SAN FRANCISCO (LifeSiteNews) — San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said a spiritual battle is underway over the issue of abortion.
“There is a spiritual battle going on. The push for abortion has become more and more aggressive,” Abp. Cordileone told National Catholic Register on Saturday. He spoke about his decision to prohibit pro-abortion Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi from receiving Holy Communion while she continues to promote abortion.
He told National Catholic Register:
The push for abortion has become more and more aggressive. It was initially presented as a necessary evil. “Legal, safe and rare” was the old cliché. Then they started speaking about “reproductive health”: It’s not a matter of choice; it is part of health care.
Then it became celebrated. When New York state passed its new abortion law in 2019, the top of the World Trade Center was lit up pink. And now, the misnamed Women’s Health Protection Act would essentially give unfettered access to abortion for all nine months of pregnancy.
The aggressive push for abortion led the archbishop to “be more assertive and respond to [Pelosi’s reception of Communion].”
Abp. Cordileone explained that it is necessary to publicly rebuke someone who is causing scandal. He attempted to reach Pelosi for years before making the decision to bar her from receiving the Eucharist.
“[Y]ou are not to present yourself for Holy Communion and, should you do so, you are not to be admitted to Holy Communion, until such time as you [publicly] repudiate your advocacy for the legitimacy of abortion and confess and receive absolution of this grave sin in the sacrament of Penance,” Cordileone wrote to Pelosi on May 19.
There is a spiritual battle going on. The push for abortion has become more and more aggressive…When NY state passed its new abortion law in 2019, the top of the World Trade Center was lit up pink. https://t.co/UzKwpJ3Aju
— Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone (@ArchCordileone) May 30, 2022
The Catholic Church teaches that the Eucharist is the literal body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ. No Catholic who has committed a mortal sin is to present himself or herself for Holy Communion until he or she has confessed that sin in the Sacrament of Confession.
“Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion,” according to Canon 915 of the Church’s Code of Canon Law.
Read: Nancy Pelosi snubs Arb. Cordileone’s Communion ban by receiving at Mass in Washington, D.C.
Souls in the state of mortal sin will be sent to Hell, absent an extraordinary act of grace by God. “Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, ‘eternal fire,'” according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1035).
Pelosi received the Eucharist in violation of Abp. Cordileone’s admonition on the Sunday immediately following the announcement.
