The leader of the Democrats in the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, must be refused Catholic communion because of her defense of the right to abortion, the archbishop of San Francisco ruled on Friday in a letter made public.
• To read also: Abortion denial in Croatia: “If he is born, he will be like a vegetable”
• Read also: Oklahoma passes a law banning abortion
• To read also: “You can be Catholic and pro-choice”: a liberal dissociates himself from his religious organization
“You must not present yourself for (receive) Holy Communion and, if that should happen, you must not be admitted for Holy Communion, until you publicly repudiate your defense of the legitimacy of the abortion, and confess and receive absolution for this grave sin,” US Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone wrote in his Thursday letter to the top Democratic official.
Invoking the position of the Church on the issue of abortion, Bishop Cordileone indicates in his letter that he had already threatened Nancy Pelosi, elected representative of California for decades, with this measure in April 2022 if she did not publicly disavow the “rights to abortion”.
The Archbishop’s announcement comes as the right to abortion in the United States is threatened by the Supreme Court which, according to a document revealed by Politico, seems ready to reverse the course, 50 years after its historic decision to protect abortion.
Shortly after the leak of the document in early May, Nancy Pelosi and the leader of the Democratic senators, Chuck Schumer, had estimated in a joint press release that the possible decision of the Supreme Court would constitute “an abomination”.
They both warned: “If this information is correct, the Supreme Court is poised to impose the strongest restriction of rights in fifty years — not just on women, but on all Americans.”
Asked by AFP, the services of Nancy Pelosi were not able to respond immediately.
Even if it is supported by a majority of the population, according to recent polls, the right to abortion has been a very divisive social issue in the United States since the historic “Roe v. Wade” of January 1973, which protects the right of American women to terminate their pregnancies.
The Archbishop also asks “all the faithful of the Archdiocese of San Francisco to pray for all our elected officials, especially Catholic elected officials” who promote abortion rights, so that they change their minds “about this matter of the greatest gravity”.
1
