THE Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco, the Most Revd Salvatore Cordileone, has announced that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, is not to be permitted to receive holy communion in the archdiocese of San Francisco on account of her support for legalised abortion.
In a post on Twitter last Friday, later backed up by a “letter to the faithful”, Archbishop Cordileone wrote: “After numerous attempts to speak with Speaker Pelosi 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, I have determined that she is not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
The move comes shortly after a leaked draft ruling indicated that the Supreme Court is considering overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade judgment that made abortion a legal right in the United States (News, 4 May).
Ms Pelosi, who represents a district in California which falls within the archdiocese, has been outspoken about both her faith and women’s rights. On 22 March this year, she said in an interview that the abortion debate “isn’t about what is your religious belief”.
She continued: “It’s what is the right of people to make their own decisions. . . This really gets me burned up, in case you didn’t notice, because, again, I’m very Catholic — devout, practising, all of that.”
Pope Francis has previously suggested that, while abortion is regarded as a sin, church leaders should tread cautiously. In remarks to journalists on 15 September, he said that abortion was “murder”, but that he had never denied someone communion. On many contentious issues, the present Pope has argued for a priest’s freedom to act pastorally, and said: “A pastor knows what to do at any moment, but if he leaves the pastoral process of the Church he immediately becomes a politician.”
In the letter posted on Friday, Archbishop Cordileone wrote: “I assure you that my action here is purely pastoral, not political.”
Archbishop Cordileone has previously called for President Joe Biden — the country’s second RC president — to be denied holy communion. Last November, the Conference of Catholic Bishops in the US approved a statement warning that communicating while publicly rejecting “defined doctrines of the Church” was “likely to cause scandal for others” (26 November 2021).
In a C-SPAN interview in 2008, Ms Pelosi said that it would be a “severe blow” to her to be denied communion.
A press report said that Ms Pelosi was at the 9 a.m. service and received communion at Holy Trinity, Georgetown, in Washington, DC, where she lives when not in California. The Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, has not commented on Archbishop Cordileone’s move to bar Ms Pelosi, but has previously made it clear that he would not prevent President Biden’s receiving communion.