The Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned Patrick Kennedy from recieving Communion following his attacks on the Catholic Church last month.
Kennedy slammed the church for opposing the democrat’s pro-abortion nationalized health care plan in October.
Kennedy said the church’s opposition did nothing but fan the flames of dissent and discord.
Because of his pro-abortion stand the church banned Kennedy from receiving the sacrament.
The AP reported:
Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned Rep. Patrick Kennedy from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, in Rhode Island because of the congressman’s support for abortion rights, Kennedy said in a newspaper interview published Sunday.
The decision by the outspoken prelate, reported on The Providence Journal’s Web site, significantly escalates a bitter dispute between Tobin, an ultra orthodox bishop, and Kennedy, a son of the nation’s most famous Roman Catholic family.
“The bishop instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion,” Kennedy told the paper in an interview conducted Friday.
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 Tobin told him not to take the sacrament. And he declined to say whether he has obeyed the bishop’s injunction.