Cardinal Who Approved Communion for Nancy Pelosi Becomes New DC Archbishop

LINK

Earlier this year, Pope Francis selected liberal Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego to succeed the retiring Cardinal Wilton Gregory as Archbishop of Washington. Gregory is the Catholic leader in the nation’s capital who would never take Biden to task for his aggression abortion promotion.

McElroy is a liberal Catholic who has made headlines for supporting the administration of Holy Communion to Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, even though they are ardent abortion activists.

He came under fire years ago for approving communion for radical pro-abortion Democrat Nancy Pelosi despite her 10% pro-abortion record and dozens of times refusing to allow a vote on a bill to stop infanticide.

In defending communion for pro-abortion politicians, McElroy argued in a May 2021 piece for the Jesuit magazine America that the Eucharist is “being weaponized” for political purposes.

“The proposal to exclude pro-choice Catholic political leaders from the Eucharist is the wrong step. It will bring tremendously destructive consequences — not because of what it says about abortion, but because of what it says about the Eucharist,” he said.

McElroy argued in the piece that the church cannot test each individual Catholic for rejecting a significant teaching.

“How many Catholic political leaders of either party could pass that test? And because any notion of eucharistic unworthiness in the theology of the church must apply not just to political leaders but to all Catholics, how many of the faithful will be eligible for the Eucharist by this criterion?”

His words came after Archbishop of the San Francisco Archdiocese Salvatore Cordileone ordered in a letter that clergyman within his diocese bar Pelosi from receiving communion due to the “grave evil she is perpetrating” through her support of abortion.

Catholic teaching states “conscious of grave sin” is not permitted to receive communion or celebrate Mass “without previous sacramental confession,” according to the Vatican’s code on Canon Law. The Church teaches that “human life begins at conception” and that abortion is “gravely wrong” and a “moral evil,” according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Pelosi reportedly received communion at a May 22 mass held at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown, Politico Playbook first reported. The church’s pastor, Father Kevin Gillepsie, said in 2021 that he would allow Biden to take Holy Communion since he is a “man of faith.” Then-Vice President Biden was denied communion in South Carolina by Father Robert E. Morey for his abortion stance in 2019.

“Everyone is welcome,” he said. “He’s a man of faith, and I would give Communion to him like any other Catholic coming up for the Eucharist.”