House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: I Haven’t Been Denied Communion Over Abortion
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 5, 2008
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is one of the leading abortion advocates in Washington, but she said in a recent interview that she has never been denied communion because of it. Unlike other pro-abortion politicians who have faced scrutiny from local Catholic officials, she says she hasn’t.
Interviewed on C-SPAN on Sunday, Pelosi was asked about other pro-abortion politicians like Sen. John Kerry and Mayor Rudy Giuliani who have come under fire for being pro-abortion Catholics.
Pelosi said the Catholic officials in San Francisco, where her House district is located, have not given her flack for strongly supporting abortion.
“I think some of it is regional,” she said. “It depends on the bishop of a certain region and fortunately for me, communion has not been withheld and I’m a regular communicant so that would be a severe blow to me if that were the case.”
Pelosi did not talk directly about how her pro-abortion views violate the pro-life teachings of the Catholic Church but she said there are other political issues where she and Catholics are in agreement.
The head of the House of Representatives was one of several Catholic lawmakers who support abortion to receive the sacrament in April during a Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI in Washington.
The most recent pro-abortion politician to come under fire regarding communion was pro-abortion Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, considered a potential running mate for pro-abortion presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Sebelius has drawn the scorn of Kansans across the political spectrum because of her close relationship with late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller and her numerous vetoes of bills that would place common sense limits on abortions in state law.
In May, Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City, said Sebelius needs to refrain from receiving communion until she changes her position supporting abortion.
He called on Sebelius to take the "necessary steps for amendment of her life."
In a column published in the diocesan Catholic newspaper The Leaven, Naumann said he wrote Sebelius and urged the potential Democratic vice-presidential running mate to refrain from communion.
Following the letter, he learned she had taken the sacrament and he wrote to her again asking her to respect his request and "not require from me any additional pastoral actions."
"I hope that my request of the governor, not to present herself for Holy Communion, will provoke her to reconsider the serious spiritual and moral consequences of her past and present actions," the Archbishop wrote.
Before that Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl responded to the controversy involving pro-abortion politicians taking communion during the Pope’s visit. He said Catholic politicians should oppose abortion and not take communion if they do, but said local enforcement is necessary.
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