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Pelosi Officially Denied Communion
Wow this is big. The Pillar, a Catholic news opinion site, reporting now: “Pelosi barred from Holy Communion over abortion advocacy.”
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is barred from receiving the Eucharist in the Archdiocese of San Francisco because of her efforts to codify federal protection for abortions, according to a May 20 statement from Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone.
Archbishop Cordileone, one of the conservative bishops for sure—one wonders how he got appointed to be over the archdiocese of San Francisco—has been admonishing Pelosi for a while. And ever since the leak about the Supreme Court’s decision to overthrow Roe v. Wade a few weeks ago, Pelosi and the left have gone on a rampage of full-throated support for all abortion rights. They even claim it’s a moral good to kill the innocent unborn and it’s within Catholic doctrine to allow abortion—a full out lie. Well, one would think Cordileone would have had enough. However, according to the news article, this had been brewing for a number of months.
In the May 19 notification published online, the archbishop recounted efforts to meet with Pelosi in recent months, noting that “I have not received…an accommodation to my many requests to speak with you again since you vowed to codify the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in federal law, following upon passage of Texas Senate Bill 8 last September.”
“That is why I communicated my concerns to you via letter on April 7, 2022, and informed you there 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.”
This is an earthquake, both in the Catholic world and in political discourse. Can the denial of Holy Communion to other politicians who support abortion be far behind? I certainly hope more bishops will finally get their spine and follow suit. Here’s what the Archbishop wrote to Pelosi.
“I must make a public declaration that [Pelosi] 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. I have accordingly sent her a Notification to this effect, which I have now made public,” Cordileone wrote in a letter released Friday.
Three cheers to Cordileone, which translated from Italian means heart of a lion!
Published in Religion & Philosophy
My understanding is that the Archbishop’s banning Pelosi from taking communion is limited to his diocese. It does not extend beyond those limits. Technically, she could take communion in the Washington DC area if the Bishop/Cardinal of that diocese does not forbid it.
Thanks. I may have heard that but escaped me.
Good point, but it provides disinformation to everyone else and some pick up on it. I think it’s mor to stop the disinformation.
In my humble opinion, Pelosi is, in a sea of hypocrisy, one of the greatest hypocrites of all in that she is constantly and publicly preaching about her faith and her adherence to the principles of the Church and, as you say, while not just defending abortion, but loudly and clearly leading the Pro Choice movement. I hasten to note, so as to not even accidentally fall into the category of persons I abhor, hypocrites and their very own city, the District of Columbia (how paradoxical for it to be named after one of the least hypocritical leaders in American history!), I hasten to note I am not a Roman Catholic. I am a member of the Episcopal Church, and would be a member of the Anglican Church were there any churches near me, but I do not think the joy of this piece of good news, so rare these days, should be limited to members of he Catholic Church. I’m always looking for the tiniest little fissures in the ice sheet which covers our political class these days and I see this as one of the most promising I’ve seen in quite a while.
Not the same thing. Abortion is identified as inherently evil. There’s no compromise there. The death penalty is for prudential judgement, meaning we can all have an individual opinion as to what is best for society. The Church believes the death penalty is unjustified in this day and age but it allows for your own opinion. It is not inherently evil.
I don;t know the answer to this myself. I would think it is excommunicated. That’s what the word implies, but I acknowledge my ignorance on this.
Stad, I was brought up as a Southern Baptist and converted to Orthodoxy as an adult. A priest should deny a parishioner if he knows the person in question should not receive the Holy Eucharist. In my case, I haven’t been to see my priest for Confession since Pascha. I would expect him to deny me Communion, since he knows how long it’s been since I confessed.
To be sure, there are some instances where a priest gives Communion to someone he knows shouldn’t receive it. When I lived in NY, my wife’s cousin married a Catholic. She never converted to Orthodoxy, and cannot receive Communion in the Orthodox church. To avoid a scene, the priest would give her the Eucharist when she presented herself. (I think it was really because that family was well off and donated quite a bit to the parish, but I suppose that’s me being uncharitable. Another thing to confess when I do go to see my priest.)
Well, there are a lot of different Catholic parishes. I don’t always go to confession at my parish. My pastor would have no idea if I did. I think they tend to assume you went to confession. It would be impossible to keep track.
It helps that there are only 1 or 2 Orthodox parishes in my area.
Here I’ve been waiting for The Answer from @Manny and now had to go look it up. :-)
This is from catholic dot com: “Canon 915 thus envisions a group of people who are not excommunicated but who are to be denied Communion because they are “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin.”
Indeed, the National Catholic Register has compiled a list of 10 such occasions. Here’s the most breathtaking example:
She goes well beyond the old Mario Cuomo “personally opposed, but” excuse and baldly lies about Church teaching on abortion.
She is gravely mistaken, not only did Augustine forbid abortion but so did the Didache which is one of the oldest Christian documents -written in the 1st or 2nd century AD.
LOL, thanks. I think since I wrote that I’ve seen they are not technically excommunicated.
I subscribe to the theory it was written in the middle of the first century, which would mean it was written before the Gospel of John. Modern scholars date all Christian documents later than previous scholars.
The highlight is my emphasis. Other translations I’ve seen phrase that sentence as not killing the child in the womb. abortion was forbidden from the very first days of Christianity.
Excommunication is the act of removing a person from the communion of the Church. They are de ied the sacrements (save for Reconciliation) and denied admission to the Church for Mass.