(JustPatriots.com)- A small but rising number of Catholic bishops in the United States have openly supported Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s Friday declaration prohibiting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) from receiving Holy Communion because of her pro-abortion stance.
According to The Catholic World Report, several bishops have indicated their support for the declaration made over the weekend.
The article stated that on May 20, Bishop Robert Vasa claimed he met with the pastor of St. Helena Catholic Church in St. Helena, a church that Pelosi attends on occasion.
Vasa stated I met with the pastor at St Helena and warned him that if the Archbishop forbade someone from taking Holy Communion, the limitation followed the individual. The pastor was not free to disregard it. The new Canon (1379 4) makes it plain that administering sacraments to someone not eligible for them [has] its own set of probable consequences.
According to the publication, the Diocese of Madison in Wisconsin has also stated its support, citing Bishop Donald Hying.
Bishop Hying said that he fully supports Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s prudent decision to recognize that Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, has persistently taken public positions in support of legal abortion, contrary to her professed Catholic faith, choosing to separate herself from full communion with the Catholic Church, and thus is not to present herself for the reception of Holy Communion in the Archdiocese of San Francisco.
The Diocese of Oakland’s Twitter account was among the first to applaud Cordileone’s decision on Friday.
“I applaud @ArchCardileone for taking such a courageous and compassionate position in the preservation and defense of human life today.
“Every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to be aborted bears the face of Jesus Christ,” said @Pontifex. Bishop Michael Barber penned a letter.
“I endorse @ArchCardileone in his noble and compassionate position today in the preservation and defense of human life,” Michael Barber said.
@Pontifex remarked, ‘Every child who, rather than being born, is sentenced unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ.'”— Diocese of Oakland (@oakdiocese) 20 May 2022
At least eight states’ bishops were mentioned, demonstrating the growing national support for the archbishop’s decision.
The Archbishop of San Francisco had already notified Pelosi that she would not be receiving holy communion at mass because of her consistent support for abortion, according to the Daily Wire.
Cordileone wrote to Pelosi on Friday and said that in light of his responsibility as Archbishop of San Francisco, he was notifying her that she was not to present herself for Holy Communion. If she did so, she would not be admitted to Holy Communion until she publicly repudiated her advocacy for the legitimacy of abortion and confessed and received absolution of this grave sin in the sacrament of Penance.
“In accord with his predecessors,” Cordileone said, Pope Francis “has likewise been fairly direct and unequivocal in preaching on the sanctity of human life in the womb.”
The archbishop stated that this fundamental moral truth has ramifications for Catholics in how they spend their lives, especially those tasked with promoting and defending society’s public good. Pope St. John Paul II was also a strong proponent of the Church’s continuous teaching, reminding us that “those actively involved in lawmaking bodies have a ‘grave and unambiguous responsibility to resist any law that destroys human life.”
