Public Comment

First some caveats: I am not a Roman Catholic; I just voted again for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.Calif) as my Representative; I support a woman’s right to an abortion; and I am certainly not a religious scholar. But I do take issue with San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s directive to local priests to deny House Speaker Pelosi Holy Communion because of her support for abortion rights.  

A national survey of Catholic voters in the 2020 election revealed that a broad majority of U.S. Catholics say abortion should be legal, and they oppose efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade. Given Archbishop Cordileone’s position vis-à-vis House Speaker Pelosi, that’s a lot of “sinners” who should not receive Holy Communion. Why has the Archbishop singled out Pelosi?  

Note that neither the Old Testament nor the New mentions abortion. However, what the Bible says or does not say about abortion really doesn’t matter. The United States is not a theocracy. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment has been regularly interpreted to mean that the U.S. Constitution requires the separation of church and state. As Thomas Jefferson in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association declared that when the American people adopted the Establishment Clause they built a “wall of separation" between the church and state. House Speaker Pelosi is a member of the state representing all her constituents. 

Pope Francis, the Archbishop's de facto boss, is at odds with the Archbishop on this issue. The Pope has said he has never denied Communion to anyone, adding that while he doesn’t know if Catholics who support abortion rights ever asked him for Communion, he has “never refused them the Eucharist, since the time I was a priest.” He has also said that “Communion is not a prize for the perfect” but a “a gift” marking the presence of Jesus in his church and community. And has also said that clerics shouldn’t let politics enter into questions about receiving Communion. “Bishops should be pastors, he said, not politicians.”  

Is politics at play here? Perhaps Pope Francis should have a quiet word with Archbishop Cordileone.