On Friday, May 20, Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi was sent a letter by the Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, informing her that she is not to present herself for reception of Holy Communion, and that if she does so she is to be denied admittance to the Sacrament due to her continued support of abortion access in the United States.
The Most Reverend Archbishop began his letter by reminding the Catholic Speaker of the Church’s long history of opposition to abortion, and its continued support of this opposition in statements of the Second Vatican Council, Pope St. John Paul II, and Pope Francis, as well as reminding her of the responsibility to uphold the dignity of life the Church expects of those entrusted with governing power. He then thanked Pelosi “for the time [she had] given [him] in the past to speak about these matters“, but that due to her commitment to codifying Roe v. Wade into law and continued publicly appeal to her Catholic faith, his “responsibility as the Archbishop of San Francisco to be ‘concerned for all the Christian faithful entrusted to [my] care‘ (Code of Canon Law, can. 383, §1)” [sic] obligated him to forbid her access to Holy Communion until she “publicly repudiate“ her stance on abortion and “confess and receive absolution of this grave sin in the sacrament of Penance” in accordance with canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law.
Canon 915 states, “Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.”
The Church holds that denying access to Communion or any of the other Sacraments is not tantamount to revoking their Church membership, but is instead a penalty aimed at bringing about conversion of the individual in question.
As of the time of publication of this article, the Speaker of the House has not issued a statement regarding her ecclesial sanction.
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