In Unusual Rebuke, Vatican Says Biden Shouldn’t Be Denied Communion Over Abortion Issue
U.S. bishops were warned not to refuse Joe Biden — a faithful churchgoer and the nation's second Roman Catholic president — despite his support of abortion rights.
The New York Times:
Vatican Warns U.S. Bishops: Don’t Deny Biden Communion Over Abortion
The Vatican has warned conservative American bishops to hit the brakes on their push to deny communion to politicians supportive of abortion rights — including President Biden, a faithful churchgoer and the first Roman Catholic to occupy the Oval Office in 60 years. But despite the remarkably public stop sign from Rome, the American bishops are pressing ahead anyway and are expected to force a debate on the communion issue at a remote meeting that starts on Wednesday. (Horowitz, 6/14)
The Washington Post:
Catholic Bishops-Biden Standoff Over Communion Has Roots In Abortion Politics
President Biden has often described his spiritual need as a Catholic to attend Mass each week and receive Communion. But making that happen isn’t always simple. In recent years, an increasingly focused group of conservative Catholics has been pressing the prioritizing of opposing abortion above all else and is seeking to keep Catholic politicians who in any way support abortion access from the sacrament, considered the core rite of Catholic worship. (Boorstein, 6/14)
Politico:
How The Anti-Abortion Movement Used The Progressive Playbook To Chip Away At Roe V. Wade
The Supreme Court captured its biggest headlines last month not for a decision, but for a case it agreed to review next year: Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The case turns on a 2018 Mississippi law banning abortion at 15 weeks, but its impact will likely reach well beyond one state. To uphold Mississippi’s law—which the Court’s conservative majority is expected to do—the Court will have to undo all or part of Roe v. Wade. Such a sweeping decision might seem like an opportunistic swipe at abortion rights, a conservative court suddenly reversing 50 years of precedent with a single move. But if the Court does rule that way, the story behind it will be far more complex and important to understand. The attack on Roe has been decades in the making—and its successes owe not just to the strength of the conservative anti-abortion movement, but to the progressive playbook that achieved breakthroughs on civil rights, gay marriage and even abortion. (Ziegler and Tsai, 6/13)
In other news about the federal government —
The New York Times:
Scientist Opens Up About His Early Email to Fauci on Virus Origins
Among the thousands of pages of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci’s emails released recently by BuzzFeed News, a short note from Kristian Andersen, a virologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., has garnered a lot of attention. Over the past year, Dr. Andersen has been one of the most outspoken proponents of the theory that the coronavirus originated from a natural spillover from an animal to humans outside of a lab. But in the email to Dr. Fauci in January 2020, Dr. Andersen hadn’t yet come to that conclusion. He told Dr. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, that some features of the virus made him wonder whether it had been engineered, and noted that he and his colleagues were planning to investigate further by analyzing the virus’s genome. (Gorman and Zimmer, 6/14)
The New York Times:
Shi Zhengli, A Virologist In Wuhan, Speaks Out Against 'Lab Leak' Theory
To a growing chorus of American politicians and scientists, she is the key to whether the world will ever learn if the virus behind the devastating Covid-19 pandemic escaped from a Chinese lab. To the Chinese government and public, she is a hero of the country’s success in curbing the epidemic and a victim of malicious conspiracy theories. Shi Zhengli, a top Chinese virologist, is once again at the center of clashing narratives about her research on coronaviruses at a state lab in Wuhan, the city where the pandemic first emerged. (Qin and Buckley, 6/14)
The Washington Post:
Trump’s FDA Commissioner Takes Job At Moderna Backer
Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Stephen Hahn is joining the venture capital firm that launched Moderna and remains closely tied to the coronavirus vaccine maker, the firm confirmed on Monday. Hahn will serve as a chief medical officer at Flagship Pioneering — which incubated Moderna more than a decade ago — as the life sciences venture firm announced its expansion into new projects like pandemic preparedness. (Diamond, 6/14)
