When it comes to faith and being a part of the Church, submitting to the discipline of your pastor, priest, or in this case archbishop is important. They have the moral authority within their church. When a parishioner such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi believes that she is above discipline, that is when others of her denomination should seriously start to question her faith.

The Catholic Church has always preached that abortion is a sin, and yet there has been reluctance among its bishops to censure parishioners. Not so for San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone. Since last September, he has sought to counsel Nancy Pelosi, who is part of his parish and therefore subject to his judgments under the Catholic Church hierarchy.

Pelosi has publicly stated her support for radical abortion policies. She even sponsored a bill that would attempt to codify Roe v. Wade and would in fact nullify any conscience protections of physicians, eliminate laws allowing doctors to provide other non-abortion options, bar bans on abortions past 20 weeks, and place a proscription on abortion bans based on the baby’s sex. Furthermore, and peculiarly, it would have instituted abortion rights for “transgender men” or so-called non-binary individuals, make abortion on demand more widely available (but also more medically dangerous), and, most importantly, circumvent laws that states have in place to prevent these appalling and evil measures.

Archbishop Cordileone, for his part, has attempted to speak with, pastor, and counsel Pelosi, who has obstinately ignored him. On April 7, Cordileone issued a letter to Pelosi, saying, “Should you not publicly repudiate your advocacy for abortion ‘rights’ or else refrain from referring to your Catholic faith in public and receiving Holy Communion, I would have no choice but to make a declaration, in keeping with canon 915, that you are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”

There was outcry from Catholics such as CNN anchor Jim Scuitto, who said that such an action was unheard of. He wrote: “12 years of Catholic school, altar boy, family deeply involved in our church, and never saw anyone banned from receiving communion. This is a deep fissure in the church — and a position Pope Francis himself doesn’t support.”

This is an outright falsehood. Pope Francis, though a social leftist, has said that Catholics who support and promote the practice of abortion are “outside the community” and that the sacrament of communion is for those “inside the community.” This is also a church discipline practice within the Protestant church. Those who are unrepentant of their sin are asked not to take communion by their church leaders. It is in fact a common practice, just maybe one that is not talked about because it is embarrassing to the person being disciplined.

“The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg said this nonsense: “Abortion rights battle is starting to blur the lines between church and state. The archbishop of San Francisco is calling for speaker Nancy Pelosi to be denied receiving communion because of her pro-choice stance. He’s one of the priests who also called for President Biden to be denied the sacrament. This is not your job, dude. That is not up to you to make that decision. What is the saying? It’s kind of amazing. What is the point of communion? It’s for sinners. It’s the reward of saints but the bread of sinners.” She then ended with the censorious, “How dare you?”

Goldberg criticizes the archbishop’s actions via a misconception and misapplication.

The misconception is that Cordileone is attacking the secular dogwhistle of “separation of church and state.” It is interesting to note that Catholics seem to be split politically, and their representation in Congress is emblematic of that. Many Catholic Democrats get around their church’s teaching against abortion by claiming that personally they are against abortion, but politically they are for it because they believe people should have the right to choose. It is inconceivable how one can justify that stance, and it’s a misunderstanding of the separation of church and state that Goldberg also iterates.

The misapplication is Goldberg’s claim that because Cordileone is swerving into the lane of politics (from her viewpoint), he is abusing his power — e.g., “It’s not your job.” It is 100% Archbishop Cordileone’s job. Pope Francis has delegated the authority to discipline Catholics who are sinning to their priests.

For her part, Pelosi has ignored her archbishop and has continued to receive Holy Communion at a Catholic church in DC.

To reiterate: When a parishioner such as Pelosi believes that she is above such discipline, that is when her denomination should seriously question her faith. That’s because she seems to more faithfully follow the religion of self, which is leftism.