Updated May 21, 2022 at 2:53 pm ET
The Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco says US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can no longer receive Communion due to her vocal support for abortion rights.
Salvatore Cordileone, the conservative archbishop, said he had previously made his concerns known to Pelosi, D-Calif., in an April 7 letter after she promised to codify the Supreme Court-established abortion right into federal law. in Roe vs. Wade. Cordileone said he never received a response from Pelosi.
Cordileone notified members of the archdiocese in a letter Friday that Pelosi must publicly repudiate her support for abortion rights in order to take Holy Communion, a ritual practiced in Catholic churches to commemorate Christ’s death, in part by consuming of a symbolic meal of bread. and wine.
“After numerous attempts to talk to her to help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she is causing, and the danger she is risking to her own soul, I have determined that the time has come for me to make a decision. public statement that she should not be admitted to Holy Communion,” Cordileone wrote.
Cordileone said he had addressed Pelosi the day before in a separate letter about the consequences of citing her faith in justifying abortion and refusing to retract his stance on the issue.
“I hereby notify you that you must not present yourself for Holy Communion and, if you do, you must not be admitted to Holy Communion, until such time as [publicly] repudiate your defense of the legitimacy of abortion and confess and receive absolution of this grave sin in the Sacrament of Penance,” he wrote in the letter to Pelosi.
Pelosi’s office did not immediately respond to NPR’s email and phone call seeking comment.
After Texas passed a law banning abortions after six weeks last year, Pelosi vowed to codify abortion rights. A bill led by Democrats that seeks to fulfill that promise recently failed in the Senate.
After the escape of Draft opinion of the Supreme Courtthat revealed a preliminary ruling to overturn constitutional protections for abortion, Pelosi invoked her Catholic faith to bolster her support for abortion rights.
“The very idea that they would be telling women the size or timing or whatever of their family, the personal nature of this is so terrible, and I say that as a devout Catholic,” Pelosi. said The Seattle Times earlier this month. “They tell me: ‘Nancy Pelosi thinks she knows more about having babies than the Pope.’ Yes, I know. You’re stupid?
Cordileone said he again tried to contact Pelosi at the time, one of his six attempts to contact her since September.
Cordileone, one of the most outspoken American bishops, has also called for denying Communion privileges to President Biden and other politicians who support abortion rights.
After last year’s debate over whether Catholics who support abortion rights, including politicians, US bishops, should be denied Communion. decided not to implement such a policy and instead urged Catholics who strayed from church teachings to refrain from communion.
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