San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone rebuked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, who invoked her Catholic faith while justifying the Democrats’ push to force taxpayers to fund abortions.

“Let me repeat: no one can claim to be a devout Catholic and condone the killing of innocent human life, let alone have the government pay for it,” Cordileone wrote in a statement Friday.

Pelosi told reporters Thursday that Democrats are blocking attempts to keep taxpayer dollars from funding abortions because “...it’s an issue of health, of many women in America, especially those in lower-income situations...”

Pelosi went on to say: "As a devout Catholic and mother of five in six years, I feel that God blessed my husband and me with our beautiful family — five children in six years almost to the day — but...it’s an issue of fairness and justice for poor women in our country."

“The right to life is a fundamental – the most fundamental – human right, and Catholics do not oppose fundamental human rights,” Cordileone continued in his response to Pelosi. “To use the smokescreen of abortion as an issue of health and fairness to poor women is the epitome of hypocrisy: what about the health of the baby being killed?”

Cordileone was also unimpressed with Pelosi’s claim that making taxpayers fund abortions is a way of doing right by “poor women.”

“What about giving poor women real choice, so they are supported in choosing life?” Cordileone wrote. “This would give them fairness and equality to women of means, who can afford to bring a child into the world.”

The archbishop also pointed out that many service providers who empower women in crisis pregnancy situations are Catholics who, in stark contrast to Pelosi, reject abortion. “It is people of faith who run pro-life crisis pregnancy clinics; they are the only ones who provide poor women life-giving alternatives to having their babies killed in their wombs.”

“I cannot be prouder of my fellow Catholics who are so prominent in providing this vital service,” Cordileone concluded. “To them I say: you are the ones worthy to call yourselves ‘devout Catholics’!”