Pelosi, a top Democrat from California, revealed her thoughts on saying the former president's name and described him as "what's-his-name" during an interview with The Guardian released Tuesday.

"I hardly ever say his name," Pelosi said.

"I think [Trump is] a grotesque word…You just don't like the word passing your lips," she added. "I just don't. I'm afraid, you know, when I grew up Catholic, as I am now, if you said a bad word, you could burn in hell if you didn't have a chance to confess. So I don't want to take any chances."

"It's up there with, like, swearing." Continue reading

The assurance is laughable.

As Melinda Henneberger pointed out in the Sacramento Bee, Cordileone's claim is "a silly thing to say, since no one who would believe him needs to hear it, and no one who wouldn't will be at all persuaded by it."

The fact that Cordileone misunderstands the politics, however, is the least of his and the Catholic Church's problem.

The larger difficulty is that his understanding of the religious values at stake is lousy, too!

He has misrepresented several cardinal points of church teaching and then erroneously applied that teaching.

The Catholic Church's opposition to abortion, dating back to the Didache in the first or second century, and repeatedly pronounced in the past 60 years in the face of efforts to legalize the procedure, is well known.

As our Holy Father Pope Francis wrote in his 2015 encyclical, "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home," in a passage quoted by Cordileone:

When we fail to acknowledge as part of reality the worth of a poor person, a human embryo, a person with disabilities — to offer just a few examples — it becomes difficult to hear the cry of nature itself; everything is connected. Once the human being declares independence from reality and behaves with absolute dominion, the very foundations of our life begin to crumble, for "instead of carrying out his role as a cooperator with God in the work of creation, man sets himself up in place of God and thus ends up provoking a rebellion on the part of nature."

You see the problem.

Cordileone does not, by his action, evidence the pope's conclusion that "everything is connected." He isolates abortion from all other sins and isolates, too, Pelosi's involvement in this issue.

Canon 1398 states: "A person who procures a completed abortion incurs a latae sententiae excommunication."

• Pelosi has not procured an abortion.
• She has given birth to five children, in fact.
• Instead, she has voted to keep a procedure the church views as immoral, and many Americans view as unjust, legal.
• I think Pelosi is wrong in this regard, but there are several prudential judgments that need to be made:
• How to legislate on the issue?
• Who should legislate on this issue, the federal government or the states?
• Whether to pursue a legal strategy through the courts or through the legislature?
• Is this the kind of issue about which a prohibition is likely to be effective?

Cordileone cannot pretend those prudential judgments do not exist or that the Catholic Church has definitive teaching on any one of them, let alone all of them together.

Does voting to keep abortion legal constitute illicit cooperation with evil?

Our Catholic tradition has a rich theology of cooperation to address the complexities of living in a world in which one's own choices are circumscribed by, and involved with, the choices of other people.

That theology was developed by St. Alphonsus Liguori in the 18th century, drawing on the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas and others, long before the challenges posed by a modern, pluralistic society came about. Cordileone examines none of the careful distinctions that theology demands.

Why single out Pelosi?

After all, she is but one member, albeit the most powerful member, of one branch in the federal government.

An effort to enshrine the right to an abortion in the California constitution has begun, but that vote will happen in the state legislature, not the one over which Pelosi presides.

Are judges who sanction permissive abortion laws to be sanctioned too?

Assigning responsibility to Pelosi and not to those who have played, and are likely to play, a far more consequential role in determining what abortion laws will look like is not a religious judgment, is it?

Does the grace of office supersede the need for deft political analysis to make such a determination?

Did Aquinas have anything to say about the separation of powers? Did Augustine examine federalism? Continue reading

• Michael Sean Winters covers the nexus of religion and politics for NCR.

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, who is known for his conservative views, said he would bar Pelosi from taking Communion in her home city due to her stance on abortion rights.

According to Politico's Playbook, Pelosi received Communion on Sunday (May 22) during Mass at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown, a parish where President Joe Biden has also attended services.

Footage from the church's livestream of the service shows a person in an orange jacket resembling Pelosi coming forward as the Eucharist is being distributed and walking away behind other worshippers.

According to the Rev John Beal, a canon lawyer and professor at the Catholic University of America, Cordileone's ban is not believed to affect Pelosi's ability to take Communion outside of churches under the archbishop's purview.

"It applies only to ministers, ordained and non-ordained, in the Archdiocese of San Francisco," Beal told Religion News Service. He noted that it applies to diocesan leaders as well as those who belong to a religious order. "It does not apply outside the Archdiocese."

Several conservative bishops voiced support for Cordileone's decision after his Friday announcement.

However, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the leader of the Archdiocese of Washington, is one of several who have signalled that they don't have any plans to deny Communion to politicians dissenting from church teaching.

In 2020, when bishops and other Catholics were debating whether to deny Communion to President Joe Biden, who backs abortion rights, Gregory said he would continue to offer the president the sacrament.

After Pope Francis met with President Biden at the Vatican in October, the president said the pope told him to "keep receiving Communion" despite heated debate about the issue among US bishops.

Sources

Religion News

CBS News

Gloria Purvis, the host of America Media's "The Gloria Purvis Podcast," spoke to the archbishop about his decision.

Gloria Purvis: With all that's going on right now—with Dobbs v. Jackson and the leaked opinion [suggesting] that Roe could be overturned—why make this decision now?

+Salvatore Cordileone: The leaked decision and the Dobbs case really have nothing to do with the timing of it. [Speaker Nancy Pelosi] did meet with me and speak with me over the years a couple of times.

Her advocacy for codifying the Roe decision into federal law—it's becoming more and more extreme and more and more aggressive. And I've been trying to speak with her about this.

But more recently, her advocacy for codifying the Roe decision into federal law—it's becoming more and more extreme and more and more aggressive.

And I've been trying to speak with her about this. I've been debating this within my own conscience for many years, actually. So this is not something that has just come up recently.

I've been discerning this. I've consulted with people whom I respect for their intelligence, their integrity and their pastoral sensitivity, who would have different perspectives on the situation to get their thinking on it.

I've done a lot of prayer and fasting. So I've been struggling with this for a long time.

Gloria Purvis: Can you talk a little bit more about the process for informing your conscience in making this decision?

+Salvatore Cordileone: First of all, one has to be clear about what is right and what is wrong.

The point of our conscience is not to decide what is right and wrong.

Forming our conscience is a process of helping us to figure out, in principle, what is right and what is wrong.

The role of conscience is to help us make the right decision in a specific situation based on what is right and wrong.

Forming our conscience, it's these three principles: the need to address the injustice; to repair scandal; and to move the person down the path of conversion because of the spiritual harm it causes themselves.

I'm guided by the principles articulated by Pope Francis and taking the approach of the advice that then Cardinal Ratzinger gave us.

So in this sense, I was also following the advice that Pope Benedict, when he was then-Cardinal Ratzinger in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, sent in a letter to bishops here in the United States back in 2004.

He gave us advice on how to approach this, specifically with politicians, Catholic politicians, and specifically on the two issues of abortion and euthanasia.

And he said we need to meet, to dialogue, to try to move them down the path of conversion.

And if after several attempts it comes to the point where it's clear [that] this is not going to happen, then the bishop or the pastor, [Ratzinger] says, is to declare that the person is not to be admitted to holy Communion.

So I'm guided by the principles articulated by Pope Francis and taking the approach of the advice that then-Cardinal Ratzinger gave us.

Gloria Purvis: You've reached out to her office privately, and you're pretty confident she has received the messages you've sent her privately. Is there a pastoral reason to make this public?

+Salvatore Cordileone: If she's not to be admitted to holy Communion, our priests and extraordinary ministers of holy Communion, all those who are Communion ministers need to know that.

Gloria Purvis: Is this in some way also to repair for the scandal—the public witness that she's given on this? How does that work in this case?

+Salvatore Cordileone: Scandal is an action that would lead others into error or into sin. So the scandal here is that someone who is strongly advocating for something as evil as abortion and taking Communion creates confusion among people. And they can begin to think that it is acceptable for a Catholic to believe this.

Scandal is an action that would lead others into error or into sin.

And sometimes people ask me about that. One news reporter in a secular media, not in Catholic media, asked me if it is acceptable for a Catholic to be in favour of the so-called right to abortion.

So it wasn't clear in his mind it, but it should be clear in everyone's mind. So that's how it leads people into a mistaken idea that this is acceptable and then can actually lead them into doing the evil or condoning it.

Gloria Purvis: And we're talking about abortion; we are not talking about when the child has already died in the womb, and the mother has to undergo a D and C to remove the remains of her unborn child who's already died.

You're talking about the direct, intentional killing of the child in the womb. That's what you're talking about when you're talking about abortion

+Salvatore Cordileone: Yes. And that's what sets this issue [apart].

There are many really very critical issues we're facing today, but the difference with abortion is it is involves the direct taking of an innocent human life. And as much injustice as there is and challenges we're facing, I don't see any legislators advocating the direct taking of innocent human life on any other issue.

So that's what really sets the gravity of this apart.

I don't see any legislators advocating the direct taking of innocent human life on any other issue.

Gloria Purvis: [Apart] from any other issue, where people may wonder, "Why not, you know, do something that's on the death penalty or on immigration or on other economic justice issues?" You see this as a singular issue?

+Salvatore Cordileone: Yeah. Or even racism.

I mean, we're horrified, when we look back 60, 70 years ago, that there was a time when lynchings were acceptable in some parts of the country, among some people.

That is just horrifying to us.

But it's the same thing, right? It's the killing of innocent human life. No one would tolerate that nowadays.

So those of us who understand [that] are trying to open the eyes of our people that this is the direct taking of an innocent human life and what we envision is a society in which that is unacceptable and no one would ever dream of doing it.

Gloria Purvis: Nancy Pelosi has said that she's a devout Catholic and her faith is important to her. How do you see that statement—where she says she's devout Catholic and she's an open supporter of abortion rights. How does that play in your assessment of her faith? Is she still Catholic?

+Salvatore Cordileone: I cannot judge her conscience.

I cannot judge her faith from my interactions with her.

I think she's sincere when she says that; I think her faith really is important to her. It really is important to her to be Catholic. And she feels devotion in her heart.

This makes me perplexed at why she would be so forceful on this issue as a politician.

It's very tricky as a politician; there are so many issues to balance out and trying to come to some kind of consensus and compromise and all that.

But to be so aggressively promoting it—that's not what a devout Catholic does.

So I believe in her heart, she feels that way, but there is a disconnect on this issue.

I think her faith really is important to her. It really is important to her to be Catholic. And she feels devotion in her heart. Continue reading

Pelosi has also drawn criticism from conservative Catholics in the United States over her support for abortion rights. Read more

"His Holiness's leadership is a source of joy and hope for Catholics and for all people, challenging each of us to be good stewards of God's creation, to act on climate, to embrace the refugee, the immigrant and the poor, and to recognise the dignity and divinity in everyone," Pelosi said in a statement.

Pelosi was accompanied by her husband, Paul, and by Patrick Connell, the Charges d'Affaires of the United States Embassy to the Holy See. Connell is heading embassy operations awaiting Senate confirmation of former Indiana Sen. Joseph Donnelly as President Joe Biden's new envoy to the Vatican.

Along with Pope Francis, Pelosi on Saturday met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, and Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Vatican secretary for relations with states.

In Pelosi's statement on her visit with Pope Francis, she called his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si' a "powerful challenge to the global community to act decisively on the climate crisis with special attention to the most vulnerable communities."

Pelosi also spoke of Pope Francis's significance to her home diocese.

"In San Francisco, we take special pride in Pope Francis, who shares the namesake of our city and whose song of St. Francis is our anthem. ‘Lord, make me a channel of thy peace. Where there is darkness, may we bring light. Where there is hatred, may we bring love. Where there is despair, may we bring hope'," Pelosi said.

Despite ongoing tensions between Nancy Pelosi and a portion of the US Bishops' Conference over her pro-abortion stance, the meeting with Pope Francis did not raise the controversial topic

Pelosi is in Rome for a Parliamentary Speakers' Summit ahead of the G20 as well a meeting of parliamentary leaders before of the UN Climate Change Summit (COP20) next month in Glasgow.

On Friday, the Vatican announced that the pope would not be going to Glasgow but that its delegation would be headed by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the secretary of state.

Sources

Crux

Euronews

President Biden announced a "whole-of-government effort" to find ways to overcome the Texas measure.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) denounced the Supreme Court's refusal as a "cowardly, dark-of-night decision to uphold a flagrantly unconstitutional assault on women's rights and health," and promised new legal action: "This ban necessitates codifying Roe v. Wade" in federal law.

As a faith leader in the Catholic community, I find it especially disturbing that so many of the politicians on the wrong side of the preeminent human rights issue of our time are self-professed Catholics.

This is a perennial challenge for bishops in the United States: This summer, we provoked an uproar by discussing whether public officials who support abortion should receive the sacrament of the Eucharist.

We were accused of inappropriately injecting religion into politics, of butting in where we didn't belong.

I see matters differently.

When considering what duties Catholic bishops have with respect to prominent laymen in public life who openly oppose church teachings on abortion, I look to this country's last great human rights movement — still within my living memory — for inspiration on how we should respond.

The example of New Orleans Archbishop Joseph Rummel, who courageously confronted the evils of racism, is one that I especially admire.

Rummel did not "stay in his lane."

Unlike several other bishops throughout this country's history, he did not prioritize keeping parishioners and the public happy above advancing racial justice.

Instead, he began a long, patient campaign of moral suasion to change the opinions of pro-segregation White Catholics.

In 1948, he admitted two Black students to New Orleans's Notre Dame Seminary.

In 1951, he ordered the removal of "white" and "coloured" signs from Catholic churches in the archdiocese.

In a 1953 pastoral letter, he ordered an end to segregation throughout the archdiocese of New Orleans, telling White Catholics that, because their "Colored Catholic brethren share … the same spiritual life and destiny," there could be "no further discrimination or segregation in the pews, at the Communion rail, at the confessional and in parish meetings."

In 1955, Rummel closed a church for refusing to accept a Black priest.

In a 1956 pastoral letter, he declared: "Racial segregation as such is morally wrong and sinful because it is a denial of the unity and solidarity of the human race as conceived by God in the creation of Adam and Eve."

On March 27, 1962, Rummel formally announced the end of segregation in the New Orleans Catholic schools.

Many White Catholics were furious at this disruption of the long-entrenched segregationist status quo.

They staged protests and boycotts. Rummel patiently sent letters urging a conversion of heart, but he was also willing to threaten opponents of desegregation with ex-communication.

On April 16, 1962, he followed through, excommunicating a former judge, a well-known writer and a segregationist community organizer. Two of the three later repented and died Catholics in good standing.

Was that wrong?

Was that weaponizing the Eucharist?

No.

Rummel recognized that prominent, high-profile public advocacy for racism was scandalous: It violated core Catholic teachings and basic principles of justice, and also led others to sin.

In our own time, what could be a more egregious "denial of the unity and solidarity of the human race" than abortion?

Abortion kills a unique, irreplaceable human being growing in his or her mother's womb.

Everyone who advocates for abortion, in public or private life, who funds it or who presents it as a legitimate choice participates in a great moral evil.

Since the Roe decision, more than 60 million lives have been lost to abortion.

Many millions more have been scarred by this experience, wounded victims whom society ignores.

Abortion is therefore the most pressing human rights challenge of our time. Continue reading

• Salvatore Joseph Cordileone is an American Catholic bishop and is the archbishop of San Francisco, California.

The Los Angeles Times reported on Friday that Speaker Pelosi (D-Calif.) recently told some House Democrats that funding bills next year would not include the Hyde Amendment.

The Hyde Amendment, a policy barring taxpayer funding of elective abortions, has been law since 1976. It is named after former congressman Henry Hyde, a 16-term Republican congressman from Illinois who introduced the amendment.

The policy, passed with bipartisan support as an attachment to spending bills, bars Medicaid reimbursements for elective abortion services, but it contains exceptions for abortions in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is at stake. Read more