House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly received Holy Communion during a Wednesday mass at the Vatican amid ongoing disagreements among bishops as to whether pro-abortion lawmakers should receive the sacrament.
The Speaker attended the mass marking the feasts of St. Peter and St. Paul inside St. Peter’s Basilica where Pope Francis bestowed the wooden pallium stole on the newly consecrated bishops, AP News reported. Two witnesses told AP News that Pelosi sat in the VIP section of the church and received communion.
Her own archbishop, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone notified her and the priests of the archdiocese to deny the Speaker communion due to the “grave evil she is perpetrating” by supporting pro-abortion legislation.
“After numerous attempts to speak with Speaker Pelosi to help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she is causing, and the danger to her own soul she is risking, I have determined that she is not to be admitted to Holy Communion,” Cordileone stated on Twitter.
After numerous attempts to speak with Speaker Pelosi to help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she is causing, an the danger to her own soul she is risking, I have determined that she is not to be admitted to Holy Communion. https://t.co/l7M85CyG86
— Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone (@ArchCordileone) May 20, 2022
Catholic teaching states any person “who is conscious of grave sin is not to celebrate Mass or receive the body of the Lord without previous sacramental confession unless there is a grave reason and there is no opportunity to confess,” according to the Vatican’s code of canon law. Catholic teaching states any person “conscious of grave sin” is not permitted to receive communion or celebrate Mass “without previous sacramental confession.” (RELATED: Archbishop Cordileone Says He Had ‘Conversations’ With Pro-Abortion Pelosi About Holy Communion)
The Church views abortion as a both “gravely wrong” and a “moral evil” by holding the belief that life begins at conception, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The House Speaker reportedly received communion during a Sunday mass at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown. The dioceses of Washington D.C. and San Francisco are under different leadership, allowing the Speaker to receive the sacrament outside of the San Francisco diocese.
The pastor of the Holy Trinity Church, Father Kevin Gillespie, said in 2021 that he would permit President Joe Biden to receive communion despite his views on his abortion.
“Everyone is welcome,” he said. “He’s [Biden] a man of faith, and I would give Communion to him like any other Catholic coming up for the Eucharist.”
The Archdiocese of Washington accidentally leaked an email to the Washington Examiner saying there were people requesting for the archdiocese to ignore Washington Archbishop Wilton Cardinal Gregory if he “brings down the hammer on Pelosi.”
Pelosi suggested that Archbishop Cordileone denying her communion is a double standard due the Church’s opposition to the death penalty, though they do not reportedly deny communion to supporters of capital punishment. She also named their opposition to contraception, family planning, and in vitro fertilization.
The pope emphasized that the Catholic Church stands firmly against abortion, but is not informed enough to comment on the problems of pro-abortion Catholic politicians in the U.S.
“For me, I don’t want to particularize […] the United States because I don’t know the details well, I give the principle … Be a pastor and the pastor knows what he has to do at all times, but as a shepherd. But if he comes out of this shepherding of the Church, immediately he becomes a politician.”