House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s repeated public support for abortion is a “grave sin” that means she should not be admitted to holy Communion, out of concern for her spiritual state, said Cardinal Raymond Burke. Cardinal Burke, who heads the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican's highest court of appeal other than the Pope, explained that Canon 915 of canon law “must be applied” in Pelosi’s case. That canon states that people who are “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin” should not be admitted to Communion. “This is a person who, obstinately, after repeated admonitions, persists in a grave sin — cooperating with the crime of procured abortion — and still professes to be a devout Catholic,” Cardinal Burke said in a July interview with the Minneapolis-based newspaper The Catholic Servant, republished recently in the Catholic newspaper The Wanderer. “This is a prime example of what Blessed John Paul II referred to as the situation of Catholics who have divorced their faith from their public life and therefore are not serving their brothers and sisters in the way that they must,” the cardinal said, noting that Catholic political leaders have a duty to safeguard and promote “the life of the innocent and defenseless unborn.” Cardinal Burke is prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest legal body in the Catholic Church. Rep. Pelosi, D-Calif., a Catholic, has long supported legalized abortion. At a June press conference, she responded to a question about the difference between legal abortion and the crimes of Kermit Gosnell, a notorious Philadelphia abortionist convicted of murdering several infants born alive during failed abortions. “As a practicing and respectful Catholic, this is sacred ground to me, when we talk about this. I don’t think it should have anything to do with politics,” she said. Cardinal Burke said it is “just false and wrong” to say abortion and related matters are questions about the Catholic faith that have no role in politics. “I fear for Congresswoman Pelosi if she does not come to understand how gravely in error she is. I invite her to reflect upon the example of St. Thomas More, who acted rightly in a similar situation, even at the cost of his life,” he said. He noted that the rejection of abortion is not only a matter of Catholic teaching, but part of the “natural moral law written on every heart” and “illuminated” by Jesus Christ’s teaching, passion and death. Cardinal Burke added that it is a “contradiction” and a “scandal” when high-profile political figures who reject Catholic teaching on life and the family are honored at Catholic university commencement ceremonies, saying that this helps “contribute to the sinfulness of the individuals involved.” He deplored a “false sense of dialogue” in the wider culture and in some areas of the Catholic Church, where people simply “pretend to dialogue about open and egregious violations of the moral law.”
Born during the turbulent era of the French Revolution, Saint Jeanne Jugan rose above hardship and a lack of formal schooling to become a profound vessel of Christ’s mercy. After losing her father at a young age and working through her youth as a kitchen maid and nurse, her life radically changed one freezing night when she encountered a blind, paralyzed elderly woman with nowhere to go. Jeanne carried the woman back to her own home, placed her in her own bed, and began a lifelong mission of radical hospitality. This act of profound love blossomed into the Little Sisters of the Poor , a thriving community dedicated to sheltering and honoring the destitute elderly. Despite later facing heavy trials—including being unjustly sidelined and stripped of her leadership by a controlling chaplain—Jeanne accepted her obscurity and exile with a joyful spirit, resting her complete trust in God's hidden providence until her death in 1879. In our daily lives, Saint Jeanne Jugan invites us to lo...