers who voted against the legislation.
The letter comes a month after San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., that she would be prohibited from taking Communion due to her aggressive and public support of abortion rights, according to NPR.
''After numerous attempts to speak with her to help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she is causing, and the danger to her own soul she is risking, I have determined that the point has come in which I must make a public declaration that she is not to be admitted to Holy Communion,'' Cordileone wrote.
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