Catholic Group Petitions Pope to Excommunicate Nancy Pelosi
Friday, February 20, 2009By Michael Chapman
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) (AP Photo)
(CNSNews.com) – Human Life International (HLI), a Catholic pro-life group based in Front Royal, Va., had a letter from its Rome office delivered to the Vatican this week, in which it called upon Pope Benedict XVI to “formally excommunicate” from the Catholic Church House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). The pope met with Pelosi on Wednesday.
Experts in Canon Law, the rules that govern the Catholic Church, said this action is not unprecedented and noted that similar appeals for excommunication were made against Catholic judges who were enforcing racially discriminatory laws during the civil rights era. They also said that regular Catholics have a right to petition their pastors, bishops, and the pope in matters that pertain to the well-being of the church.
“The reason we called for the pope is because so many people have called on the bishops in the jurisdictions she lives in, who could possibly do it—and they won’t,” HLI President Rev. Thomas Euteneur told CNSNews.com. Pelosi has a home in the archdiocese of San Francisco, headed by Archbishop George Niederauer, and works in Washington, D.C., the archdiocese overseen by Archbishop Donald Wuerl.
Pelosi describes herself as “pro-choice,” and has voted for laws that promote abortion and artificial contraception, both of which are contrary to church teaching. For example, she voted against banning partial-birth abortion, against the Hyde Amendment, which prohibited federal funding of abortion in most circumstances, and against the Mexico City policy, which denied U.S. tax dollars to organizations that perform or promote abortion abroad. She also voted against a complete ban on human cloning and in favor of using tax dollars for research that kills human embryos.
The church’s catechism states: “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception…. Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable.”
On Aug. 24, 2008, Pelosi was asked by Tom Brokaw on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about how she would advise then-Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama if he asked her about when human life begins. She answered by claiming that the question of when life begins has been a long-running controversy within the Catholic Church.
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posted by Dr. Denice Hanley, DPM, M.Div. @ 5:00 PM
3 Comments:
It may be that it's time for the Pope to get involved. My understanding is that she's a resident of San Francisco, California, and Washington, D.C. - and the local bishops do not appear to have been active.
Outright excommunication is rather drastic - particularly since Nancy Pelosi claims to have radically flawed ideas about what Catholic beliefs are. I'd like to believe that she is mistaken, and can learn.
However, having an "ardent" pro-choice Catholic is a scandal. But, in America, that's nothing new. More's the pity.
(Shameless plug: I posted about this, in "The Pope, an Archbishop, and Nancy Pelosi, on Abortion, Human Rights, and Communion" (February 21, 2009))
Thanks for your input. You're more gracious to Nancy Pelosi than I'm able to be.
After decades in the Church, her claim not to understand the Church's teaching on life issues is just a smokescreen to deflect criticism. Being an "ardent" Catholic and being pro-choice--just another name for choosing death for the innocent and the helpless, and for individuals deemed by society to be inconvenient--are mutually exclusive.
I've just read some of the articles on your site, "A Catholic Citizen in America," and they're excellent.
If the church does not get involved with correcting Pelosi and Biden, then it can assumed that none of Catholic doctrine is valid, if the high-and-mighty are exempt.
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