The prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature issued an apology to his fellow U.S. bishops March 26 for how comments he made in a videotaped interview were used. According to reports in the Washington Post and elsewhere, during the interview, Terry asked Archbishop Burke about the "deafening silence" last year from bishops such as Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. and Paul Loverde of Arlington, Va. about whether they would serve Communion to then-vice presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden Jr., a Catholic who supports abortion rights. In the interview, U.S. Archbishop Raymond L. Burke told Terry that bishops, priests, deacons and extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion should refuse Communion to Catholic politicians who insist on supporting legislation to keep abortion legal, and said U.S. President Barack Obama "could be an agent of death." Terry, founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, showed the videotaped interview during a press conference, at which time he called for Wuerl and Loverde to be removed as bishops because he said they had not instructed ordinary and extraordinary ministers to refuse Holy Communion to Catholic politicians who support laws that keep abortion legal. In a statement released in Rome, Archbishop Burke said Terry told him the videotaped interview, conducted in Rome March 2, would be used to encourage pro-life workers in their cause and had no idea Terry would be showing it at a press conference.
