As has been covered, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has been creating quite the scandal as a very public Catholic figure who also very publicly supports abortion. The Catholic Church clearly opposes abortion as one of its central teachings, even to the point where bishops have reminded these figures that they should not receive the Holy Eucharist in that case. When Pelosi’s home bishop emphasized this in a pastoral letter, she ignored it. Yet when the Vatican weighed in, the speaker was all for offering her thoughts.
When asked by EWTN News Nightly correspondent Erik Rosales in the last few moments of her weekly press conference on Thursday about taking communion, she snidely remarked that “I think I can use my own judgment on that but I’m pleased with what the Vatican put out on that subject. Did you read that?” Rosales responded that “it would be up to the individual priest.” Pelosi offered her own interpretation. “No, it basically says don’t be divisive on the subject.”
When it comes to her “own judgment on that,” Pelosi may be powerful in United States politics, but it is not for her to decide Church teaching. Church teaching is Church teaching. It’s the role of bishops to advise their flock on that, which is what San Francisco’s Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone did in his pastoral letter, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”
