House Speaker Nancy Pelosi broke her silence earlier this week after San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone banned her from taking communion due to the “grave evil she is perpetrating” on the abortion front.

The curious, some might say bizarre, segment on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” opened Tuesday with host Joe Scarborough pondering how “disconcerting” it is to see religious leaders deny communion “over a political issue that Jesus never once mentioned in the Gospels.”

Scarborough said Christ declined to discuss abortion despite being “both a political and a philosophical issue in Ancient Greece and Rome when Jesus was alive.” The idea that Jesus had no position on any issue he didn’t explicitly mention in Scripture is strange. The Bible is overwhelmingly clear about not committing murder and helping the most innocent.

Scarborough continued, “[Jesus] told his disciples in Matthew 25 that we would be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven if we gave water to the thirsty, fed the hungry, clothed the poor, and brought hope to the hopeless. We were to lead with forgiveness and love.”

After Scarborough invited Pelosi on the air following his Bible-themed monologue, she dove right in. She mentioned Scarborough’s invocation of Matthew and offered a peculiar rebuke of some of the people “who side” with the church on abortion.

“Thank you for referencing the Gospel of Matthew, which is sort of the agenda of the church that is rejected by many who side with them on terminating a pregnancy,” Pelosi said, without really identifying what she meant. No one on the other end asked for clarification. The House speaker proceeded to seemingly lament Cordileone’s communion decision, slamming it as “not consistent with the Gospel of Matthew.”

“This decision taking us to privacy and precedent is very dangerous in the lives of so many of the American people and again not consistent with the Gospel of Matthew,” she said. Earlier in the segment, Pelosi accused the church of not applying standards equally on other issues like the death penalty.

Pelosi said she comes from a largely pro-life family and respects differences of opinion on the abortion front. That said, she doesn’t respect “foisting it on others.” She said, “What is important for women to know, and families to know, that this is not just about terminating a pregnancy. These same people are against contraception, family planning, in vitro fertilization. It’s a blanket thing, and they use abortion as the frontman for it while they try to undo so much.”

Pelosi’s MSNBC appearance came after Cordileone announced that the House speaker’s abortion views had become so concerning that he would no longer permit her to partake in communion.

Cordileone wrote in a letter on the matter, “After numerous attempts to speak with her to help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she is causing, and the danger to her own soul she is risking, I have determined that the point has come in which I must make a public declaration that she is not to be admitted to Holy Communion unless and until she publicly repudiates her support for abortion ‘rights’ and confesses and receive absolution for her cooperation in this evil in the sacrament of Penance.”

Still, Pelosi reportedly took communion Sunday in Washington, D.C. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., has no plans to bar pro-choice politicians from taking communion.