Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has accepted an invitation from San Francisco’s archbishop to discuss whether she should continue to receive communion at the Catholic Church in the wake of comments she made about abortion.
-- From "Archbishop, Pelosi to talk about communion" by Jackie Kucinich and Ian Swanson, The Hill 9/8/08
San Francisco Archbishop George H. Niederauer said he had received letters and e-mails from “many Catholics” expressing dismay over Pelosi’s remarks, in which she said the matter of when life begins remained controversial within the church. He said many of them questioned whether she should be able to receive communion from the church.
Pelosi made the remarks in an Aug. 24 interview with “Meet the Press” host Tom Brokaw after Brokaw said that the Catholic Church believes strongly that life begins at conception.
Niederauer concludes that, based on Catholic Church statements, it is up to him as Pelosi’s pastor to address whether she may continue to receive communion. He then invites the Speaker “into a conversation with me about these matters.”
Niederauer said he wrote the article because it is his responsibility “to oppose erroneous, misleading and confusing positions when they are advanced.” He described Pelosi’s comments as “opposed” to church teaching.
“Authentic moral teaching is based on objective truth, not polling,” Niederauer wrote. He noted that in 1861, polls in different states showed different views on slavery, but this did not mean that slavery was moral in one state and not in another.
Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl earlier had issued a statement criticizing the comments, which he said “were incorrect.”
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