Vatican City, Feb 10, 2020 / 13:55 pm
A Vatican official has defended his decision to administer the Eucharist to Argentina's president, despite the leader's effort to legalize abortion in his country. The official also administered the sacrament to the president's consort, who is by protocol Argentina's first lady.
Argentine Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences, administered Holy Communion during a Mass offered Jan. 31 in the grotto of St. Peter's Basilica, shortly before a meeting between Fernández' and Pope Francis.
Argentine newspaper La Nación posted a video of the Mass, in which Argentina's President Alberto Fernández and Fabiola Yáñez, the president's domestic partner, can be seen approaching the bishop to receive the Eucharist.
Fernández has pledged to promote a bill in the country's legislature that would legalize abortion. In 2018, Argentina's Senate defeated a bill that would have legalized abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.