The Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco has prohibited House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from attending the sacrament of communion due to her public pro-abortion stance. This move comes after the Supreme Court is expected to outlaw the constitutional right to abortion in Roe v. Wade.
The Roman Catholic Church is strictly against abortion, and considers it a 'grave sin'. Elaborating on the reason behind the ban, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone announced on Friday: "A Catholic legislator who supports procured abortion, after knowing the teaching of the Church, commits a manifestly grave sin which is a cause of most serious scandal to others." Therefore, universal Church law provides that such persons 'are not to be admitted to Holy Communion," he continued.
According to the Catholic News Agency, Cordileone,65, notified Pelosi, 82, on Thursday that because of her stance, "she is not to present herself for Communion, and that should she do so, she is not to be admitted."
The archbishop even wrote to the priests in the archdiocese wherein he made it clear that anyone who supports the pro-abortion motion, their stance will be considered to be 'weaponizing' the Eucharist, according to CNBC.
Cordileone had also attempted to contact Pelosi several times so as to make 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 archbishop tweeted.
As per the NY Post, both of them had previously discussed the issue as well, but the archbishop has "not received such an accommodation to my many requests" to speak again after the Texas abortion law took effect in September banning nearly all abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy. At that time Pelosi was more focused towards 'codifying' the Roe v. Wade ruling into a federal law.
Cordileone's order though is only applicable to priests in his diocese and not anywhere else, this means that Pelosi can still receive communion in a church outside San Francisco.
Addressing the controversy surrounding her pro-abortion stance in April, she said: "I'm very Catholic, devout, practicing, all of that. They would like to throw me out. But I'm not going because I don't want to make their day."
However, this is not the first time a Catholic clergy has denied Catholic pro-abortion lawmakers or supporters from receiving Holy Communion. President Biden, when he was a presidential candidate, was denied Communion for similar reasons by a South Carolina priest.
The former head of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Archbishop Charles Chaput, had also announced that Biden should be blocked altogether for "creating the impression that the moral laws of the Church are optional.
