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San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone

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January 22, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone issued a strong response to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) after she attacked pro-lifers, blaming them for selling out democracy by voting for pro-life President Donald Trump.

Pelosi “speaks in direct contradiction to a fundamental human right that Catholic teaching has consistently championed for 2,000 years,” the archbishop said.

The speaker of the House had made her comments in conversation with Hillary Clinton the former secretary of state’s own podcast.

Pelosi, who claims to be Catholic, blamed pro-lifers for having elected Trump to the White House in 2016, saying that “I think that Donald Trump is president because of the issue of a woman’s right to choose.” This support for Trump from pro-lifers was a source of “great grief” for Pelosi “as a Catholic.”

“They were willing to sell the whole democracy down the river for that one issue,” she said, before accusing pro-lifers of not being as Catholic as she, because they did not have as many children as her.

She also accused them of not supporting her impeachment of Trump, due to supporting him on the pro-life cause.

However, Pelosi’s local archbishop, Salvatore Cordileone, issued a statement yesterday in response to her attack on the pro-life movement, correcting her on the official Catholic teaching on the immorality of abortion.

“Nancy Pelosi does not speak for the Catholic Church,” he wrote, but only as “a high-level important government leader, and as a private citizen.” Not only that, he noted that Pelosi “speaks in direct contradiction to a fundamental human right that Catholic teaching has consistently championed for 2,000 years.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable.”

The San Francisco archbishop made reference to the commandment “Thou shall not kill,” saying it applies “to all life, including life in the womb.” Cordileone also pointed to Pope Francis, the Second Vatican Council, and the recent statement made by Archbishop Gomez, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, on the day of Biden’s inauguration.

Gomez had written that “[w]e are Catholics first,” and re-iterating the fact that “[a]bortion is a direct attack on life that also wounds the woman and undermines the family.” As such, it remains the “preeminent priority” for the bishops in the U.S., Gomez wrote. Despite Cardinal Cupich’s rebuke of the statement, at least fourteen bishops issued statements of support for Gomez.

Cordileone also drew attention to Biden’s own inauguration speech, in which he called for “unity and healing,” contrasting this to Pelosi’s attack on Catholics. “Speaker Pelosi has chosen this week to impugn the motives of millions of Catholics and others for choosing to make voting on the issue of abortion their priority and accuses them of ‘selling out democracy.’ This is not the language of unity and healing. She owes these voters an apology.”

While the archbishop agreed that there “are many issues of very grave moral consequence” for a Catholic to consider when voting, he reminded Pelosi that abortion must remain the chief issue.

“No Catholic in good conscience can favor abortion. ‘Right to choose’ is a smokescreen for perpetuating an entire industry that profits from one of the most heinous evils imaginable. Our land is soaked with the blood of the innocent, and it must stop.”

Written the day before the 48th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which imposed abortion on demand on the entire country in 1973, Cordileone’s message closed with a reaffirmation of the Catholic teaching on abortion, as he called for the abolition of the “despicable evil.”

“That is why, as Catholics, we will continue to speak out on behalf of those who have no voice to speak for themselves and reach out to, comfort and support those who are suffering the scars of the abortion experience. We will do so, until our land is finally rid of this despicable evil.”

It is not the first time that Archbishop Cordileone had to publicly correct Pelosi for her support of abortion. In 2015, he issued a correction after she failed to say whether an unborn child of 20 weeks was a “human being.”

“It is a scientific fact that human life begins at conception,” Cordileone said. “This has been established in medical science for over 100 years. Catholic moral teaching acknowledges this scientific fact, and has always affirmed the grave moral evil of taking an innocent human life.”

The Speaker of the House has consistently voted to promote abortion, contraception and fetal tissue research throughout her political career, in violation of Catholic teaching prohibiting abortion and its promotion.

In 2014, abortion provider Planned Parenthood gave Pelosi the now discontinued Margaret Sanger award, an annual honor to “recognize leadership, excellence, and outstanding contributions to the reproductive health and rights movement.”