When you are a Catholic politician who has become the icon of the defense of the right to abortion in the United States, being received by the Pope among the auspices of the Vatican attracts notice.
It is indeed in the company of a smiling Pope Francis that Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, was photographed with her husband in the library of the Apostolic Palace on October 9, 2021.
The Democrat, a mother of five, was in Rome for the G20, where she was scheduled to deliver the opening speech. The papal audience was also an opportunity for her to meet the two main officials of Vatican diplomacy: Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State, and his collaborator, Msgr. Richard Paul Gallagher.
“His Holiness’s leadership is a source of joy and hope for Catholics and for all people, challenging each of us to be good stewards of God's creation, to act on climate, to embrace the refugee, the immigrant and the poor, and to recognize the dignity and divinity in everyone,” assured Nancy Pelosi, confirming an audience with a nod.
At any rate, that is the risk of not facilitating the task of the American bishops who are in the process of studying the advisability of norms making it possible to refuse Eucharistic communion to men and women politicians promoting a culture of death condemned by the magisterium many times in the past, and more recently by Francis.
Thus, for several months, the Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvadore Cordileone, has not mince words with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, calling for a campaign of fasting and prayer in order to obtain her conversion. A most pastoral attitude: defending faith and morals, and asking God for the salvation of a soul in danger.
“No one can claim to be a devout Catholic and condone the killing of innocent human life, let along have the government pay for it,” said the American prelate in particular. A path in which neither the Vatican, nor the pope himself, seem determined to enter.
When Nancy Pelosi was received in audience by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009, the latter “took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death,” according to the official commentary from the Holy See Press Room.
