Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Pelosi: Perhaps the Worst Catholic?

Nancy Pelosi makes yet another Catholic blunder in her remarks trying to say that Catholics, specifically religious sisters, are supportive of the healthcare reform bill.

She says that today, March 19, is the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. While today is the Feast of St. Joseph, most Catholics would recognize that the Church’s official Feast for St. Joseph the Worker comes later in the year, on May 1st.

Perhaps that’s another fact that she was mistaught by the School Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, whom she mentions in her remarks. In the video, she says that the School Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, and “every order you can think of was there saying that they want us to pass this life affirming legislation.”

Pelosi should be the poster-child for Catholic school miseducation. Recall the other things that she hasn’t been taught.

In August 2008, Pelosi told “Meet the Press” that the Catholic position on human life only developed over the past 50 years and that no one can tell you when human life begins.

At least six bishops responded to Pelosi’s statements. One of them was Denver’s Archbishop Charles Chaput.

“...from the beginning, the believing Christian community held that abortion was always, gravely wrong,” responded Archbishop Charles Chaput. “...we now know with biological certainty exactly when human life begins. 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.”

From here.

6 comments:

ouini said...

Good grief. I can't speak intelligently on Catholicism, never having been one myself.

And I won't say that Pelosi is anything more than just another politician, often right, often wrong, and usually pandering.

But I can say that there are devout practicing Catholics on both sides of almost any issue. And I can say that, despite what half a dozen Bishops claim, Christians used to hold a wide array of positions on abortion, and it wasn't "always, gravely wrong.”

I can also confidently counter-claim Archbishop Chaput's claim that, “...we now know with biological certainty exactly when human life begins," as a weasely BS claim, as is his insistance that abortion is always evil (remember the nine year-old South American girl, just last year, abused by her step-dad and for whom birth would have been deadly dangerous? When her mom got her an abortion regardless of her dad's wishes, guess which one person of the following avoided excommunication by more than a technicality: mom, doctor, girl, step-father. One guess.)

Alice C. Linsley said...

Ouini,

Catholics are divided, as are Protestants. The Orthodox are NOT divided on this issue. They are holding fast to Holy Tradition.

The official position of the Roman Catholic Church is that abortion is murder. Pelosi is at odds with that position.

ouini said...

That's a good clarification. Maybe "Pelosi not my kind of Catholic" or "Pelosi never claimed to be an Orthodox Catholic" might have been clearer than "Worst Catholic", then. And the Bishop's statements are still falsehoods.

Alice C. Linsley said...

Follow the link. The title is taken from the RC report.

ouini said...

"Follow the link. The title is taken from the RC report."

Come on. This is an ethics blog.

Two things: When you quote someone as the theme of something you write, what you're doing is agreeing with and adopting that idea. It's like if I preached the concept of eternal punishment for finite crimes, but when questioned on the morality of such injustice, distanced myself from it with, "I didn't make the rules!" Take responsibility for claims made.

Second, I followed the link as you suggested, and even though you used quotes around your blog title, it's not to be found on the linked-to page, nor is there any reference there about an RC report, nor does a Google search come up with the quoted phrase anywhere but on your blog. Perhaps it's out there somewhere, but come on.

Alice C. Linsley said...

It is MY Ethics Blog, used to teach students to think critically by providing a wide range of new reports from many sources.