Bishop Calls For Procedures Before Denying Politician Communion

Bishop Donald W. Wuerl of Pittsburgh has issued a statement calling for the country's Roman Catholic bishops to create a more formal mechanism or procedure to decide whether a particular politician should be denied communion because of his stand on abortion. A story issued yesterday by the Catholic News Service quoted Wuerl's concern that: "Given the mobility of the population and the ubiquity and influence of the means of social communications, actions taken by one bishop within a diocese can have immediate national impact and affect the bishops of the rest of the dioceses throughout the country, especially neighboring dioceses which share the same media market."