Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stretched well beyond the usual corruption of the American body politic with her radical left-wing agenda last week and ventured past the line of full-blown heresy by scandalizing the Catholic Faith.
Townhall's Madeline Leesman wrote up Pelosi's latest lamentable venture into Catholic apologetics.
It began with a question from a reporter at her weekly press conference. "Speaker, I'd like to ask you about the Women's Health Protection Act. The Archdiocese of San Francisco and the Archbishop of San Francisco warn that the bill is nothing more than child sacrifice, and he calls on Catholics to fast and pray to defeat this bill. You're Catholic. Your reaction?"
Pelosi's response is beyond problematic from a Catholic perspective.
"Yeah, I'm Catholic. I come from a pro-life family, not active in that regard," Pelosi stated. "The Archbishop of the city of that area, of San Francisco, and I, have a disagreement about who should decide this. I believe that God has given us a free will to honor our responsibilities."
REPORTER: "The Archbishop of San Francisco warns the bill is nothing more than child sacrifice and he calls on Catholics to fast and pray to defeat this bill. You're Catholic. Your reaction?"
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 23, 2021
PELOSI: "Yeah I'm Catholic. I come from a pro-life family, not active in that regard." pic.twitter.com/D5LbzIOyWS
Let's be clear on what Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco has said about this abortion palooza his parishioner, Ms. Pelosi, is championing.
"[I]t is especially shameful that any self-professed Catholic would be implicated in such an evil, let alone advocate for it. Abortion is homicide…. It is a human life, period. And this human life must be respected," he continued. "A child is not an object to be thrown away, and neither is a mother's heart. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the answer to a woman in a crisis pregnancy is not violence but love."
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Pelosi is a pro-abortion enthusiast. She has never seen an abortion restriction that she brought herself to support. There is no conceivable abortion she does not champion through her powerful position.
She is also the most powerful, prominent and highest-profile Catholic woman in America. Having her politically extreme position on abortion and also grandstanding about her Catholic faith for political purposes is not an insignificant matter.
As an obedient Catholic, Pelosi could easily say something like, "I recognize the Archbishop's teaching on this, and I respect his and the Church's authority. I do not allow my personal religion to interfere with what I believe I must do as a public official. Although my position is at odds with my Church, I feel I must still support this issue as a civic duty."
This position would still put her in hot water with the Catholic Church, and that would be her personal cross to bear.
But she didn't do that. Instead, she selfishly suggested that her Archbishop and the Catholic Church were wrong about abortion. She suggested that there was some reasonable disagreement to be had within the Church regarding this issue. She then evoked some nonsense about "free will" being some virtue that transcends the sin of abortion.
On that last point, let's just dispense with it right away. Yes, God gave us all the gift of free will. This means we all have the free will to choose between good and evil. Having the free will to make that choice is not a virtue unto itself, as Pelosi suggests. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Jeffrey Dahmer... they all had free will to choose between good and evil. They chose evil. And so does Pelosi.
It's bad enough that Pelosi, as a high-profile Catholic, embraces the sinful and evil act of abortion as a virtuous "choice," thus confusing people as to the proper responsibility of the Catholic laity in the discharge of their public positions when they are in opposition to their Church. But what Pelosi has done here is much, much worse.
In her response to the Archbishop, Pelosi has offered alternate teaching that suggests our Church approves of her radical, pro-death position. She has represented that a good Catholic can respectfully disagree on this, and we can't. She is using her position to offer a heretical version of Catholicism.
She is a heretic, and it's long past time for her Church to publicly and not-so-gently correct her.
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