US speaker Nancy Pelosi dodges ban on communion at St Peter’s

The senior congressional Democrat, with husband Paul at her side, clasps hands with Pope Francis inside the basilica.

Pope Francis greets Nancy and Paul Francis Pelosi at Saint Peter's. Picture: Vatican media via AFP

US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi has received communion at St Peter’s Basilica after being barred from the sacrament in her home city.

In May the archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, informed the top Democrat in congress and lifelong Catholic that she would no longer be allowed to take communion because of her support of abortion rights.

Catholic online newspaper Crux Now reported overnight on Wednesday that Ms Pelosi, who attended the Vatican mass with family, received communion from one of the priests present.

Photographs distributed by the Vatican showed Ms Pelosi, with husband Paul at her side, clasping hands with Pope Francis inside the basilica.

Ms Pelosi is a vocal advocate of abortion rights and last week condemned the US Supreme Court’s reversal of the federally guaranteed right to abortion.

She urged Americans to vote out Republicans “charging ahead with their crusade to criminalise health freedom” in November’s midterm elections.

In a letter released in May, Archbishop Cordileone said he had warned Pelosi that unless she publicly repudiated her position on abortion or stopped referring to her Catholic faith and taking communion, she would be barred from the rite.

Ms Pelosi, like President Joseph Biden, is open about her Catholic faith and both support the right to choose in the divisive debate over abortion.

Pope Francis, 85, has labelled abortion “murder”, but has distanced himself from a push by conservative US bishops to deny communion to politicians supportive of abortion rights. After Mr Biden met the pontiff last October, he said Francis had told him he was “happy I was a good Catholic and I should keep receiving communion”.

AFP