The current contention on the pro-abortion unelected-President Joe Biden receiving Holy Communion is a late outgrowth in the debate between traditionalists and modernists on issues of dogma vs. conscience and Church vs. State. Pope St. Pius X saw all of this mayhem coming when he warned against those modernist political Catholics in Pascendi Dominici Gregis over 100 years ago. Pascendi, as it is now known, was an encyclical released by Pope St. Pius X on the 8th of September 1907. It is also known as “The Doctrines of the Modernists.” The following is the saintly Pope’s description of how bad Catholic Politicians were justifying themselves even when he wrote it:
And as this magisterium springs, in its last analysis, from the individual consciences and possesses its mandate of public utility for their benefit, it follows that the ecclesiastical magisterium must be subordinate to them, and should therefore take democratic forms. To prevent individual consciences from revealing freely and openly the impulses they feel, to hinder criticism from impelling dogmas towards their necessary evolutions – this is not a legitimate use but an abuse of a power given for the public utility.—Pascendi #25
Notice that over 100 years ago the Pope saw that certain modernists would try to subvert the Magisterium of the Catholic Church by individual conscience. Indeed, conscience was already taking on a “democratic form” where truth comes in the form of an opinion poll, or even just personal taste. The “individual conscience” for the modernist (aka Bad Catholic) exists only “for their benefit” since the “magisterium must be subordinate to them.” The Pope may be implying here that “individual conscience” would eventually become a totalitarian conscience for Catholics.
How about Joe Biden as a pro-abortion Catholic? Of course, one need not be a Catholic to know it’s wrong to put a scissors into the back of an unborn baby’s head. In other words, this is a discussion of Natural Law long before we get to Divine Law. But as far as the debate on Biden receiving Holy Communion, remember that the USCCB is just going through one more act in their Kabuki theatre to impress conservatives while happily taking liberals’ pro-abortion money. Way back in 2016, LifeSite News reported a $91 million grant from the Obama Administration to the USCCB, putting immigration ahead of abortion in that election year. This nearly proves that current threats against Biden receiving Holy Communion are just another silly act of showmanship without content in the Kabuki theatre of the USCCB.
Pascendi was a prophetic warning from the Pope over 100 years ago to Catholic bishops. He showed them what would come from Catholic politicians if they did not stave off modernism in their dioceses. But the bishops did not heed him, and now Catholics are slaughtering babies while receiving the Son of God into their bodies. Those Catholics who have demanded personal conscience over God’s prophets have finally achieved their reward.
If I go forth into the fields, behold the slain with the sword: and if I enter into the city, behold them that are consumed with famine. The prophet also and the priest are gone into a land which they knew not.—Jeremiah 14:18