Communion Issue Creates Split Among U.S. Bishops
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: June 6, 2004

Six months after Archbishop Raymond L. Burke announced that he would deny communion to Roman Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, only a handful of bishops have said they agree and many more have made it clear that they think he went too far.

The discord among the bishops, a group that usually tries to speak with a unified voice, has provoked dismay from Vatican officials and even Pope John Paul II, according to transcripts and reports of recent Vatican meetings with American prelates.

Cardinal Joseph F. Ratzinger, a Vatican official, told a group of visiting American bishops last week that he wanted to meet with an American task force that is studying how to relate to Catholic politicians. And the pope, in an address on marriage last month to American bishops, made a general but pointed reference to "the formation of factions within the church" in the United States.

The bishops are scheduled to hash out the issue at a closed meeting starting June 14 in Englewood, Colo. It will be the first time since the contretemps began that the bishops who disagree with Archbishop Burke, who was bishop of La Crosse, Wis., and is now archbishop of St. Louis, will have a chance to debate.