Claim: U.S. bishop may have exposed Catholics to hepatitis during Communion.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Catholic Church and politics in the United States
text: of pro-choice politicians receiving communion. Such cases have typically involved a bishop threatening to deny a Catholic politician communion, though in some cases excommunication has been suggested and in others a bishop has instructed a politician not to take communion. The first such case was that of Lucy Killea, though such threats have subsequently been made in national elections. In 2004, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then-prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, instructed American bishops in a confidential memorandum that Communion must be denied to Catholic politicians who support legal abortion. However, Cardinals O'Malley, Egan, McCarrick, Wuerl, Mahoney

title: Joseph Strickland
text: While attending meetings in September 2012 for new Bishops in Rome, Strickland and Bishop John T. Folda of Fargo contracted Hepatitis A from contaminated food served to them. Joseph Strickland Joseph Edward Strickland (born October 31, 1958) is an American prelate of the Catholic Church. Since his consecration on November 28, 2012, he has been the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tyler. On the announcement of his appointment, Vatican Radio called Strickland "one of North America’s new generation of blogging priests" for his Running Priest Blog. Strickland succeeds Álvaro Corrada del Río, SJ, who was appointed Bishop of

title: Excommunication of Catholic politicians who support abortion
text: Communion, an obligation stated on several occasions. The first instance of a pro-choice politician being censured via denial of communion was in 1989. During a special election for the California Senate, pro-choice Catholic Lucy Killea was barred from communion by Leo Thomas Maher, the bishop of San Diego. She received communion in Sacramento with the consent of Bishop Francis Quinn. The incident brought publicity to Killea's candidacy and gained her the voters' sympathy, helping her to win the election. In 1984, Cardinal John Joseph O'Connor, then archbishop of New York, considered excommunicating New York Governor Mario Cuomo. He also condemned

title: Open communion
text: Roger, a Reformed pastor and founder of the Taizé Community, several times; in addition Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) also gave Brother Roger the Eucharist. Moreover, after Brother Roger's death, at the Mass celebrated for him in France, "communion wafers were given to the faithful indiscriminately, regardless of denomination". The Catholic Church does not allow its own faithful to receive Communion from ministers of another Church, apart from in extreme cases, such as danger of death, and only if it recognizes the validity of the sacraments of that Church. Other conditions are that it be physically or morally impossible

title: Abortion and the Catholic Church in the United States
text: officials and we uphold the law and we support public positions separate and apart from our Catholic faith." There has been controversy in the United States over whether Catholic politicians who promote legalization of abortion should be denied communion. Most instances of such controversy have involved a bishop threatening to deny a politician communion, although other cases have involved a bishop telling a politician not to seek communion or considering excommunicating the politician. Those bishops who support denying communion, including Raymond Leo Burke, base their position on Canon 915. Because few American bishops are in favor of withholding communion from

title: Anti-Catholicism in literature and media
text: pay off some of the lawsuits, because the whole tenet of living a Christ-like life has been lost in Catholicism." On "The View", Rosie O'Donnell has regularly joked about communion rituals alongside co-host Joy Behar's drunk priest comments. On 2 October 2006 she compared the Republican Party cover-up of the Mark Foley scandal to the cover-up of child sexual abuse by Catholic Church officials who actively concealed perpetrators by moving them from parish to parish, as detailed in Amy Berg's award-winning film about the abuse within the Catholic Church. O'Donnell said "the most interesting thing about Deliver Us from Evil

title: Joseph Martino
text: to poor health. He was suffering from "insomnia and crippling physical fatigue." His resignation was accepted by the Pope on August 31, 2009. During the 2008 presidential election, Martino issued a pastoral letter that declared "public officials who are Catholic and who persist in public support for abortion...should not partake in or be admitted to the sacrament of Holy Communion." This was particularly controversial since the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Sen. Joe Biden, is a native of Scranton; the Bishop confirmed that Biden would be refused Communion should he tour the region. In late October, he made an unexpected appearance

title: Excommunication of Catholic politicians who support abortion
text: seek the sacrament. In May 2008, Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann said that Kathleen Sebelius should stop receiving communion because of her support for abortion rights, and that she should not again take it unless she publicly stated that she opposed abortion rights. After Joe Biden was nominated as a vice presidential candidate in the 2008 presidential election, Bishop Joseph Francis Martino of Biden's hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, said Biden would be refused communion in that diocese because of his support for abortion. Biden was not refused communion in his then-parish of Wilmington, Delaware. In Europe, Catholic bishops have less

title: Catholic Church and politics in the United States
text: and George have said they would not refuse communion to a person in public life who is pro-choice. Cardinal Burke and Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Philadelphia, have made statements against giving communion but neither has ever refused someone. During the 2004 presidential campaign, a few bishops called for Catholic politicians who voted for Kerry to be barred from receiving Communion. This tactic provoked a negative reaction which caused the Catholic Church to adopt a different approach for the 2008 election. The new message was compiled into a brochure titled "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship," which "emphasized that issues involving 'intrinsically

title: Open communion
text: and other Protestants) under the jurisdiction of other episcopal conferences, the conditions are more severe. Only in danger of death or if, in the judgment of the local bishop, there is a grave and pressing need, may members of these Churches who cannot approach a minister of their own Church be invited to receive the Eucharist, if they spontaneously ask for it, demonstrate that they have the catholic faith in the Eucharist, and are properly disposed. Catholic priests have sometimes violated these rules, giving Holy Communion to non-Catholics, sometimes unknowingly. Notably, Pope John Paul II gave Holy Communion to Brother

title: John George Vlazny
text: nominee John Kerry, should refrain from receiving Communion. In July 2004, the Archdiocese of Portland became the first American Catholic diocese to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy in response to the Catholic sex abuse cases. Vlazny described his actions by saying, "This is not an effort to avoid responsibility. It is, in fact, the only way I can assure that other claimants can be offered fair compensation." In April 2010, Vlazny called for parishioners to cancel their subscriptions to The (Portland) Oregonian, declaring it guilty of "Catholic bashing." The newspaper's editors, he said, "arrogantly scolded the church for its past failures

title: Excommunication of Catholic politicians who support abortion
text: and apply the sanctions put forward by a 2004 USCCB document entitled "Catholics in Political Life", though only, Chaput declared, in "extraordinary cases of public scandal". In 2008, Raymond Burke, former archbishop of St. Louis and assigned in that year to the Vatican, said communion should not be given to such politicians, arguing that support for abortion rights is a mortal sin that makes a person unfit for communion, and denial of communion would prevent other Catholics from thinking, because they see that pro-choice politicians can receive communion, that being pro-choice is an acceptable political position. A minority of American

title: Vincent Leonard
text: to make his diocesan financial reports public, and established a due-process system to allow Catholics to appeal any administrative decision they believed was a violation of canon law. In 1974, he threatened three priests with disciplinary action for giving Communion in the hand when it was not yet permitted in the United States. He also served on the Pro-Life Committee of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and on the Health Affairs Committee of the United States Catholic Conference. Leonard resigned as Bishop of Pittsburgh on June 30, 1983, due to arthritis. He later died from pneumonia at the Little

title: Sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic diocese of Honolulu
text: Sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic diocese of Honolulu The sexual abuse scandal in Honolulu diocese is a significant chapter in the series of Catholic sex abuse cases in the United States and Ireland. In 1989, Msgr. Joseph Anthony Ferrario became the first bishop to be publicly accused of sexual misconduct in the United States. The bishop's accuser was David Figueroa, a cook living in Florida who has tested HIV-positive. He made charges against Ferrario anonymously in 1989 and went public on Geraldo Rivera's TV show in 1990. The Supreme Court of Hawaii ruled that a statute of limitation effectively

title: Excommunication of Catholic politicians who support abortion
text: Cuomo's statements that support for abortion rights did not contradict Catholic teaching, but did not suggest that Cuomo should stop receiving communion. In January 2003, Bishop William Weigand of Sacramento said Governor of California Gray Davis, a Catholic who supported abortion rights, should stop receiving communion. In 2004, Archbishop Burke said he would not give communion to 2004 presidential candidate and Senator John Kerry, in part because of his position on abortion. According to religion experts, such a denial of communion would have been unprecedented. Kerry's own Archbishop Sean O'Malley refused to specify the applicability of his earlier statement that

title: Dissent from Catholic teaching on homosexuality
text: City, New Orleans, St. Cloud , Minnesota, and St. Paul in 2003. In 2005, Archbishop Harry Joseph Flynn, bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, said that the decision to take Communion lay with individual Catholics as to their state of grace and freedom from mortal sin, but that receiving Communion should not be used as a protest. Commenting on why he refused to administer communion, Cardinal Francis Arinze, said that members of the Rainbow Sash Movement disqualified themselves from Communion by displaying their opposition to the Church's teaching. Chicago Cardinal Francis George has said that "no one

title: Paul John Hallinan
text: staunch opponent of the Vietnam War. At a study conference of the Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam (CALCAV), he declared, "Our conscience and our voice must be raised against the savagery and terror of war." In August 1967, he was one of four American Catholic bishops who endorsed the "Negotiation Now!" campaign to end the war. Hallinan contracted hepatitis on his return from the second session of the Second Vatican Council in December 1963. He was hospitalized for almost seven months and never fully regained his health, suffering from recurring bouts of the disease for the rest of his

title: Aloysius Schwartz
text: and was diagnosed with hepatitis. His recovery was slow, so he was advised to go back to the United States; without money for his fare, he begged for transportation by an American ship. In the US he made mission appeals at parish Masses on Sundays to raise funds for the poor in Korea. In December 1961 he returned to Korea and was assigned as a pastor of St. Joseph's Parish. He organized the Legion of Mary ladies to assist him in helping the poor. He founded the Religious Congregation of the Sisters of Mary on August 15, 1964 in Amnamdong,

title: Excommunication of Catholic politicians who support abortion
text: communion from politicians and the majority against, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops decided that such matters should be decided on a case-by-case basis by the individual bishops. In 2005, Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Pittsburgh said no individual bishop should on his own deny communion to politicians because of "national ramifications", and suggested that such an action should be taken only on the basis of a two-thirds majority of all of the bishops or as mandated by the Vatican, while bishops Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix and Charles J. Chaput of Denver stated they would act on their own initiative

title: Charles J. Chaput
text: contrary to Church teaching, should be denied Holy Communion, Chaput has written that, while denying anyone the Eucharist is a "very grave matter" that should be used only in "extraordinary cases of public scandal", those who are "living in serious sin or who deny the teachings of the Church" should voluntarily refrain from receiving communion. "The New York Times" in 2004 reported that Chaput took the position that it was sinful for Catholics to vote for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. His remarks noted Kerry's pro-choice views, amongst others. According to the Times, he said that those who intended to