The edict from Catholic archbishop of San Francisco, Cordileone, one of the country’s most conservative Catholic leaders, represents an extraordinary rebuke of Pelosi’s Catholic faith, which the 82-year-old speaker frequently invokes when discussing her family, her policies and her politics.
Democrats and abortion rights advocates have responded with alarm in recent weeks following the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would overturn the right to abortion established in the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.Cordileone last year called for Communion to be withheld from public figures who support abortion rights but did not mention Pelosi by name at the time.
“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 unless and until she publicly repudiate her support for abortion ‘rights’ and confess and receive absolution for her cooperation in this evil in the sacrament of Penance,” Cordileone said Friday in a letter to members of his archdiocese.
