'Evil': Archbishop Bars Pelosi From Communion Over Abortion Stance

SAN FRANCISCO — Salvatore Cordileone, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, barred House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from receiving communion Friday over her support of abortion.

"After numerous attempts to speak with Speaker Pelosi to help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she is causing, an (sic) the danger to her own soul she is risking, I have determined that she is not to be admitted to Holy Communion," Cordileone tweeted.

Cordileone, 65, a native of San Diego, has led the San Francisco archdiocese for a decade after serving four years as bishop in Oakland. He said the move to ban Pelosi, a Democrat, was “purely pastoral, not political,” Catholic News Agency reported.

In the past, Pelosi called herself as a “devout Catholic." She has repeatedly denied Cordileone's efforts to talk about her support for abortion.

"A Catholic legislator who supports procured abortion, after knowing the teaching of the Church, commits a manifestly grave sin which is a cause of most serious scandal to others. Therefore, universal Church law provides that such persons ‘are not to be admitted to Holy Communion,'" he said in the letter, according to Fox News.

The archdiocese's website appeared to go down Friday.

Pelosi has outwardly supported abortion. Earlier this month, she and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer issued a joint statement blasting a reported draft of a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

“If the report is accurate, the Supreme Court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past fifty years – not just on women but on all Americans," the statement said.

They added: “The Republican-appointed Justices’ reported votes to overturn Roe v. Wade would go down as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history."

The Catechism of the Catholic Church holds that "human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception."

"From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life," it said. "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you."

Cordileone also wrote a separate letter to priests of his archdiocese saying the decision was “simply application of Church teaching.”

“There are those who speak of such actions as I am taking as ‘weaponizing’ the Eucharist. However, this is simply application of Church teaching," he said.