A top US lawmaker has been banned from receiving the holy sacrament of communion in the San Francisco archdioceses because she has continued to push abortion rights.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone notified House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of his decision in a letter shared on Twitter on Friday afternoon.
‘After numerous attempts to speak with Speaker Pelosi to help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the 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,’ Cordileone .
Pelosi, a Democrat whose hometown is San Francisco, has pushed for abortion rights for decades. However, Pelosi in September brought a bill to the House floor that would make Roe v Wade – the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide – the law of the land.
‘Every woman, everywhere has the constitutional right to basic health care,’ Pelosi said before the House on the day of the vote.
In his letter, the archbishop wrote that he had told Pelosi that ‘should you not publicly repudiate your advocacy for abortion “rights” or else refrain from referring to your Catholic faith in public and receiving Holy Communion, I would have no choice but to make a declaration, in keeping with canon 915, that you are not to be admitted to Holy Communion’.
‘As you have not publically repudiated your position on abortion, and continue to refer to your Catholic faith in justifying your position and to receive Holy Communion, that time has now come,’ he wrote.
‘I am hereby notifying you 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 publically repudiate your advocacy for the legitimacy of abortion and confess and receive absolution of this grave sin in the sacrament of Penance.’
The archbishop’s action comes just weeks after a showed the conservative majority intends to overturn Roe v Wade.
In a separate to priests, Cordileone explained his decision and said his ‘motive is pastoral, not political’.
Pelosi did not immediately comment publicly on the matter.
.
For more stories like this, .
