San Francisco’s archbishop has defied the Pope’s advice by banning Nancy Pelosi from receiving communion over her support for abortion rights.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone announced the action against the House Speaker, who is a life-long Catholic, after her vote in Congress to codify Roe v Wade amid the Supreme Court controversy.
Last year Pope Francis told Joe Biden that he was a “good Catholic” during a private meeting, and told bishops who wanted to ban pro-abortion politicians from taking communion they should make “pastoral” decision not political ones.
“Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi’s position on abortion has become only more extreme over the years, especially in the last few months,” Archbishop Cordileone said in a statement on Friday.
“Just earlier this month she once again, as she has many times before, explicity raised her Catholic faith while justifying abortion as a ‘choice,’ this time explicitly setting herself in opposition to Pope Francis.”
The recent leaked Supreme Court draft suggests that the right-wing justices are set to overturn Roe v Wade, sparking widespread criticism from Democrats and the president himself.
The archbishop said the move came after several meetings with the lawmaker over the years in which he says he tried to “help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she is causing, and the danger to her own soul she is risking.”
And he said that for Ms Pelosi to receive communion in her home dicoese she has to “publicly repudiate her support for abortion ‘rights’ and confess and receive absolution.”
“Therefore, in light of my responsibility as the Archbishop of San Francisco to be ‘concerned for all the Christian faithful entrusted to [my] care” (Code of Canon Law, can. 383, §1), by means of this communication I am hereby notifying you that you are not to present yourself for Holy Communion and, should you do so, you are not to be admitted to Holy Communion, until such time as you publically repudiate your advocacy for the legitimacy of abortion and confess and receive absolution of this grave sin in the sacrament of Penance.” he said.
Pelosi met with Pope Francis last year, but the Vatican did not say if the topic of abortion was discussed.
The Pope has said “I have never refused the Eucharist to anyone,” but has also emphasized that the Catholic Church views abortion as homicide and that anyone getting one “kills” a “human life.”
