The archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, has announced he will no longer allow Speaker Nancy Pelosi to receive Holy Communion because of her refusal to adhere to Catholic doctrine on unborn human life. This continues a battle between Catholic politicians who claim fealty to their church – but not to one of its central tenets – and some of their church’s leadership.
Pelosi, who invokes her faith when it comes to “climate change,” recently claimed Catholic opinion about abortion goes back only a few hundred years and theologians have been divided over many centuries. This brought a rebuke from several Catholic prelates, who said the Catholic catechism has remained consistent on human life since the first century.
The creeping influence of what Scripture calls “the world” has not only infected many Roman Catholics, like Pelosi and President Joe Biden, but also certain self-proclaimed evangelicals. One is the left-leaning Sojourners magazine. In a recent issue, Sojourners President Adam Russell Taylor attempted to justify upholding Roe v. Wade, which the Supreme Court appears poised to overturn, based on “precedent” and the 14th Amendment. Taylor also uses the contemporary jargon “pregnant persons.”
Abraham Lincoln was confronted by contradictory religious opinions over slavery. Some used Scripture to justify keeping the inhumane practice. Others used Scripture to urge him to abolish it.
In his second inaugural address, Lincoln alluded to the conflicting advice he received from different clergymen: “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other.”