San Francisco, May 20, 2022 (AFP) – Archbishop of San Francisco Salvatore Cordileone has banned US Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi from taking communion for advocating for abortion rights, according to a letter from the prominent religious leader this Friday (20).

Archbishop Cordileone said in his letter that he had previously asked Pelosi to “publicly reject her defense of her ‘right’ to abortion or refrain from publicly referring to her Catholic faith and receiving Communion,” or else she would be excluded from such access. holiness.

“As you did not publicly reject his stance on abortion and continued to appeal to your Catholic faith to justify your position and receive Communion, the time has come,” the archbishop said.

“Therefore, I inform you that you cannot offer yourself for Holy Communion, and that if you do, you will not be accepted unless you publicly reject your defense of the legitimacy of abortion and you confess and receive forgiveness from it. A serious grip on the sacrament of Atonement,” he added.

Pelosi, a life-long Catholic from California, won the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade 1973, which guaranteed access to this procedure throughout the country.

Pelosi’s office did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment on the archbishop’s letter.

Communion – a ritual in which the faithful eat bread and wine blessed by a priest – is a central act of the dogma of the Catholic Church.