WASHINGTON – The ultraconservative archbishop of San Francisco said on Friday that California President Nancy Pelosi will not be allowed to take communion in his archdiocese because of her support for abortion rights.
Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, who has repeatedly clashed with Ms. Pelosi on abortion, said in a letter Friday that while Ms. Pelosi does not want to “publicly renounce” her position in defense of “the legitimacy of abortion,” she will be forbidden by the sacrament, a central element of Catholic worship.
“After many attempts to talk to spokeswoman Pelosi to help her understand the grave evil she is committing, the scandal she is causing” and “the danger to her own soul that she risks”, I decided that she should not be allowed to Holy Communion, “Archbishop Cordileone said on Twitter on Friday.
A spokeswoman for Ms. Pelosi, a practicing Catholic who often mentions her belief in advocating for her progressive views, did not respond to a request for comment. In an interview with C-SPAN in 2008, Ms. Pelosi described herself as a “regular communicant” and said that if she was ever denied communion, “it would be a heavy blow to me.”
The Catholic Church explicitly opposes abortion, which it considers one of the gravest sins. Archbishop Cordilleone is an outspoken critic of abortion and same-sex marriage, and said he had not been vaccinated against the coronavirus.
He objected last summer after Ms. Pelosi called herself a “devout Catholic” at a news conference during which she voiced support for efforts to authorize federal funding for abortion.
From Opinion: Rowe v. Wade Challenge
Commentary by opinion authors and Times columnists on the forthcoming Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
“No one can claim to be a devout Catholic and approve of killing an innocent person, let alone the government paying for it,” he said in a statement at the time.
He also voiced support for an earlier attempt to ban President Biden, the country’s second Catholic president, from receiving communion for his support of abortion rights.
The effort failed after Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington said he would not ban the president from taking communion.
Archbishop Cordileone’s move toward Ms. Pelosi came as Democrats in Congress tried and failed to pass legislation guaranteeing abortion rights across the country after an expired draft Supreme Court ruling suggested the court could be on the verge of repealing a nearly 50-year-old decision that legalizes abortion.
This was the latest sign of a growing rift in the church between conservative American bishops and the Vatican.
The Vatican has warned against abstaining from politicians who support abortion rights. Pope Francis preaches that the sacrament “is not the reward of the saints, but the bread of sinners.”
Rowe v. Wade
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What is Rowe against Wade? Rowe v. Wade is a remarkable Supreme Court ruling that legalizes abortion in the United States. Decision 7-2 was announced on January 22, 1973. Judge Harry A. Blackman, a humble Republican from the Midwest and an advocate for the right to abortion, wrote the majority opinion.
What was the case? The decision overturned laws in many states that banned abortion, declaring that they could not ban the procedure before the fetus could survive outside the womb. This time, known as fetal viability, was about 28 weeks when Roe was decided. Today, most experts believe it is about 23 or 24 weeks.
What else did the case do? Rowe v. Wade created a framework for regulating abortion based on the trimester of pregnancy. During the first trimester, he allowed almost no regulations. In the second, it allows regulations to protect women’s health. In the third, it allows states to ban abortions, as long as exceptions are made to protect the life and health of the mother. In 1992, the court dropped this framework, while confirming Roe’s substantial ownership.
But some leading American bishops still moved forward.
Conservative bishops have tried to portray Mr Biden as a threat to the church, given his endorsement of policies that “promote moral evil and threaten human life and dignity, most notably abortion, contraception, marriage and gender”. , as Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles said in a statement on the day of Mr. Biden’s inauguration.
At a meeting last fall, bishops approved new guidelines on the subject, which withdrew from direct conflict with the president and high-ranking Catholic Democrats such as Ms. Pelosi. The document does not single out individuals, but emphasizes that bishops have a “special responsibility” to intervene when the congregation’s prominent public actions run counter to church teaching.
Bishops who are seen as allies of Pope Francis have warned that encouraging bishops to refuse communion to certain politicians will lead to “weapons of the Eucharist.” But others supported the move.
“I support Archbishop Cordilleone in his courageous pastoral assistance to a member of his flock,” Bishop James D. Conley of the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, said on Twitter.
In his letter, Archbishop Cordilleone also noted that Ms. Pelosi refused to speak to him after voting in September on the Women’s Health Act, a bill to ensure access to abortion across the country.
Growing up in Baltimore, Mrs. Pelosi regularly attended liturgy with her family and attended a Catholic school. She said her mother hoped to become a nun.
Ms. Pelosi often invokes her faith when discussing her position in support of abortion rights.
“I came to this as a Catholic mother of five in six years and a week, and I’m glad it all meant something to us,” she told the House last year, speaking in support of the bill. “But acknowledging that it was my husband and I – our decision. That was our decision. And we should not, in this body or in this court, make decisions for women in America. “
She criticized her church for turning abortion into a litmus test for membership.
“They would like to throw me out, but I will not go because I do not want to make their day better,” she told an event in March.
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