House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Banned From Receiving Communion Over Abortion Support
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone notified House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week that she is not eligible to receive Holy Communion when attending Mass in the Archdiocese of San Francisco given her support for abortion rights.
Cordileone notified Pelosi of his decision on May 19. He announced it to the public in two separate letters — one to Catholics in general and the other to priests in his archdiocese — the following day.
“I have determined that the point has come in which I must make a public declaration that she is not to be admitted to Holy Communion unless and until she publicly repudiates her support for abortion ‘rights’ and confess and receive absolution for her cooperation in this evil in the sacrament of Penance,” he wrote in the letter to parishioners released Friday.
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Cordileone said he made the decision “after numerous attempts to speak with [Pelosi] to help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating.”
The archdiocese website crashed in the hours following the announcement since so many visitors were trying to read Cordileone’s letter.
The move comes after it was revealed earlier this month in a leaked draft decision that the Supreme Court is poised to roll back Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that made abortion legal throughout the United States.
Pelosi, a Democrat, represents California’s 12th Congressional District, which also sits in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The House speaker, a practicing Catholic, has publicly said that her faith has affected her politics. On abortion, however, she has been at odds with the church.
Pelosi did not immediately comment on Cordileone’s decision.
Pelosi’s House website prominently featured a photo of her with Pope Francis on its homepage, with a message that read:
In October 2021, Congresswoman Pelosi held an audience with His Holiness Pope Francis at the Vatican. His Holiness’s leadership is a source of joy and hope for Catholics and for all people, challenging each of us to be good stewards of God’s creation, to act on climate, to embrace the refugee, the immigrant and the poor, and to recognize the dignity and divinity in everyone. In San Francisco, we take special pride in Pope Francis, who shares the namesake of our city and whose song of St. Francis is our anthem. “Lord, make me a channel of thy peace. Where there is darkness, may we bring light. Where there is hatred, may we bring love. Where there is despair, may we bring hope.”
John Gehring, Catholic program director at the progressive group Faith in Public Life and author of “The Francis Effect,” said “turning a sacred sacrament into a political weapon is pastoral malpractice that will only further divide” American Catholics.
“Single-issue policing of Communion is wrong,” he said. “As Pope Francis reminds us, the Eucharist is not a ‘prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.’ Speaker Pelosi has often expressed the importance of her Catholic faith with deep sincerity and met with Pope Francis at the Vatican last year. Archbishop Cordileone could play a more constructive role if he worked to bring people together across divides, dialogued with the majority of Catholics who support abortion rights and sought common ground instead of doubling down on culture-war antics.”
Jamie Manson, who heads Catholics for Choice, said Pelosi was “being singled out.”
“Speaker Pelosi is devoted to her Catholic faith, and it is not lost on me that, as a woman, she is being singled out in this continued battle,” Manson said. “It is one more step in a long line of attacks that the Church hierarchy has waged on women and their reproductive rights.”
Supporters of Cordelione’s decision said it could lead churches to become vulnerable to pro-abortion protests and even vandalism.
“Archbishop Cordileone is deeply aware that this decision will not help him — or the Catholic church — win any popularity contests in deeply progressive San Francisco, especially at a time when Catholic churches are already being targeted for violence with the likely overturn of Roe v. Wade on the horizon,” wrote Jonathan Liedl, a senior editor at the National Catholic Register.
CatholicVote President Brian Burch said Cordileone was given little choice.
“For too long Catholic public officials have created confusion and disunity by advocating for policies that destroy innocent human life — in direct contradiction of the teachings of the Catholic faith,” Burch said. “The persistent disobedience of these public officials is a source of enormous sadness and scandal that begged for a response.”
The Catholic Church has been one of the largest opponents of abortion in this country. Catholic doctrine says that life begins at conception, therefore making abortion equivalent to murder. In barring Pelosi, Cordelione invoked canon 915 of the Code of the Canon Law, which says Catholics who persist in “manifest grave sin” should not be allowed to receive Eucharist.
Pelosi, like many in her party, openly supports abortion rights. President Joe Biden, who is also Catholic, has joined Pelosi in calling to expand federal abortion rights in the wake of what the Supreme Could could ultimately do once a decision is made public.
In an overwhelming show of support, U.S. Catholic bishops voted last November in favor of issuing a new document regarding the importance of Communion — although the text at the time did not single out Biden or other Catholic politicians as being unworthy of receiving the sacrament because they favor abortion rights.
The vote, which passed 222-8 with only three abstentions, cleared the required two-thirds majority threshold for passage and drew applause from the bishops present in Baltimore for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops annual fall meeting.
“The Lord accompanies us in many ways, but none as profound as when we encounter him in the Eucharist," the document reads. “When we receive Holy Communion, Christ is giving himself to us. He comes to us all in humility, as he came to us in the Incarnation, so that we may receive him and be one with him.”
For nearly a year, the issue primarily focused on whether Catholic lawmakers should receive the Eucharist if they favored policies, most notably abortion, that are in direct contrast with Catholic teaching.
The adoption of the document — called “The Meaning of the Eucharist in the Life of the Church” — comes after much debate and intense arguing among bishops at the conference meeting last June, in the press and on Twitter, which many saw as a proxy battle in the broader culture war that has pitted Biden and progressive politicians against many bishops.
The vote took place after Biden met with Pope Francis last Oct. 29 at the Vatican. After the meeting, Biden said that he pope told him he’s “a good Catholic” who should continue to receive Communion. The Vatican had no comment at the time regarding the veracity of Biden’s comments.
Clemente Lisi is a senior editor and regular contributor to Religion Unplugged. He is the former deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and teaches journalism at The King’s College in New York City. Follow him on Twitter @ClementeLisi.