House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called opposing abortion "sinful" in remarks last week at the Roundtable on Women’s Reproductive Health at the University of California San Francisco Mission Bay Campus.
The event was reportedly in celebration of Women's Health Day of Action, as well as Women's Equality Day.
Pelosi, a Catholic, called opposition to abortion an "assault on women of color" and "sinful."
"But one word that pervaded through all of the discussion was the word ‘justice.’ The fact that this is such an assault on women of color and women — lower income families — is just sinful," Pelosi told the audience.
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She continued, "It’s sinful. It's wrong that they would be able to say to women what they think women should be doing with their lives and their bodies. But it's sinful, the injustice of it all."
Pelosi's persistent references to her Catholic faith, paired with her vocal support for policies against Catholic moral teaching, has made her a controversial lawmaker for many religious voters and church leaders.
San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone announced in May that the speaker is barred from receiving Holy Communion in her own San Francisco Archdiocese — which he oversees — due to her pro-abortion stance.
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Cordileone wrote to the California Democrat, informing her that she should not present herself for Holy Communion at Mass, and that priests will not distribute communion to her if she does present herself.
"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,'" the bishop wrote in the letter.
Pelosi has largely ignored challenges to her religious beliefs, at times dismissing criticism of her fidelity to church teaching by citing her own conscience.
Pope Francis has ignored calls for him to personally order additional penalties on Catholic lawmakers, preferring to leave the responsibility with their local bishops. Regional jurisdiction and bishopric autonomy are the standard procedure of pastoral guidance for the Catholic Church.
However, the pope has maintained a hardline stance against abortion since his first day in office, comparing abortion to "hiring a hitman."
When asked about Biden — a self-professed devout Catholic who supports blanket legalization of abortion on the federal level — the pope dismissed the president as incomprehensible.
"I leave it to [President Biden's] conscience and that he speaks to his bishop, his pastor, his parish priest about that incoherence," the pope remarked.
