Political Death Comes for the Archbishop?

UPDATE: The Jackson Women’s Health Organization announced June 24, 2022, that the Pink House West will be in Las Cruces, New Mexico, instead of Albuquerque. That means it will be located in the Diocese of of Las Cruces, not Santa Fe.

Just 10 days ago, the archbishop of San Francisco publicly castigated House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. – the first woman to hold that office, a graduate of a Catholic women’s college, and a lifelong practicing Catholic – because she is pro-choice. The archbishop barred Pelosi from receiving Communion – ostracizing her from her church community unless she publicly renounced her position on abortion and went to Confession.

A Catholic prelate’s attack on a politician regarding abortion is nothing new. In 1986, the pastor of St. Raymond’s Catholic Church in the Bronx barred New York State Assemblyman John Dearie, a Bronx Democrat, from speaking at parish-sponsored events because, although he opposes abortions, he had voted that year and in previous years to allow Medicaid funds to be used for them.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Pope Francis in October 2021 at the Vatican. The California Democrat called his leadership “a source of joy and hope for Catholics and for all people.” Photo courtesy of Nancy Pelosi’s official website

Then-Gov. Mario Cuomo, another Catholic, said the ban was an unfortunate sign that church clergy were trying to prevent the reelection of politicians who disagreed with them.  A “seriously devout” Catholic, Dearie was upset. In hopes of lifting the ban, he talked to Cardinal John O’Connor, then-archbishop of New York.  O’Connor, he said, was cordial, but the ban remained in place. Dearie was reelected and served in the Assembly until 1992.

This month, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to hand down a decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that is likely to roll back the abortion rights women were granted in the court’s 1973 decision, Roe v. Wade.  If that happens, states will be free to legislate and regulate abortion themselves. Mississippi has a trigger law, meaning the state will ban all abortions, and is expected to outlaw ancillary aids like the morning-after pill, now available over the counter at Walgreen’s or CVS.

Mississippi is surrounded by Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, states that have already taken extreme positions to restrict or ban abortion altogether. The nearest state where Mississippi women could travel for abortions is New Mexico, which is expected to enact very few restrictions on the procedure. Mississippi’s last remaining abortion clinic, known as the Pink House, has announced it will close and move to Albuquerque as the “Pink House West”  because “we want [Mississippi women] to know we’re still here for them,” one staffer told the Albuquerque Tribune.  News of the move appeared on the newspaper’s front page.

New Mexico is America’s most Latino state:  Its population of just over 2 million people is 49 percent Latino – compared to over 12 percent in the United States. (Like Texas, New Mexico once was a territory of Spain.)  Many Latinos are practicing Catholics like Nancy Pelosi and President Biden.

Ten percent of New Mexicans are American Indians, mainly Navajo and Hopi, who may be Catholic. Last month, I visited a Catholic church in northeast Albuquerque, where the Black priest saying Mass was assisted by a Navajo man. Because of lack of education, proper medical care, and isolation on vast reservations, American Indians are particularly likely to need abortions.

At present, New Mexico has a Democratic governor, two Democratic U.S. senators and three House members, only one of whom is Republican. Generally, it is considered a liberal state. But is the archbishop of Santa Fe?

The 19th century occupant of that office is the hero of Willa Cather’s novel Death Comes For The Archbishop. Will the current archbishop, the Most Rev. John C. Wester, court political death by following in his San Francisco colleague’s footsteps? Pope Francis has passed over higher ranking San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone and named San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy as one of 21 new cardinals in the Catholic Church.

Officially, the Roman Catholic Church forbids abortion and the use of birth control. There are liberal American clergy, especially among Franciscans, who never mention either issue. Opposite them is the very conservative U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. They would like to ban Biden, only the second Catholic ever elected president, from taking Communion, because he is pro-choice and supports gay marriage. Pope Francis himself has disapproved of the conference’s stand, saying he doesn’t want to see Communion politicized, even though he considers abortion homicide.

On May 23, immediately after the archbishop of San Francisco’s attack on Pelosi, commentators on ABC’s The View, some of whom are Catholic, excoriated Catholic politicians who are anti-choice but pro-death penalty – like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and William Barr, who served as U.S. attorney general for Presidents Bush and Trump. The View’s Catholic commentator was outraged that despite Barr’s support for the death penalty, which Pope Francis and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops both officially oppose, he was honored by the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.

The website for the archdiocese of Santa Fe includes a statement from Archbishop John C. Wester opposing legislation currently before the New Mexico state legislature that would legalize abortion with few restrictions. In early 2021, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Catholic, signed into law a bill that repeals a 1969 ban on abortions, a ban suppressed in 1973 by Roe v. Wade. Unlike Texas and Louisiana, New Mexico does not have the death penalty.

With the arrival of the Pink House West, New Mexico is set to become an abortion sanctuary state like California and New York. An Albuquerque woman who had lived in Florida in the 1960s told me, “I much prefer attitudes in the West.”  The press office for the Most Rev. Wester did not reply to a request for comment on his plans regarding New Mexico pro-choice politicians.

Ann Marie Cunningham is MCIR’s Reporter in Residence. Contact her at amc@mississippicir.org.