Pelosi Joins Biden, Kerry, Giuliani And Other Catholics Threatened With No Communion Because Of Abortion Support

Topline

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), banned from receiving communion by her local diocese, became the latest Catholic U.S. politician targeted for their views supporting abortion rights.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) conducts her weekly news conference in the Capitol … [+] Visitor Center on Thursday, May 19, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Timeline

2022San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said Pelosi should not receive Holy Communion over her support for Roe v. Wade, saying a Catholic legislator’s support for abortion is a “grave sin.”

2019A pastor at a Catholic church in Florence, South Carolina, denied then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden communion while on the campaign trail because “any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of Church teaching,” the Florence Morning News reported.

2009Rhode Island’s top Catholic leader Bishop Thomas Tobin publicly revealed he had asked then-Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) to stop taking communion due to his support for abortion rights in February 2007.

2008After Biden was nominated as the vice presidential candidate in the 2008 Election, Bishop Joseph Francis Martino of Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, also said Biden would be refused communion in the parish due to his support for abortion.

2007 St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke said he would deny then-Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani communion due to his pro-choice views, telling the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at the time, “if the question is about a Catholic who is publicly espousing positions contrary to the moral law,” he would deny them communion.

2004Burke also said he would not give communion to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry communion during the 2004 Election cycle, in part because of Kerry’s stance on abortion.

Surprising Fact

While former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was never denied communion, he did face calls from some Catholic leaders to be excommunicated from the church in 2019 after he signed one of the most expansive abortion rights bills in U.S. history into law. Cuomo’s father, Mario Cuomo, was also warned of excommunication while he served as New York’s governor.

News Peg

Pelosi said in an interview with MSNBC Tuesday she comes from a largely anti-abortion Catholic family, so she respects people with those views. “We just have to be prayerful, we have to be respectful,” she said, “but I don’t respect us foisting it onto others.”

Key Background

The Vatican sent a letter to U.S. bishops last year warning against denying communion to supporters of abortion rights, and urging their discretion in decisions that could be seen as political. The Vatican wrote in the letter it would be misleading to present abortion and as one of “the only grave matters of Catholic moral and social teaching that demand the fullest accountability on the part of Catholics.”

Crucial Quote

Biden, the second Catholic president, had a meeting with Pope Francis in October at the Vatican and said the Pope told him he was a “good Catholic” and that Biden should keep “receiving communion.” Biden received communion one day later at St. Patrick’s Church in Rome.