As a Catholic myself, I really think this notion of giving license to arbitrarily give or deny communion could have some pretty negative consequences for the church. Of course, abortion is the main topic here, but what happens if a Priest ends up denying communion to, say, Greg Abbott because of his views on the death penalty and how many inmates Texas executes? Is that gonna be bueno too? It just opens a pandoras box that would be better off left shut.

The bigger question the Bishops should ask themselves is... if the goal is to witness to the population at large and bring more people closer to Jesus/the faith, how is this helpful to that pursuit? It only further politicizes the church at a time when fewer and fewer institutions have been able to avoid being infected by domestic politics. I'm not sure that falling victim to this trend ultimately helps the Catholic Church long term.