Archbishop denies Communion to Pelosi
House speaker will be banned for her support of access to abortion
The Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco said Friday he will deny Holy Communion to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat who calls herself a devout Catholic, because of her public support for abortion rights.
In a letter to Pelosi dated Thursday and made public Friday, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone said 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 publicly repudiate your advocacy for the legitimacy of abortion. . .”
Pelosi had no immediate response. Cordileone's decision does not necessarily bar her from receiving Communion from priests outside the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The archbishop's move comes amid mounting tension within the church over abortion and how to handle highprofile politicians like Pelosi and President Joe Biden who publicly profess the Catholic faith and support for abortion rights despite the Roman Catholic Church's longstanding teaching that killing an unborn child is evil.
But bishops have been divided over how to handle the controversy, leery of “weaponizing” the Holy Eucharist over a politically divisive issue that could drive liberal Catholics from the pews.
Last year, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops met repeatedly over the matter, with Biden's election amplifying calls for him to be denied Communion over his support of abortion rights.
The bishops in November voted to approve a document that said “lay people who exercise some form of public authority have a special
responsibility to embody church teaching in their service of the common good.” But it stopped short of calls to deny Holy Communion to public figures who express support for abortion rights and gay marriage.
Pope Francis has struggled to keep the church from fracturing along political fault lines as abortion and homosexuality find broad cultural acceptance in an increasingly secular U.S. and Europe, even among the faithful.
Bishops in Germany have been pushing the church to soften its homosexuality stance. In this country, the long-simmering abortion debate has heated up with Texas' approval of a bill limiting abortions to the earliest weeks of pregnancy, and this month's release of a draft U.S. Supreme Court ruling that would overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationally.
Cordileone, in a letter Friday to parishioners explaining the decision on Pelosi, quoted Francis on Sept. 30, 2013, saying “every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ.”
But the pope also has sought to avoid divisiveness. Biden during a visit to Italy last fall told reporters that Francis called him a “good Catholic” and said he should continue to receive Communion.
Cordileone indicated Friday that he has spoken with Pelosi about the issue in the past but his decision was driven by her public statements in support of a national abortion rights law and her failure to respond to six of his requests to discuss it.
“After numerous attempts to speak with her 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 the point has come in which I must make a public declaration that she is not to be admitted to Holy Communion,” Cordileone wrote to parishioners.
The archbishop said Pelosi could resume receiving Communion if she repudiates abortion, confesses and receives absolution “for her cooperation in this evil,” adding “I find no pleasure whatsoever in fulfilling my pastoral duty here.”
Bishop Oscar Cantú and his Diocese of San Jose had no response on the matter Friday. Bishop Michael Barber of the Diocese of Oakland issued a statement Friday supporting Cordileone for “the heroic and compassionate stance he took today in the protection and defense of human life.”
But Catholics for Choice President Jamie L. Manson said in a statement Friday that “Archbishop Cordileone is waging a culture war that the bishops have already retreated from.”
Thomas Plante, a psychology and religious studies professor at the Catholic Santa Clara University, called Cordileone's dictate “terribly disappointing.”
“When there's a `wafer war' around who deserves Communion and who does not deserve Communion, who's good enough, who's not good enough, it distracts from the real issues of the day, which are many,” Plante said Friday. “It takes all the air out of the room, it underscores divisiveness that I think is unnecessary, and it seems contrary to the messages we're hearing from Pope Francis.”
The archbishop drew praise from Hugh Brown, vice president of the American Life League, who in a statement Friday said “we hope and pray that Bishop Cordileone's courageous action will lead the great deceiver, Nancy Pelosi, to a lifetime of repentance, contrition, and humility.”
Brown called on Cardinal Wilton Gregory, archbishop of Washington in the nation's capital, “to immediately deny Holy Communion to faux Catholic Joe Biden.” But Gregory has said Biden is welcome to receive the sacrament there.
A March 2021 Pew survey found two out of three U.S. Catholics felt Catholic politicians who disagree with church teachings on abortion should be allowed to go to Communion.
Holy Communion, or the Eucharist, is the sharing of bread and wine, as Jesus urged his followers to do in his memory at his Last Supper, that becomes the spiritual embodiment of Christ. It has been called “the source and summit of the Christian life,” and is one of the Catholic church's seven sacraments along with Baptism, Confirmation, Penance and Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders and Matrimony.