U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi barred from Catholic communion over abortion stance
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can no longer take communion
because she supports abortion rights and also publicly invokes her
Catholic faith, the archbishop of San Francisco said in a letter
released on Friday.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said in an open letter addressed
to Pelosi and in another directed toward the faithful that
“Pelosi’s position on abortion has become only more extreme over
the years, especially in the last few months.”
Pelosi’s office did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
The archbishop’s decision comes after the leak earlier this month
of a draft Supreme Court opinion indicating the top court would
strike down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion
nationwide.
Cordileone said Pelosi had not responded to his requests to meet
in the months since she pledged to codify abortion protections in
federal law after lawmakers in conservative states passed near
total-bans on abortions at the state level.
The archbishop said he sent Pelosi a private letter in April,
warning that he would bar her from communion unless she publicly
repudiated her support for abortion rights or stopped referring to
her Catholic faith in public.
Cordileone highlighted comments Pelosi made to the Seattle Times
editorial board this month, citing her Catholic faith and support
for abortion rights, then said: “They say to me, ‘Nancy Pelosi
thinks she knows more about having babies than the Pope.’ Yes I
do. Are you stupid?”
In his letter to the faithful, Cordileone wrote that “my action
here is purely pastoral, not political.”
“Speaker Pelosi remains our sister in Christ,” the archbishop
wrote. “Her advocacy for the care of the poor and vulnerable
elicits my admiration.”
