It can get amusing when the Editorial Board of the San Francisco Examiner decides to appeal to His Holiness Pope Francis to get rid of a Catholic Archbishop who is actually, you know, Catholic!

Editorial: Attack on Nancy Pelosi should be San Francisco archbishop’s final act here

Cordileone denies Catholic Pelosi communion due to abortion right support

By The Examiner Editorial Board • May 21, 2022 • 6:00 AM PDT

In open defiance of Pope Francis, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone on Friday banned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from taking Holy Communion here in her home diocese. The reason? Her strong support of women’s abortion rights.

Cordileone’s decree was guaranteed to provoke deep chagrin among San Francisco Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Last year, Cordileone joined other bishops in the United States as they pushed to ban President Joe Biden from taking Communion. Pope Francis headed off that divisive idea, stating that Communion “is not the reward of saints, but is the bread of sinners.” He also told pro-choice President Biden that he is a “good Catholic.”

The Vatican’s top doctrinal official, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, ratified the pope’s action, stating that this politicized effort to ostracize the president would “become a source of discord rather than unity within the episcopate and the larger church in the United States.”

Instead, American bishops approved watered-down guidelines that reportedly stated, “It is the special responsibility of the diocesan bishop to work to remedy situations that involve public actions at variance with the visible communion of the Church and the moral law.”

Which is, of course, exactly what the Most Reverend Salvatore Cordileone, Archbishop of San Francisco did: he communicated with Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) about her persistent support of abortion, including her trying to write the Roe v Wade decision into federal law, asking her to reconsider her positions, and come into line with Catholic teaching. Mrs Pelosi declined.

Cordileone has now upped the ante by grandstanding on the issue and picking a fight with the most powerful woman – and second-most powerful Catholic — in American politics. His attack on Pelosi comes as conservative justices on the Supreme Court are poised to play a key role in reversing legal precedent to overturn abortion rights. This decision promises to further polarize American politics and strip away a key health right crucial to preserving the health and safety of tens of millions of women. Many women will die if the court goes through with this decision.

But perhaps fewer children will die!

That will apparently be just fine with Cordileone, who prefers to pick partisan fights rather than make the church a place that welcomes people of all political backgrounds and all faiths.

In 2015, he attempted to force teachers and staff at San Francisco’s Catholic schools to condemn gay rights, abortion and birth control as “intrinsically evil.” This led a group of 100 prominent local Catholics to run a full-page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle that called on Pope Francis to replace Cordileone.

“Holy Father, please provide us with a leader true to our values and your namesake,” read the text of the “Appeal to Pope Francis from San Francisco Community Leaders.” “Please replace Archbishop Cordileone.”

“The Archbishop has isolated himself from our community,” read the letter. “He disregards advice from his priests and has brushed aside the deep reservations expressed by our retired priests regarding his actions. He relies instead on a tiny group of advisors recruited from outside our diocese and estranged from their own religious orders. The Archdiocese of San Francisco is threatened by Archbishop Cordileone’s single-issue agenda and cannot survive, let alone thrive and grow, under his supervision. The City of Saint Francis deserves an Archbishop true to our values and to your teachings.”

“(P)lease provide us with a leader true to our values,” huh? What ‘values’ do San Franciscans hold that are actually close to the values of the Catholic Church? The linked article stated that:

To recap, Cordileone has instructed the almost 500 employees of archdiocese high schools to “affirm and believe” that actions like “homosexual relations,” birth control, and masturbation are “gravely… intrinsically” evil. In other words, it’s a ban on teachers engaging in any of the “behaviors” themselves or expressing — let’s call them “more nuanced” views in their classrooms.

Which is, of course, directly in line with Catholic teaching and the Catechism of the Catholic Church!

Further down:

In light of Cordileone’s resurgent efforts to create discord, we repeat the call for Pope Francis to remove him and replace him with a leader who can unify rather than divide. Cordileone’s radical conservative politics might attract more people to the faith in places like Oklahoma or Texas, but his partisan pomposity will win no converts in San Francisco. His placement here was a cruel strategy meant to bedevil our community and set up exactly the kind of destructive political games unfolding today.

Even though His Excellency the Archbishop was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI, not Pope Francis, I’m guessing that calling his appointment a “cruel strategy meant to bedevil our community” isn’t exactly the kind of thing which will appeal to the pontiff.

The Editorial Board continue to tell us that it’s Mrs Pelosi who reflects true Christianity in “the City of St Francis,” but St Francis would certainly never recognize what the city by the bay has become.

We appeal to Pope Francis to send a clear message that he, not Cordileone, is the leader of the faith. He can do this by relieving this insubordinate saboteur of his duties in San Francisco and putting an end to his political schemes.

“(I)nsubordinate saboteur,” huh? To the Editorial Board, apparently insisting on Catholic doctrine by a Catholic archbishop constitutes being an “insubordinate saboteur”. §1415 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church specifies that “Anyone who desires to receive Christ in Eucharistic communion must be in the state of grace. Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance.”

Beginning with §2270, the Catechism of the Catholic Church specifies that abortion is a grave sin:

2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception.

From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.71

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.72
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.73

2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion.
This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable.
Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:

You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.74
God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves.
Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.75

2272 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense.
The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life.
“A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,”76 “by the very commission of the offense,”77 and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law.78
The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy.
Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.

2273 The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:

“The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority.
These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin.
Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being’s right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death.”79

“The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law.
When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined….
As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child’s rights.”80

2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.

Prenatal diagnosis is morally licit, “if it respects the life and integrity of the embryo and the human fetus and is directed toward its safe guarding or healing as an individual….
It is gravely opposed to the moral law when this is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion, depending upon the results: a diagnosis must not be the equivalent of a death sentence.”81

2275 “One must hold as licit procedures carried out on the human embryo which respect the life and integrity of the embryo and do not involve disproportionate risks for it, but are directed toward its healing the improvement of its condition of health, or its individual survival.”82
“It is immoral to produce human embryos intended for exploitation as disposable biological material.”83
“Certain attempts to influence chromosomic or genetic inheritance are not therapeutic but are aimed at producing human beings selected according to sex or other predetermined qualities.
Such manipulations are contrary to the personal dignity of the human being and his integrity and identity”84 which are unique and unrepeatable.

We get it: the Editorial Board are just appalled that the Catholic Church has Catholic teachings, and those teachings are ‘inconsistent’ with the Sodom by the Bay. Mrs Pelosi claims to be a Democrat and a Catholic, as does Joe Biden, but it has become crystal clear: Mrs Pelosi, and Mr Biden, subordinate their Catholicism to being Democrats.

Mrs Pelosi may take whatever political positions she wishes; that is absolutely her right as a free American. But the Catholic Church has the right to take whatever positions it wishes, and if the Archbishop of San Francisco says that she is not to be given the Eucharist within the bounds of his Archdiocese, that is his right.

The best outcome would be that Archbishop Cordileone does leave his position as Archbishop . . . to become the Bishop of Rome. It’s unlikely, since Pope Francis has not created him a Cardinal, and the Archbishop of San Francisco has not traditionally been given that appointment.