Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi dodged a question about attacks on crisis pregnancy centers at her Thursday press conference by claiming that she is “a very Catholic person.”
Crisis pregnancy centers across the country with have been targeted for vandalism and in some cases arson in the wake of a leaked draft opinion showing that the Supreme Court is on the cusp of overturning Roe v. Wade. While Republicans have urged the Department of Justice to investigate the attacks as acts of terrorism, the DOJ official who would most likely lead such an investigation has a long record of criticizing crisis pregnancy centers as “predatory” and “harmful.”
When asked about the centers, Pelosi declined to condemn the attacks and pivoted to her own support for legalized abortion. Pelosi voted in September 2021 for the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would legalize abortion up to the moment of birth and eliminate conscience protections for doctors and nurses who would refuse to perform abortions.
“Let me just say this: a woman has a right to choose, to live up to her responsibility. It is up to her, her doctor, her family, her husband, her significant other and her God. This talk of politicizing all of this is something uniquely American and not right. Other countries, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, have had legislative initiatives to expand a woman’s right to choose. Very Catholic countries. I’m a very Catholic person, and I believe in a woman’s right to make her own decisions,” she said.
Pelosi also defended her own support for expansive legalized abortion by claiming that the Catholic Church should not have a role in determining U.S. law. (RELATED: Here’s The One Democrat Who Voted Against The Party’s Abortion Bill)
“Whatever I agree with the popes on is not necessarily what public policy should be in the U.S., as people make their own judgments, honor their own responsibilities, and tend to the needs of their families,” she said in response to another question about whether or not she agrees with popes John Paul II and Francis that abortion is murder.
WATCH (16:10):
Join me live at the U.S. Capitol for my weekly press conference. https://t.co/u0zdYiH0yp
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) June 16, 2022
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, Pelosi’s home diocese, banned her from receiving Communion in the diocese in May after she broke off conversations with him over her support for abortion. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication… by the very commission of the offense.”
“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 wrote in a letter to priests of the diocese explaining the position.
Cordileone’s order is only binding in the Diocese of San Francisco. Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C., has repeatedly stated that he will not bar politicians such as Pelosi and President Joe Biden from receiving communion, despite their support for legalized abortion.