What Catholic Church Does Nancy Pelosi Belong To?

It sure isn't the 1, Holy, Catholic & Apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ & headed by Papa Benedetto.

Right now it is a toss up between Joe Biden (D-Del) & Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal) as to who should be declared the patron sinner of Catholics in Name Only (CINO). Maybe they should be declared co-patrons.

With the announcement by Obama of his selection of Sen Biden as his running mate those of us who are faithful Catholics have turned an eye to Biden's proofs in word & deed that he is anything but a Catholic. The other day I posted on this myself (Choice of Biden Shows What Obama Really Thinks of Faithful Catholics) My amico Cavey over at The Lair of the Catholic Caveman has started a campaign to contact Biden's Bishop (Joey Hairplugs To Bishop Saltarelli: Screw You). Bishop Saltarelli will be stepping down on 8 Sept when his successor, Bishop Malooly takes over. So it may not hurt to contact him as well. (http://www.cdow.org/bishopmailm.html)

Meanwhile Speaker Pelosi appeared on NBC's Meet The Press this past weekend. She was asked about Obama's abortion/start of life comments by Tom Brokaw. Here is her response:

OK, I could tear this apart so easily, as could any real Catholic. & there are plenty of non-Catholics that know more than her about the real history of the Catholic Church teaching on abortion & when life begins.

While Rush Limbaugh, who is not Catholic, understandably misunderstood what Pelosi ment when she refered to the "doctors of the Church" he still got the basics right: "RUSH: You know, folks, this is just embarrassing. As I've often wondered, is she genuinely this uneducated, uninformed, silly, stupid, whatever -- and I've concluded there isn't a word to describe the status of her brain. The Catholic Church doesn't know? The Catholic Church hasn't stipulated? The "doctors" at the Catholic Church? You mean the pope goes and consults the doctors to find out when life begins? Really? The doctors have more to say than God-d? I mean, Nancy, cite anybody. Don't cite the Catholic Church. You're putting them in an untenable position. You're fixing it so every priest, no matter how wacko left the priest might be, cannot support you. Good grief, ladies and gentlemen! Life begins at conception. Where else can it begin? " (The Arrogance of Nancy Pelosi ) Rush, well maybe some wacko leftist priests might support her.

Rush ends his radio commentary on Monday with this: "But neither Cuomo nor Kerry nor any of the others has ever come along and spoken for the Catholic Church like Pelosi did yesterday on Meet the Depressed. That's the arrogance and hubris. I don't care whether she said the Catholic Church's doctors or doctrines, some people say she might have been saying "doctrines," doesn't matter. She was speaking for the Catholic Church, and that's brazen. This is going to come back to bite. The, quote, unquote, third most powerful woman in the United States of America telling the world what the Catholic Church's official position on life is, the church cannot let this stand. How they deal with it, we'll just have to wait and see." (emphasis mine)

Rush is right, the Catholic Church cannot let it stand. The normally lackadaisical USCCB has sprung into action by already responding. In fact, it has even put its response on the main page of their website. (If that doesn't show how bad Nancy's comments are, nothing will.) By authoring the response, Cardinal Rigali & Bishop Lori have once again leapt into the fray to correct a false representation of what the Church teaches. Here is what they had to say:

"In the course of a “Meet the Press” interview on abortion and other public issues on August 24, 2008, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi misrepresented the history and nature of the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church against abortion.

The Church has always taught that human life deserves respect from its very beginning and that procured abortion is a grave moral evil. In the Middle Ages, uninformed and inadequate theories about embryology led some theologians to speculate that specifically human life capable of receiving an immortal soul may not exist until a few weeks into pregnancy. While in canon law these theories led to a distinction in penalties between very early and later abortions, the Church’s moral teaching never justified or permitted abortion at any stage of development.

These mistaken biological theories became obsolete over 150 years ago when scientists discovered that a new human individual comes into being from the union of sperm and egg at fertilization. In keeping with this modern understanding, the Church has long taught that from the time of conception (fertilization), each member of the human species must be given the full respect due to a human person, beginning with respect for the fundamental right to life."

Meanwhile, in Denver Archbishop Chaput & Auxiliary Bishop Conley wasted no time in getting a statement out: “On the Separation of Sense and State: A Clarification for the People of the Church of Northern Colorado” & unlike the 1 on the USCCB website, they take the gloves off. (Somehow or other, I suspect the Dems gathered there to crown the false Messiah, Obama, bothered to read it.) I love the title, as do other bloggers. Sense: what the Church actually teaches, Nonsense: what Pelosi said. & unlike a certain DBQ Archbishop, these Bishops are being faithful to their call as shepherds of the flock.

The statement starts out: "Catholic public leaders inconvenienced by the abortion debate tend to take a hard line in talking about the "separation of Church and state." But their idea of separation often seems to work one way. In fact, some officials also seem comfortable in the role of theologian. And that warrants some interest, not as a "political" issue, but as a matter of accuracy and justice.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a gifted public servant of strong convictions and many professional skills. Regrettably, knowledge of Catholic history and teaching does not seem to be one of them."

Let's see now, in the interview Pelosi said: "I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time." The Denver Bishops response: "Ardent, practicing Catholic?, I DON'T THINK SO!!!!" In a few short paragraphs they show how far from the truth her claim to know what the Catholic Church teaches is.

Quoting from Jesuit John Connery's book, Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective (Loyola, 1977) they prove how little she has actually studied the issue: "The Christian tradition from the earliest days reveals a firm antiabortion attitude . . . The condemnation of abortion did not depend on and was not limited in any way by theories regarding the time of fetal animation. Even during the many centuries when Church penal and penitential practice was based on the theory of delayed animation, the condemnation of abortion was never affected by it. Whatever one would want to hold about the time of animation, or when the fetus became a human being in the strict sense of the term, abortion from the time of conception was considered wrong, and the time of animation was never looked on as a moral dividing line between permissible and impermissible abortion."

They go on to throw in a little Deitrich Bonhoeffer (Lutheran pastor executed by the Nazis during WW II): "Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed on this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder."

They go on to show her (as well as all the other CINOs gathered in Denver) what a true "ardent, practicing Catholic" who has seriously studied this issue will discover: " Ardent, practicing Catholics will quickly learn from the historical record that from apostolic times, the Christian tradition overwhelmingly held that abortion was grievously evil. In the absence of modern medical knowledge, some of the Early Fathers held that abortion was homicide; others that it was tantamount to homicide; and various scholars theorized about when and how the unborn child might be animated or "ensouled." But none diminished the unique evil of abortion as an attack on life itself, and the early Church closely associated abortion with infanticide. In short, from the beginning, the believing Christian community held that abortion was always, gravely wrong.

Of course, we now know with biological certainty exactly when human life begins. Thus, today's religious alibis for abortion and a so-called "right to choose" are nothing more than that - alibis that break radically with historic Christian and Catholic belief."

Here is where they lay it on the line, not only to Pelosi, but also Biden, Giuliani, & the rest of the pro-abortion CINO crowd.

"Abortion kills an unborn, developing human life. It is always gravely evil, and so are the evasions employed to justify it. Catholics who make excuses for it - whether they're famous or not - fool only themselves and abuse the fidelity of those Catholics who do sincerely seek to follow the Gospel and live their Catholic faith. The duty of the Church and other religious communities is moral witness."

& for those of you who say to the Church "Butt out!":

"The duty of the state and its officials is to serve the common good, which is always rooted in moral truth. A proper understanding of the "separation of Church and state" does not imply a separation of faith from political life. But of course, it's always important to know what our faith actually teaches."

Then there is Ed Morrissey over at HotAir. He uses the word that the Bishops imply to describe Pelosi, "liar". (Pelosi lies about Catholicism and abortion) Morrisey gives us the details of what the "Early Fathers" taught that Archbishop Chaput/Bishop Conley mentioned in their statement. He quotes from The Didache (c70-120 AD), Tertullian (210 AD) & St. Hippolytus (228 AD).

He goes on to say: "The Catholic catechism is extremely clear on the nature of its position on human life, and has been remarkably consistent on this point for almost 2,000 years, and it finds that position in the Old Testament. Human life begins at conception, not at birth, and not at some point consistent with Roe for convenience. In Psalm 51, David refers to his sinfulness beginning at the moment of conception, and sinfulness requires physical life and a soul to exist.

He then goes on to deal with the same gang of CINOs I refered to earlier: "Pelosi isn’t the only Catholic with a habit of self-deception or flat-out dishonest on this topic; Joe Biden also falls into this category. Douglas Kmiec shifted his support from Mitt Romney to Barack Obama, and as John McCormack points out at the Weekly Standard, he did so by claiming abortion to be one of many issues that Catholics must consider as part of their faith when voting. I addressed that thinking in an earlier post, but I’ll recap it by noting that the Church urges people to address “sinful” inequalities but does not demand any particular strategy for that purpose. It does, however, make abortion — even formal facilitation of abortion — an instantly excommunicating act.

Membership in the Catholic Church is voluntary. If people do not want to follow its doctrines, they should find another faith community that reflects their values — and at the least, they should learn what the Church teaches on abortion and life before mischaracterizing it on national television. Pelosi is either a fool or a liar, or perhaps both." (emphasis mine)

Also, on Monday, 10 Catholic members of the US House of Representatives (including Iowa's Steve King) issued a statement. They take her to task for mangling Catholic Church doctrine. "Unfortunately, your statement demonstrates a lack of understanding of Catholic teaching and belief regarding abortion." They tell her that her actions compel them to refute her error.

"From the Apostles of the first century to Pope John Paul the Great “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” (Catechism 2271).

Thus, your erroneous claim about the history of the Church’s opposition to abortion is false and denigrates our common Faith. For example, during the reign of Pope Innocent XI in 1679, the Church unequivocally stated it is an error for Catholics to believe fetuses do not have a soul; and confirmed the teaching that abortion constitutes homicide."

These Representatives show how much take their faith seriously: "To reduce the scandal and consternation caused amongst the faithful by your remarks, we necessarily write you to correct the public record and affirm the Church’s actual and historical teaching that defends the sanctity of human life." (Several Bishops could take a lesson from them.)

They end with this challenge:"We hope that you will rectify your errant claims and apologize for misrepresenting the Church’s doctrine and misleading fellow Catholics." It will be interesting to see if she does. But, I suspect she won't. & given his track record, I also suspect that Archbishop Niederauer of San Francisco (her Bishop) won't have much to say either. Even with how bad this makes him look.

Given how the Main Stream Media view on abortion lines up with Pelosi & the other CINOs, they will give her a pass. About all you will here from them is how dare the Bishops cross the line of seperation between church & state. & they won't bother to get out what the Catholic Church really teaches either (except to ridicule it). No surprize, as they have about as much sense & love of veracity as she does.

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Mille grazie to Bishops Lori & Conley, Archbishop Chaput & Cardinal Rigali for their courageous leadership in speaking out.