By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
“For who can fail to see that society is at the present time, more than in any past age, suffering from a terrible and deep-rooted malady which, developing every day and eating into its inmost being, is dragging it to destruction? You understand, Venerable Brethren, what this disease is — apostasy from God, than which in truth nothing is more allied with ruin” (St. Pius X, Arduum sane munus, October 4, 1903).
Pius X couldn’t have predicted just how prescient were his words a century and a quarter ago, how perfectly they describe the dilemma of our own age. The disaster he identified already in 1903, doing his utmost in using his supreme office as Pontiff to warn us, has not abated but is only exacerbated with man’s rejection of God by refusal of His image. God is no longer “dead” — He is simply ignored. Man might be woman, woman man, the body is not a given but subject to extremes of mutilation driven by whim.
Violence, too, is apostasy from God, variously manifested and systematically enabled. The president bemoans another school shooting, asking un-ironically when the carnage of our children will end while aggressively promoting funding and availability of abortion at ever new and extreme levels. The most responsible in a society, lacking respect for the human person at her most innocent in the womb, and refusing her any protection, cannot reasonably demand differently for lives beyond the confines of the first and most perfect refuge within the mother’s body.
Into the midst of this violence, a rejection of God manifested as a rejection by man of himself, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco has launched a salvo for the sanctity of the human person. His decree banning Pelosi from Communion has been a long time coming.
“As you have not publicly repudiated your position on abortion, and continue to refer to your Catholic faith in justifying your position and to receive Holy Communion, that time has now come. Therefore, in light of my responsibility as the Archbishop of San Francisco to be ‘concerned for all the Christian faithful entrusted to [my] care’ (Code of Canon Law, canon 383, §1), by means of this communication, I am hereby notifying you that you are not to present yourself for Holy Communion and, should you do so, you are not to be admitted to Holy Communion, until such time as you publicly repudiate your advocacy for the legitimacy of abortion and confess and receive absolution of this grave sin in the sacrament of Penance.”
Pelosi weaponizes money and the law to aid and abet the killing of unborn children. Worse, she also weaponizes the Eucharist to do so. Unrepentant, the Sunday following Cordileone’s action she took Communion at the notoriously un-Catholic Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown, refuge and comfort of heretics, primarily abortion-happy Biden.
The implications of Cordileone’s intervention go beyond him and Pelosi, however. You may remember that Pope Francis gave personal audiences to Pelosi, Biden, and James Martin after they got into scrapes with bishops here in the U.S. I’m forecasting that we may soon see another visit of Pelosi to kiss the papal ring as a “devout” Catholic who never can seem to get enough money for executing infants in utero.
But with Cordileone’s decree we were treated to the real courage to which bishops and Popes are called: standing up for the truth no matter the resulting blows sustained personally and otherwise.
The list of bishops proclaiming Catholic faith on this matter by publicly supporting Cordileone now number 15 (please see p. 4B which cites 14 of these):
Diocese of Oakland — Bishop Barber
Diocese of Santa Rosa — Bishop Vasa
Archdiocese of Denver — Archbishop Aquila
Diocese of Springfield — Bishop Paprocki
Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas — Archbishop Naumann
Diocese of Lincoln — Bishop Conley
Archdiocese of Oklahoma City — Archbishop Coakley
Diocese of Tyler — Bishop Strickland
Diocese of Spokane — Bishop Daly
Diocese of Green Bay — Bishop Ricken
Diocese of Madison — Bishop Hying
Diocese of Baker — Bishop Cary
Diocese of Fort Worth — Bishop Olson
Diocese of Gallup — Bishop Wall
Diocese of San Angelo — Bishop Emeritus Pfeifer
As I write this, Catholic News Agency is reporting on the bishops who have affirmed that the ban on Pelosi will apply in their own dioceses.
The Communion ban in place within House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home diocese in California now extends to the Diocese of Arlington, Va., located just outside Washington, D.C. Bishop Michael F. Burbidge said May 25 that he would respect the ban imposed by San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone the previous week because of Pelosi’s staunch advocacy for legalized abortion.
Burbidge is the second U.S. bishop to announce that he will apply San Francisco Archdiocese ban in his own diocese. Bishop Robert Vasa said on May 20 that he would do so in the Diocese of Santa Rosa, where Pelosi reportedly attends Mass occasionally. Bishop Joseph Strickland said on May 25 that Pelosi would be barred from receiving Communion in the Diocese of Tyler in eastern Texas.
Cordileone has stressed that his decision was “pastoral, not political.” Burbidge said on the podcast that he views the issue the same way. “All people, including those who are not public individuals, have to approach the sacraments truly in communion with the Church and Our Lord,” Burbidge said.
Please see further reporting on this elsewhere in this issue.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.
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