WASHINGTON ( Associated Press) – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday lashed out at the conservative Catholic archbishop of San Francisco’s decision to deny her communion over her support for abortion rights, saying she respects people’s views that are opposed, But when they impose them on others.
The California Democrat says she comes from a large family in which many members oppose abortion. “I respect people’s views about it. But I don’t respect imposing it on others.” Pelosi said, “Our Archbishop has been strongly against LGBTQ rights. In fact he led an initiative on the ballot in California.
Pelosi made her remarks on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” In a letter to Pelosi last week, Archbishop Salvatore Cordillon said he would refuse her communion after vowing to codify into law the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision that established the constitutional right to abortion. That law passed the House but died in the Senate last week.
Pelosi said women and families need to know that this is much more than just abortion. “These same people are against contraception, family planning, in vitro fertilization. It’s a blanket thing and they use abortion as the front-runner for it.”
Cordillon has said she told Pelosi that she should either reject her support of abortion rights or stop speaking publicly about her Catholic faith. In a separate letter to church members, she said she had asked to meet with Pelosi several times, but her office did not respond or tell them she was busy.
“After several attempts to speak with her to help her understand just how gravely evil she is, the scandal she is making, and the dangers she is putting her soul in, I have determined that the point has come in which I must make a public declaration that he is not to be admitted to Holy Communion,” Cordillon wrote.
Over the past year, Cordillon has been one of the most vocal American bishops, advocating that President Joe Biden and other politicians who support abortion rights be denied Communion.
However, each bishop has authority over the matter in its own diocese, and the Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, has confirmed that Biden is welcome to receive the sacrament there.
2 Senate Democratic leader Richard Durbin of Illinois, who has been denied communion for years by his Springfield, Illinois, diocese because of his abortion-rights views, voiced support for Pelosi Tuesday. “I still believe that church officials believe that we have issues that can only be decided by our own conscience, and not by a bishop’s conference,” Durbin told reporters.
