MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said Monday that Catholics should “thank God” that pro-abortion House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remained Catholic through the church’s “torrent of the most grotesque sins imaginable.”
Scarborough weighed in on Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s ban on Pelosi receiving communion due to her outspoken pro-abortion advocacy. Cordileone informed Pelosi that she was no longer to receive communion on Friday.
Co-host Mika Brzezinski described Pelosi as a “staunch Catholic,” saying, that “because of her stance on abortion, they’ve banned her,” with a laugh.
“The priests in the Catholic Church really do have a lot of room to stand on their high horse and be self-righteous towards parishioners who have been faithful parishioners for decades,” Scarborough said, “who actually stayed through a crisis where priests abused thousands and thousands of children and passed children around from one church to another church from one diocese to another diocese, it went all the way up to the top, and they are being self-righteous and telling Nancy Pelosi that she can’t take communion?”
“They should thank God that Nancy Pelosi has remained a Catholic through their torrent of the most grotesque sins imaginable,” Scarborough added.
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“In light of my responsibility as the Archbishop of San Francisco … I am hereby notifying you that you 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 said in a Friday letter to Pelosi.
“This fundamental moral truth has consequences for Catholics in how they live their lives, especially those entrusted with promoting and protecting the public good of society,” the archbishop said. “Pope St. John Paul II was also quite consistent in upholding this constant teaching of the Church, and frequently reminded us that ‘those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a ‘grave and clear obligation to oppose’ any law that attacks human life.”
Pelosi has been repeatedly criticized in the past for touting her Catholicism in connection to her pro-abortion stances, though Catholic doctrine teaches that abortion is “a crime against human life.”
Discussing whether Catholic priests have ever given her any “difficulties” in receiving communion, Pelosi described herself in 2018 as a “regular communicant.”
“I think some of it is regional,” she said in a 2018 interview. “It depends on the bishop in a certain region. Fortunately, for me it has not — Communion has not been withheld and I’m a regular communicant so that would be a severe blow to me if that were the case.”