After a decade of reaching out to Pelosi to get her to either abide by Church teaching on abortion or to dial back her yodeling about being a “devout” Catholic, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone had had enough. On Friday, he informed Pelosi that because of her open rebellion against the law of the Church that she would no longer be permitted to
receive the Eucharist, also known as Communion. This disciplinary action was not about abortion; it is about what we Catholics call scandal. Scandal occurs when you encourage another to commit a mortal sin by your words or actions. In Pelosi’s case, her fluffing for Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry while proclaiming to be a “devout” Catholic could cause a person to believe that getting an abortion or encouraging another to get an abortion was permissible. If you are interested in an exhaustive treatment of the subject,
follow this link.
Tuesday, Pelosi talked to Morning Joe to explain her position. This is how Joe “what is a dead intern doing in my office” Scarborough set it up.
We haven’t talked about your faith publicly. We certainly have in a lot of private conversations because it means so much to you. The last time is when you were talking about your father, and I said, ‘I bet you wish your father were here to see you.’ And you said, ‘He is here. He is here. He is with me.’ I know exactly – my dad is watching, and he is in heaven.
I’m just curious, what do you say to Catholics who see what’s happening to you in San Francisco and wonders why you have an archbishop taking a step like this?
Speaker Pelosi. Well, good morning, Joe. Thank you. Yes, we do go back a long way, when you were a new, young Member of Congress.
The – what’s so sad about it – and as you were speaking, I’m thinking of some of the discussions I’ve had with other Members of Congress over time. And what is important for women to know and families to know, is that this is not just about terminating a pregnancy. So these same people are against contraception, family planning, in vitro fertilization — it’s a blanket thing. And they use abortion as the front man for it while they try to undo so much. That’s what they tried to do in the Affordable Care Act, which didn’t have anything about terminating a pregnancy.
Contraception and
in vitro fertilization are both prohibited by the Catholic Church. I’m unaware of anyone against “family planning” per se, but the methods used to achieve that goal are the subject of dispute.
So let’s just say that, you know, I wonder about death penalty, which I’m opposed to. So is the Church, but they take no action against people who may not share their view. 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. So we just have to be prayerful. We have to be respectful. I come from a largely pro-life, Italian-American, Catholic family, so I respect people’s views about that. But I don’t respect us foisting it onto others.
Equating the death penalty to abortion is a favorite tactic of pro-aborts attacking the Catholic stance on abortion. This falls short from several standpoints. First and foremost, equating the life of a convicted murderer to that of an unborn child is both ridiculous and obscene. While the Catholic Church has come to oppose the death penalty, it is forbidden to attach ecclesiastical penalties to supporting it. Why? Because the dogma that gives the Magesterium, that is, the teaching authority of the Church, its power is that, by definition, it is inerrant and unchanging. From the earliest days of the Church, the death penalty, when imposed by properly instituted civil authority, has been deemed lawful. Luke, writing in
Acts of the Apostles and Saint Paul in his
Epistle to the Romans, endorse the right of civil authorities to impose the death penalty. In the very first written catechism of the Catholic Church, the Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), the death penalty is
explicitly endorsed.
