Pelosi Makes a Mockery of the Magisterium on Abortion

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA 12th)

In the wake of the capital convictions of notorious Philadelphia late term abortionist Kermit Gosnell, House Minority Leader Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA 12th) was asked a hard moral question.  A journalist who was not content to just do public relations for the former Speaker asked her what was the moral difference between the abortions that Dr. Kermit Gosnell could legally do at 23 weeks and an medical abortion performed at 28 weeks or even a live birth.



House Democrat Leader Pelosi refused to directly answer the question.  First, she snarkily noted that the journalist savored asking the hard question.  She later refused to answer the inquiry as the question had an agenda.  But in the alluvia of excuses in between, Nancy Pelosi managed to use her Catholic faith as a shield to defend why she supports what she euphemistically refers to a “woman’s right to make decisions about her reproductive health.”   

Nancy Pelosi contends that she would not answer the question since “[A]s a practicing and respectful Catholic, this is sacred ground to me when we talk about this. I don't think it should have anything to do with politics." 

Father Frank Pavone published an open letter to Ms. Pelosi on behalf of the Priests for Life noting that her June 13th answer makes a mockery of the Catholic faith and is reprehensible.  Pavone elaborated: 

Fr. Frank Pavone, Priests for Life

You speak here of Catholic faith as if it is supposed to hide us from reality instead of lead us to face reality, as if it is supposed to confuse basic moral truths instead of clarify them, and as if it is supposed to help us escape the hard moral questions of life rather than help us confront them.

Whatever Catholic faith you claim to respect and practice, it is not the faith that the Catholic Church teaches. And I speak for countless Catholics when I say that it's time for you to stop speaking as if it were.

Abortion is not sacred ground; it is sacrilegious ground. To imagine God giving the slightest approval to an act that dismembers a child he created is offensive to both faith and reason.

Last year, when Rep. Pelosi pontificated that the entire Catholic Church was not against the HHS Mandate, just 43 Catholic organizations, and that these Bishops had not spoken ex cathedra, there were calls for Pelosi to be excommunicated from the Catholic Church. Ex-communication is not a punishment per se, but is a protection of a person’s immortal soul from unworthily receiving the Body and Blood of Christ and the unity of faith.

But as Pelosi has persisted in invoking the Catholic thing to justify policy positions on abortions which are so counter to the Magisterium that is creates scandal among the faithful, it might be time for San Francisco Archbishop  Salvatore Cordileone to invoke Canon 915, which denies the Eucharist to someone who obstinately persists in grave sin.  

If Pelosi was a person of good character, she would either align her abortion positions with the Church when executing her office or follow the Priests for Life’s suggestion to be honest enough to renounce her Catholicism.   


 What is more likely to occur is emulating the example of Episcopalian Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts-Schori who keeps the pageantry of high church while eviscerating the underlying ideals by applying self-serving human secularist faith.