SAN FRANCISCO, Ca.— The Archbishop of San Francisco barred Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) from receiving communion over her support for abortion rights.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said in a letter to Pelosi on Thursday that he had requested to speak to her after she vowed to codify Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion rights case, in wake of Texas banning abortions after six weeks last September.
He had warned Pelosi in an April 7 letter, he said, to either repudiate advocacy for abortion rights or to refrain from referring to her Catholic faith in public or else he would have no choice but to bar her from being admitted communion.
“As you have not publically repudiated your position on abortion, and continue to refer to your Catholic faith in justifying your position and to receive Holy Communion, that time has now come,” Cordileone said in the Thursday letter. “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.”
Pelosi, who describes herself as a devout Catholic, has defended her support for abortion rights despite the Catholic Church’s stance against abortion.
“I believe that God has given us a free will to honor our responsibilities,” Pelosi said in a press conference last fall.
Pelosi’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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