On Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi criticized prolife voters who voted for Donald Trump on the abortion issue, saying their votes cause her “great grief as a Catholic” and accusing them of “being willing to sell the whole democracy down the river for that one issue.”
Most Reverend Salvatore Cordileone, archbishop of San Francisco, issued the following statement in response:
“To begin with the obvious: Nancy Pelosi does not speak for the Catholic Church. She speaks as a high-level important government leader, and as a private citizen. And on the question of the equal dignity of human life in the womb, she also speaks in direct contradiction to a fundamental human right that Catholic teaching has consistently championed for 2,000 years.
“Christians have always understood that the commandment, ‘Thou shall not kill,’ applies to all life, including life in the womb. Around the end of the first century the Letter of Barnabas states: “You shall not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shall you destroy it after it is born’ (#19). One thousand, eight hundred and sixty-five years later, the Second Vatican Council affirmed: ‘Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes’ (Gaudium et spes, n. 51).
“Pope Francis continues this unbroken teaching. Addressing participants in the conference, ‘Yes to Life! – Taking Care of the Precious Gift of Life in Its Frailty’ on May 25, 2019, he condemned abortion in the strongest possible terms: ‘is it licit to eliminate a human life to solve a problem? … It is not licit. Never, never eliminate a human life … to solve a problem. Abortion is never the answer that women and families are looking for.’ And just yesterday (January 20, 2021) Archbishop Gomez, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, reiterated the declaration of the U.S. bishops that abortion is for Catholics the ‘preeminent priority.’ In doing so, he acted rightly and collaboratively in his role as USCCB President, and I am grateful to him for doing so.
“Preeminent does not mean ‘only,’ of course. There are certainly many evils we must confront and many goods we must pursue. In his inaugural speech yesterday, President Biden gave a moving call to unity and healing. He offered what I would call a ‘Litany of Compassion’ – bringing before the eyes of the nation the suffering of people across a wide spectrum of issues. In my experience, advocates for unborn children also work diligently to be of service in many of these causes as well. Speaker Pelosi has chosen this week to impugn the motives of millions of Catholics and others for choosing to make voting on the issue of abortion their priority and accuses them of ‘selling out democracy.’ This is not the language of unity and healing. She owes these voters an apology.
“I myself will not presume to know what was in the minds of Catholic voters when they voted for the Presidential candidate of their choice, no matter who their preferred candidate was. There are many issues of very grave moral consequence that Catholics must weigh in good conscience when they vote. But one thing is clear: No Catholic in good conscience can favor abortion. ‘Right to choose’ is a smokescreen for perpetuating an entire industry that profits from one of the most heinous evils imaginable. Our land is soaked with the blood of the innocent, and it must stop.
“That is why, as Catholics, we will continue to speak out on behalf of those who have no voice to speak for themselves and reach out to, comfort and support those who are suffering the scars of the abortion experience. We will do so, until our land is finally rid of this despicable evil.”
The above comes from a Jan. 21 statement from the Archdiocese of San Francisco.
Thank Abp. Cordileone now, let the hammer fall and excommunicate.
Did Speaker Pelosi ever claim to speak for the Catholic Church?
She just did – In her mind, pro life Catholics are evil, wicked human beings without a hope of redemption.
Not at all like Nancy’s kind, sweet, adorable, friends of Joe, lovers of abortion and infanticide.
“I don’t hate anybody. I was raised in a Catholic house. We don’t hate anybody.” December 2019
(And, she’s right about that.)
In a Meet the Press interview in 2008, Pelosi said that “as an ardent, practicing Catholic, [abortion] is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition.”
(But, she’s wrong about this.)
Pontificating Pelosi has often presented herself as a good, devout, knowledgeable Catholic.
Why does she bring up her religion, unless she is trying to speak as a Catholic to fellow Catholics?
To “use” one’s faith for political gain, especially when denying and contradicting it publicly, is inappropriate. Just try to convince voters that abortion should be legal for all nine months without reference your religious identification. She can live in her walled mansion and eat her $94-a-gallon ice cream from her $24,000 refrigerator freezer without trying to be a catechist.
Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden speak through a faith that does not appear to be Christian at all. They both profess to be Catholic according to their public statements. And they both say they attend Mass. If so, they seem to conveniently forget what they heard Jesus Christ ask of them in the Liturgy, more directly in the Gospel, they had just heard, “to go and preach the truth (Jesus Christ to all nations.”) This is not a mandate that one would even consider it to be anything other than a command (PERIOD) expressed by God’s divine Son, not open to discussion, but to be lived each moment of our existence. When both of them (President and Speaker-3rd in the line of command) uphold to the belief that abortion (murder of infants); same-sex marriages, contrary to the Sacrament of Marriage; approval of contraception as acceptable ways of living for political gain, they deny the Word of God which they heard at Mass as well as scandalizing those hearing/and/or reading their immoral statements cannot be a Catholic or a faithful Christian to the Christian faith. What they preach through their public statements and public actions in support of any and all immorality can only be anathema to the Catholic faith, especially so, because of their high political standing that brings worldwide scandal to all faith loving Christians. Texas Catholic
With this statement, Cordileone conveniently ignores the rush to execute federal prisoners at break-neck speed right up until the last moment of his administration, all with the express written permission of the catholic right in the Supreme Court. Why doesn’t he speak about that until the land is rid of this despicable evil?
Rush to execute? Some of them had been on death row for 10-15 years or more. What rush are you talking about? Face it: Democrats are evil. Your pathetic attempt at whataboutism won’t work to distract from the fact that Democrats are supporting many policies that are 100% opposite of Catholic morality. And Catholic Biden and Catholic Pelosi are despicably at the forefront of the efforts. I’ll say this to you: Catholics cannot be Democrats because Democrats promote grave sin as their public policy goal. If you are a Democrat, sir, you need to go to confession and stop receiving Communion until you amend your life. Biden and Pelosi eat and drink their spiritual deaths by receiving Communion unless they change their ways and repent of all the evil they have done and are planning to do.
You are all about labels aren’t you? Catholic right!?
it is to laugh. Conflating lawful capital punishment with abortion? Hardly.
The average time between sentence and execution is 238 months. 20 freaking years.
That is more time than any poor aborted baby ever got.
Oh how strange. Up until Pope Francis, the Catholic church presumed the right of the state execute those guilty of murder. Now the exercise of this right is a “despicable evil.” Compare that with the unbroken tradition of opposition to the murder of innocent humans in the womb. Go figure. And I am not a fan of capital punishment, but I do care about logical and consistent thinking.
To clarify, Pope Francis did not call the death penalty a despicable evil. It was Pope John Paul II who first called for the abolition of the death penalty. Pope Benedict XVI did also. Pope Francis joins them. He has called it inadmissible.
The death penalty is like switching. That was a common punishment in my grandfather’s days. No longer. People now consider it inadmissible.
Only ideologues like YFC can compare the death penalty to the genocide of over 60MM unborn, but then again that’s San Francisco morals.
“Your Fellow Catholic”:
It’s not an either/or matter. Death caused either by state execution or by abortion are morally unacceptable. But it’s not as simple as you make it. State execution takes a guilty life after an excrutiating length of legal appeals. Abortion takes an INNOCENT life—even up to, or after, birth— with no appeal even by the father. The two evils cannot, logically, be morally equated. This is what you specifically advocate we do.
So you are my “fellow”, as all humans are. I accept that you are a Catholic. In my judgment, though, you do not think like one.
I didn’t say it was either or. Please tell the truth and not put words into people’s mouths that they never said.
YFC, I oppose abortion and the death penalty. You seem to ask why abortion is a higher priority. Since 1976 (when the death penalty returned) less than 1, 600 persons have been executed. Since 1973 (when Roe v. Wade was imposed on the nation) more than 60 million innocent preborn babies have been murdered.
Take the total number of lives lost and you’ll see that capital punishment amounts to 0.000266 percent of the total. Magnitude is an issue (as, frankly, is the Church’s constant opposition to abortion and only more recent general opposition to capital punishment). Maybe an example would help. If a Fire Dept. responds to a large conflagration, they will, of course, try to rescue everyone. That said, if one of the buildings is a school filled with hundreds of innocent children and the other has two people in it, the priority, based on saving as many lives as possible, would be rescuing the children in the school first and then proceeding to rescue the two in another building. Mr. Biden MAY try to save the lives of a few hundred in prisons and that’s commendable. But, it’s despicable if he does so while signing death warrants for millions of babies here and abroad.
Does that help explain the bishops’ priorities?
YFC, Archbishop Cordileone is opposed to the death penalty. The Catholic Bishops did speak out against the resumption of federal executions.
YFC– don’t tell me you have sympathy for heartless murderers sentenced to death for their unspeakable crimes, on Death Row– but have no heart rushing to save the lives of innocent, helpless little unborn children, waiting to die in their mommies’ wombs, down at Planned Parenthood!
Thank you Archbishop Cordileone for not being afraid to speak the truth. I wish all Church leaders would do so.
The unborn don’t get to vote on whether they get killed or not.
Finally, someone in the Church with balls. We need someone like this in San Diego.
God bless and protect Archbishop Cordileone for confronting his own. May House Speaker Nancy Pelosi heed his warnings before it is too, too late.
Leave it to yfc to conflate the death of an innocent preborn child with the death of a criminal. This article isn’t about the death penalty. It’s about a the slaughter of the innocencent. You always have sophist ad hominem attacks but no real substance.
YFC is a leftist he sees no value if life of a baby, but a convicted criminal has a value beyond words in his twisted world.
The innocence of the baby in the womb is not the issue. The preciousness of human life, the sanctity of human life, the image of God in the human person, the helplessness of the baby in the womb, the complete dependence of this precious life on the one who could decide to murder him or her.