Our religion-blogging compatriots at Get Religion, spotlighted a story from Politico Monday about Pope Benedict XIV’s U.S. visit that might be of interest to St. Louisans, especially St. Louis Catholics.

On Thursday, Benedict will celebrate the first of two stadium Masses during his visit. Thursday’s Mass will be at Washington’s new Nationals Stadium, and the second will be at Yankee Stadium on Sunday.

Politico reported that earlier this week, in ads placed in the Washington Times and in Politico,:

the anti-abortion-rights American Life League is urging the pontiff to “protect the body of Christ from the bloodstained hands of pro-abortion ‘Catholics’” by denying Communion to politicians who support abortion rights.

The issue of denying Communion to such politicians is well known to those who have followed St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke’s words and actions on this topic since his time as bishop of LaCrosse, Wis.

While most bishops agree that such politicians should not approach for Communion, a relatively small number - led by Burke for the last five years or so - say they would deny those politicians the church’s most important sacrament.

In an 11,500-word scholarly article published a year ago in a prestigious (if obscure) Catholic legal journal, Burke expanded his parameters on who should deny Communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights. Under certain conditions, Burke said, any Catholic who distributes Communion - a priest, deacon or even a lay Eucharistic minister - has a moral obligation to deny the Eucharist to such politicians if they know that politician has been warned about public views they hold that are contrary to church teaching.

…it is clear that Church discipline places an obligation on the minister of Holy Communion to refuse Holy Communion to persons known, by the public, to be in mortal sin,” he wrote in Periodica de re Canonica, adding, “…the minister of Holy Communion is held, under pain of mortal sin, to deny the sacraments to the unworthy.

The archbishop told me in November that nothing in his article - published by his alma mater, the Jesuit-run Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome - was new, and that he was simply offering pastoral clarification of traditional church teaching. He said in denying Communion to wayward politicians, the church is not judging their souls, rather it is protecting them. By denying Communion to such politicians, the church is also protecting the sacredness of the Eucharist and the Catholic faithful from scandal, he said.

Asked if it would be a mortal sin for Eucharistic ministers - priests, deacons or lay people - to serve Communion to such politicians, Burke said it would.

“Yes, that is the point,” he said. “That’s been, consistently, the church’s position. It redounds to the minister.”

So - where does that leave the hundreds of Communion ministers who will be distributing Communion to 45,000 Catholics Thursday in Washington, including Catholic legislators invited by the Vatican. Some of those politicians include those who have legislated contrary to church teaching on abortion-rights issues like Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) and Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.)

Politico reports that Pelosi’s and Kerry’s offices signaled that they would be at the Mass Thursday, and would received Communion. Burke is, of course, best known outside of St. Louis for saying in January 2004 that if the circumstance presented itself, he would deny the Eucharist to Kerry - the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate at the time.

But an important part of Burke’s writing on the issue explains that the person offering the sacrament has to know that the offending politician has been warned by his or her bishop before the sacrament is denied. In the 20 minutes the Vatican has allotted for the distribution of Communion, that’s a tall order - and potentially a lot of pressure - for the ministers in charge of distributing the sacrament.