Pelosi receives Communion in Vatican despite abortion stance

Pelosi has achieved neither. She called the recent Supreme Court ruling eradicating constitutional protections for abortion an “outrageous and heart-wrenching” resolution that fulfils the Republican Party’s “dark and extreme goal of ripping away women’s right to make their own reproductive health decisions.”

And she has spoken overtly of her Catholic religion, together with at a diplomatic reception on the residence of the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See on Tuesday night marking Independence Day.

Speaking to a crowd of ambassadors, Vatican officers and different Rome-based Americans, Pelosi spoke in regards to the Catholic virtues of religion, hope and charity and the vital position they play in the U.S. Embassy’s mission.

“Faith is an important gift, not everyone has it but it is the path to so many other things,” she advised the gang.

Pelosi met with Francis on Wednesday earlier than the Mass and obtained a blessing, in accordance with one of many Mass attendees.

Last year, President Joe Biden, one other Catholic who additionally helps abortion rights, mentioned after meeting with Francis that the pontiff advised him to proceed receiving the sacrament. Biden later received Communion throughout a Mass in a Rome church that’s below the authority of Francis as bishop of Rome.

Pelosi’s partaking of the sacrament contained in the Vatican throughout a papal Mass was much more important, and an indication of Francis’ unwillingness to refuse the sacrament. Francis has described the Eucharist as “not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.”

Asked about some U.S. bishops who needed to refuse Biden the sacrament, Francis advised reporters throughout an airborne press convention in September that priests shouldn’t be politicians and condemn their flock however must be pastors who accompany the devoted with tenderness and compassion.