Rep. Nancy Pelosi this week publicly called out San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone after he barred her from communion in the churches he oversees.
“I have a problem with my archbishop – well, the archbishop of the city that I represent – but I figure that’s his problem, not mine,” the former speaker of the house said in an interview with Georgetown University’s Center on Faith and Justice in Washington, D.C., noting that she had five children in six years.
Pelosi, 82, said she asks congress members who are pro-life if they have had as many kids in the span of six years. “You want to talk about this subject, OK? We go right to the one issue, because everything else, we are pretty much in sync when it comes to the social compact of the Catholic bishops and the rest. But they are willing to abandon the bulk of it because of one thing and that’s the fight that we have.”
In a letter published last May, Cordileone wrote that Pelosi should not present herself at Mass and said that priests would not allow her to receive communion if she did attend.
PELOSI CALLS RESTRICTING ABORTION ‘SINFUL’
Rep. Nancy Pelosi this week publicly rebuked the San Francisco archbishop who said last year she wouldn’t be allowed to receive communion over her abortion stance. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais – Pool/Getty Images)
“I am hereby notifying you that you are not to present yourself for Holy Communion and, should you do so, you are not to be admitted to Holy Communion, until such time as you publicly repudiate your advocacy for the legitimacy of abortion and confess and receive absolution of this grave sin in the sacrament of Penance,” Cordileone wrote in the letter.
SUPPORT AMOUNTS AMONG US BISHOPS BARRING PELOSI FROM RECEIVING COMMUNION
Archbishop of San Francisco, the Most Reverend Salvatore J. Cordileone leads the prayer of commendation during the funeral Mass of archbishop emeritus and Cardinal William Joseph Cardinal Levada at the Cathedral of Saint Mary on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2019, in San Francisco. (Liz Hafalia/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images) (Liz Hafalia/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
The Archbishop added that he had previously written to Pelosi on April 7, and stated that “should you not publicly repudiate your advocacy for abortion ‘rights’ or else refrain from referring to your Catholic faith in public and receiving Holy Communion, I would have no choice but to make a declaration, in keeping with canon 915, that you are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
Pelosi did not comply with these requests, according to Cordileone’s May letter.
Nancy Pelosi, a practicing Catholic, marks Ash Wednesday with ashes on her forehead. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Last summer, Pelosi did receive communion at the Vatican in a mass marking the feasts of St. Peter and St. Paul presided over by Pope Francis.
Pelosi called the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade last year an “insult” to women.
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“It’s a slap in the face to women about using their own judgment to make their own decisions about their reproductive freedom,” she said at the time, adding that it would be “on the ballot” in the 2022 midterms.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Pelosi and the archbishop for comment.
Fox News’ Haley Chi-Sing contributed to this report.
