SW News: US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that she has a problem with her archbishop in an interview with Georgetown University’s Center on Faith and Justice in Washington DC. In the interview, she said that it was his problem and hers noting that she had five children in six years. She was alluding to Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone who banned her from receiving Holy Communion in the Archdiocese of San Francisco for her public support of abortion.

The 82-year-old asked Congress members supporting pro-lifers if they had as many kids within a six-year span. "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 May last year, Archbishop Cordileon said that Pelosi should not attend Mass and priests in San Francisco should not allow her to receive Holy Communion if she did attend in what was seen as a bold move to defend Church teaching on abortion.

"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," the prelate mentioned in the letter.

Archbishop Cordileone also said that he had written to the Speaker on April 7 of the same year stating 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."
However, Pelosi did not comply with the Archbishop’s directive. She did indeed receive Holy Communion at the Vatican during an official visit. It was during Mass on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul presided over by Pope Francis.
When SCOTUS overturned Roe v Wade in June last year, Pelosi said it was a slap on the face of women. She said women ought to have the freedom to use their own judgment to make their own decisions about reproductive freedom.