On Thursday, the Archbishop of San Francisco responded to comments that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who calls herself a “devout Catholic,” made with regard to abortion.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of Pelosi’s home diocese criticized the speaker’s comments on abortion and her stance on the Hyde Amendment, which bars the use of federal funds to pay for abortions unless a woman’s life is in danger.
“Let me repeat: no one can claim to be a devout Catholic and condone the killing of innocent human life, let alone have the government pay for it,” the archbishop said in a statement. “The right to life is a fundamental — the most fundamental — human right, and Catholics do not oppose fundamental human rights,”
In a press conference earlier on Thursday, Pelosi answered a question about why House Democrats have blocked a vote on a plan to prohibit taxpayer-funded abortions.
Pelosi answered that access to abortion is health issue for American women, ““especially those in lower-income situations and in different states, and it is something that has been a priority for many of us a long time.”
The Speaker then brought up her faith in regard to the question: “As a devout Catholic and mother of five in six years, I feel that God blessed my husband and me with our beautiful family the five children in six years, almost to the day. But it’s not up to me to dictate that that’s what other people should do. And it’s an issue of fairness and justice for poor women in our country.”
But as Cordileone said: “no one can claim to be a devout Catholic and condone the killing of innocent human life, let alone have the government pay for it.”
Cordileone especially had a problem with Pelosi referring to abortion as a health issue and a matter of fairness.
“To use the smokescreen of abortion as an issue of health and fairness to poor women is the epitome of hypocrisy: what about the health of the baby being killed? What about giving poor women real choice, so they are supported in choosing life? This would give them fairness and equality to women of means, who can afford to bring a child into the world,” he said.
Like Pelosi, President Joe Biden also refers to himself as a “devout Catholic.” In June, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops voted overwhelmingly to endorse the drafting of a “teaching document” that would hold Catholics liable for their support of abortion. That document will supposedly contain language that would deny Pelosi and Biden communion due to their support for abortion.
Denial of communion occurs in the Catholic faith when parishioners persist in manifest grave sin. Currently, Canon 1398 excommunicates those who perform abortions.
“A person who procures a completed abortion incurs a latae sententiae excommunication,” the Canon states.
Potentially, the new “teaching document” could contain language that would deny communion to public supporters of abortion such as Biden and Pelosi if they persist in the promotion of abortion.
Asked about that possibility in June, Biden shrugged it off, saying, “That’s a private matter, and I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
While Biden was on the campaign trail in October of 2019, Father Robert Morey of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Florence, South Carolina, denied the future president communion because “any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of Church teaching.”
Cordileone obviously would rather the president and the speaker use their bully pulpits in different ways regarding the sin of abortion.
“It is people of faith who run pro-life crisis pregnancy clinics; they are the only ones who provide poor women life-giving alternatives to having their babies killed in their wombs. I cannot be prouder of my fellow Catholics who are so prominent in providing this vital service. To them I say: you are the ones worthy to call yourselves ‘devout Catholics!’”
Even Pope Francis, by any measure the most left-wing pope in history, has compared abortion to hiring a hit man to take a life.
“Is it legitimate to take out a human life to solve a problem?” Francis asked a Vatican conference in 2019. “Is it permissible to contract a hitman to solve a problem?”
Speaker Pelosi and President Biden have both used their Catholic faith to get ahead in their political careers. Perhaps it’s time both of them pay the Church back for their assistance — by publicly leaving it.
