Catholic leaders in Colorado and elsewhere have been swift to react to comments by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the Church itself had long debated when human life begins.
“… I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this 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 … St. Augustine said at three months. We don’t know. The point is, is that it shouldn’t have an impact on the woman’s right to choose,” said Pelosi, seen at left kissing Pope Benedict’s ring during his visit to Washington in April.
In Denver, the venue for this week’s Democratic party national convention due to annoint Barack Obama as its presidential nominee on Thursday, Archbishop Charles Chaput and his Auxiliary Bishop James Conley said in a statement on Monday that Catholic teaching on the subject was unequivocal — abortion is gravely evil — and that “Catholics who make excuses for it … fool only themselves.” Similar comments came from Washington D.C. Archbishop Donald Wuerl.
In a statement late on Tuesday, Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs said: “Those Catholics who take a public stance in opposition to the most fundamental moral teaching of the Church place themselves outside full communion with the Church, and they should not present themselves for the reception of Holy Communion.”
Pelosi’s spokesman Brendan Daly responded on Tuesday with a statement saying not all Catholics agreed with the Church’s position on when life began.
While not always mentioned by name, the clerical criticism can also apply to Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, picked as the vice presidential running mate for Obama. Biden is a practicing Catholic who also supports abortion rights and analysts have said he could help woo wavering Catholics into Obama’s fold. But a revival of the 2004 debate over whether such Catholic politicians should be refused communion at Mass could possibly hurt him.
John Kerry, a Catholic who was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004 , provoked stormy debate in Catholic circles about whether or not a pro-abortion rights politician should be able to receive Holy Communion, a key sacrament of the faith. Several bishops said they would not give him communion and the media staked out churches where he attended Mass to see if he received. In June 2004, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI – wrote to American bishops restating the Church position that a priest must refuse to distribute communion to a Catholic politician who supported abortion rights.
Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in U.S. politics and while polls show Americans in this election cycle much more concerned about the economy and Iraq it could prove important in Colorado, a closely-contested “swing state”.
When Colorado voters elect a new president on Nov. 4 they will also be asked to amend their state constitution to define legal “personhood” as starting from the moment of fertilization, a position that would not ban abortion but would create the legal foundation for a possible ban in the future.
This measure could energize the state’s conservative Catholics and large evangelical community — a key base for the Republican Party which its presidential candidate John McCain needs — to go to the polls.
Trackback
92 comments so far
Previous | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Next
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, ITS MINISTERS AND ITS LAY MEMBERS:
Hundreds of thousands of babies are being murdered yearly in this country. Some estimations are as high as 40 million since Roe vs Wade came into play. And what does the Catholic Church and the Ministers at all levels do? Very little.
- Posted by kenneth sauterAlmighty God deeded to the Church the responsibility of caring for the souls He has created and the Church should hang its head in shame for the complete withrdrawal of its commitment to these souls.
Where did the Church and its Ministers fail in its mission? – to hold responsible the people with the power to make laws that allow the extermination of these souls. Why has not the Church met head on with ALL Catholic politicians with this statement, “as a Catholic you believe in its teachings; you cannot pick and choose what you want to accept, meaning you cannot compromise by saying, “I personally oppose abortion but I have to respect my constituent’s feelings, therefore I vote for and respect the right of a woman to choose” – you have a free will and can vote in any manner you wish or support the right to choose, But no longer as a Catholic, because this disregard of the teachings of the Church will lead to excommunication.”
Half of the Catholic voters this past election voted for the most pro-choice candidate; many saying, “but he stands for so many other good things”; also saying that you cannot vote for a single issue. Well, without life, nothing else matters, nothing, absolutely nothing. I am quite certain the Church will say that excommunication is a long and drawn out process. I say, baloney; there are babies being murdered daily; suppose we pay attention to them NOW and support their right to life.
Everyday that passes and the Church fails to live up to its responsibility to both God and man, it is condemning to death thousands of the Innocents, and I say this to the politicians, “for the few years of power on this earth you seek and enjoy, think of the eternal damnation you may look forward to. May God help you all.” Having said that, one has to wonder how much longer is He going to put up with this insanity? For every infant who is aborted and the Church fails through inaction to prevent it, another nail is driven into the hands of Christ; every time a doctor thrusts a scissors into the skull of a baby to kill it, another spear enters the side of Christ. How many times are we going to crucify Christ? How many times? For in this madness, mankind is destroying the very likeness of God Himself, for He made us all in His image. ACT NOW, as the followers of Christ; follow His will; “what you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto Me.” ACT NOW, please ACT NOW.
For the lay Catholics, if you cannot accept the fact that life begins at conception, as the Church teaches, and oppose those who profess that the right to choose is acceptable, than perhaps you should find another church, since the Catholic Church and its teachings are beyond your grasp of tolerance.
As to the Minister of the Church; since your inability, or perhaps I should say, your lack of concern, to protect the most vulnerable among us exists in such a flagrant manner, then also accept the fact that not only are you hypocritical, but also devoid of your responsibility, reckless guiding of your flock, and a complete dishonoring of the position you hold and the garments you wear; perhaps a different line of work is in order before even more damage is done.
May God enlighten us all to do what is right, rather than what is convenient. The 60’s were the beginning of the age of permissiveness. The Church, wishing to bolster the flock, particularly the young, managed to draw a curtain over the real meaning of the Catholic Faith, the Mass, the true intent of the Faith itself. Instead of staying true to itself, it lowered its principles, therefore negating its true and only mission, to serve God by providing guidance and protection for the very Souls He created, regardless of the status in life they hold.
This was a very difficult letter to write since my Church is everything to me; it’s just that I feel so betrayed by its Ministers at all levels and wonder why human life seems to mean so little to those it should mean so much to. Just imagine if 40+ years ago, the Church had put its foot down on Catholics, and politicians in particular, regarding the taking of life; imagine how many lives could have been saved. When we are standing before God and He asks the question, “How did you protect the very souls that I created?” How are you going to answer?
[...] must remember this. Last summer, Nancy Pelosi (aka Pelousy) made this insane statement regarding the Catholic Church and abortion. I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, [...]
- Posted by Garden State Patriot | Pope Benedict Puts Pelosi In Her Place[...] this column is the small comparison toward the end between Sarah Palin and Nancy Pelosi of “the Catholic Church isn’t sure when life begins” fame. (She can, of course, believe whatever she wants, however ill informed. To claim the [...]
- Posted by ProWomanProLife » And the special animus reward goes to…Sarah PalinThe sentience argument is interesting. It’s an argument that has made a sort of sense to me in the past. But it made me think of this thought experiment:
- Posted by MatthewIf a person is brain dead, with no hope of recovery, then the “lack of sentience as the standard for it being okay to end life” people would have no problem pulling the plug.
However, what if there was not just the possibility but the guarantee that in four or five months that person would have sentience, with increased function as the years passed?
Would it be morally acceptable to pull the plug then?
Or, the life is dependent on the mother argument could be treated to a similar thought experiment.
Just an approach to the question that is new to me, thought I’d share.
This is how the Limbaugh school of debate works. Obama’s tax plan is not what Obama says it is, it is what WE say it is. Let’s build an argument against what we THINK he’s going to do, not what he says he’s going to do. Not a ditto-head myself, I took Obama at his word when he said all he plans to do is to reverse the Bush/Cheney giveaway to the extremely rich. That’s why I thought you were saying you were wealthy and therefore subject to the Obama $250k tax threshold. Dividends? Market forces? How could it be worse than it is now after 8 years of transferring cash from the middle class to their bosses?
Did you know that, under Reagan, CEOs made about 43 times their employees’ average salary and that today they make about 411 times? If you’re not making it, my friend, Democrats are not your problem.
If you are actually a blue-collar worker just barely getting by and yet choosing to vote Republican, then you understand how the ruling class has used the abortion issue, deceptively, to get Democrats to vote against their paychecks. If you think Obama is lying, then you agree with what I’ve been saying all along about Bush and his abortion promises … candidates lie.
The Taliban didn’t attack us, even though we armed them when Russia was in Afghanistan. Iraq didn’t attack us; Saddam was Reagan’s and Rumsfeld’s buddy (back when we thought it was OK for him to be killing his own people in order to keep control and keep the oil flowing).
Saudi Arabians attacked us. But we can’t retaliate against Saudis because they are friends of the Bush oil family. So, Cheney lies on Meet the Press about the Iraq/al Queda link and we declare Saddam the #1 bad guy instead of bin Laden and the other Saudis. Don’t you wonder why we could find Saddam, who threatened the life of Bush Sr. and who has oil, but we can’t find the Saudi Arabian bin Laden in oil-less Afghanistan? It sure seems like something someone should be at least asking.
Yellowcake to Canada? That was debunked long ago. Your friends Rush and Rupert are the only ones still clinging to that story. It turns out there was such a shipment, but of yellowcake that had been in sealed containers since 1991. The truth can be found all over the fact-checking blogs. Here is just one: http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/wa s_it_recently_revealed_that_the_us.html
My clownish gibberish is well-documented everywhere but on Fox “News”. That’s probably why you won’t attempt to refute it. Read Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill’s book about the first Bush cabinet meeting, January 30, 2001, where Iraq invasion planning began. See him describe in detail the President’s complete inability to comprehend anything he, O’Neill, tried to explain about how the economy works. I think he described his reaction as a “blank stare, followed by no questions.” Then you go from there to the Federal crimes committed around the U.S. Attorney firings, Cheney’s illegal secret energy meetings with Ken Lay and other energy CEOs, warrantless wiretapping, Valerie Plame, nominating his unqualified friend Harriet Miers to the court and Ashcroft violating the Republican principal of states’ rights over marijuana in Oregon. It just goes on and on, too many crimes and demonstrations of incompetence to list here.
Well, maybe one more… why did he sit in a school room in Florida for 7 minutes after the second plane hit the World Trade Towers? Why did he say (and this was caught on video) “I saw the first plane hit the first tower on TV before I went into the school” when there was no TV coverage of the live event? Why did he find it necessary to lie about that? He knew, and then tried to cover up, that his own participation and input into a national disaster was not needed or wanted by his handlers. His role is to read scripts others give him, not to think. Those others make the important decisions and handle the important crises. It was a condition of employment Cheney offered him 10 years ago. “OK, I’ll run, as long as I can take two months of vacation, work 8 hour days and not have to read newspapers or learn anything I don’t already know.” Did you know that by the time he leaves office, he will have had more days of vacation than JFK had in office? about 1000 days. Only a figurehead not really in charge of anything could be gone more than three years of an 8 year term of office. Cheney is the first VP in 100 years not to run because he has already been President and doesn’t want to do it again.
Genuine Republicans such as Mary Matalin reject these neocons, saying, “Republicans do not initiate offensive wars.” Pro-life Christians should reject these criminals too.
- Posted by Timothy RowanI don’t make anywhere near that and if you think only those people will be affected by tax increases, you are truly naive. If Obama gets elected and has a congress to support his massive tax increases, I and many other people will move my dividend paying investments out of the market first thing in the morning the day after the election. How is his nearly 25% jump in dividend and capital gains taxes going to generate any revenue if nobody is investing? Libs like yourself seem to think that tax increases don’t generate a market reaction, and that the projected revenues will continue to be based on existing market structure. Your historical perspective is extremely narrow.
Point two, same old clownish gibberish about neocon conspiracies. Not even worth addressing.
The weakness of your arguments becomes obvious when you take a position of mine and automatically assign it the most extreme attributes remotely related to that position. No, people with mental illness histories and convicted felons shouldn’t own weapons, but they also shouldn’t be allowed to vote. You ought to focus some of that gun-hating ire at ACORN, for their voter fraud. Once again, your historical perspective fails you when you disregard that practically every tyrannical dictator has initiated their reign with some sort of restrictions on the citizenry’s right to own weapons.
Translation of your last paragraph, “If you don’t agree with everything I’m saying, you’re wrong.” Again, not worth addressing your silly position on how GWB and the Catholic Church are the reason people have abortions.
Oh, keep Iraq under control without using the military, like we did with the Taliban during the Clinton years? That worked great. You can ask two of my friends whose young lives were cut short on 9/11.
Finally, please enlighten me about what Hussein was doing with the 500+ TONS of yellowcake that was just quietly moved to Canada, FROM IRAQ.
- Posted by MattMatt–One more quick thing, having read your last note more carefully. The U.N. sent weapons inspectors to Iraq through the 90’s. The U.S. went into Iraq in 2003 and certified that Saddam had no weapons. Sounds to me as though the U.N.’s system worked. And they didn’t have to kill 100,000 people to get there.
Maybe it is wishful thinking but I think it reasonable to conjecture that, had the 2000 election been awarded to Gore instead of Bush by the Supreme Court, we would have invaded Afghanistan in response to 9/11 and continued the non-military means to keep Iraq under control. We would not, therefore, have borrowed trillions of dollars and passed the debt to our grandchildren, and we would have a stronger economy and fewer abortions today.
- Posted by Timothy RowanMatt — So, now I understand. Having revealed yourself as a right-wing extremist, painting all Democrats as socialists and assuming you know all my positions because you have found the correct label for me, having revealed that you cannot get by on more than $250k per year, you have helped me understand who I am speaking with.
People describe an argument as “tired” when they know it is not legitimate to call it “false.” My “tired” list of sins of the Bush Administration is familiar to all because it is true. We made a mistake electing him. We just didn’t know it until it was too late. George Bush is generally regarded as a simpleton with a famous name whom the real leaders — Cheney, Wolfowitz, and the other neocons — selected as their front man in 1999 because he was electable. He says what they tell him to say and he does what they tell him to do and he does not have an opinion of his own. Hence, his historically low approval rating.
If you believe what you have been saying here, as a Christian, that the death of an Iraqi newborn is “sad” and that the death of an American unborn is “sin,” that our society must allow every child to be born but that it is not a benefit to society at large to educate that child and keep it healthy, that we do not have a responsibility to do what we can to see to the healthcare of our brothers and sisters, especially the elderly, even if it means some personal sacrifice and inconvenience, then you and I are reading a different Gospel.
If you, as a Christian American see gun ownership as a universal right that should not be regulated in any way, if you see the ACLU’s distortions of the Constitution but not the neocons’ disregard of it, if you actually believe these neocons are true American Republicans, then you and I are reading different newspapers.
Lastly, if you refuse to answer my questions about wasting your pro-life vote on George Bush and how the naive bishops led us into that mistake, and if you refuse to address my question about whether you still continue to assume educated people move to the right and only the ignorant remain on the left, then this is such a limited conversation we are both probably wasting each others’ time.
- Posted by Timothy Rowan[...] Faithworl (Catholic Bishops Correct Pelosi on Abortion): In a statement late on Tuesday, Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs said: [...]
- Posted by The Church v. Politicians or Is There Finally Some BITE Back in Catholicism? | Grizzly GroundswellClinton insisting on no-bid contracts for Halliburton is a matter of public record. Even he has never denied it.
There are recorded statements of him and most other top dems in the late 1990s talking about the need to confront Iraq militarily. Unfortunately, when you have tyrants like Hussein executing people just for speaking out against him, sometimes military action is the only way to get across to these people. You and your allies on the left rant about Bush’s “failed diplomacy.” Failed diplomacy is what the U.N. did for 13 years when they didn’t enforce any of the 17 resolutions calling for Hussein to disarm that they had issued. Sadly, war causes death, often for many innocents. Not to say that there is a trade-off of innocent human life that is worth war, but if the human cost of providing that nation with long-term freedom is no greater than those he was killing for pleasure, then it is worth it.
As for the “sovereign nation” argument so many of you make, stop it. People of a nation are sovereign. A murdering dictator whose subjects live in fear does not constitute a sovereign nation.
You’re right, the constitution is being trampled by people like the ACLU, who want to convey its rights to non-uniformed foreign terrorists, and almost the entire democrat party, who believe that only amendments one and three through ten actually exist, and Barack Obama, who believes not all men are created equal and that life is not a God-given right, proven by his claim that a survivor of a botched abortion should be killed because the mother shouldn’t be inconvenienced with having to decide again.
Yet, somewhere in the constitution, your party has found in invisible ink a guarantee to public education, a guarantee to universal healthcare, a guarantee that all people will be entitled to all things, regardless of ability or effort, at the cost of those who strive to make themselves better. Obama has promised to increase my taxes. My family would be considered wealthy by him, yet because of suffocating taxes in lib-controlled NJ, are barely able to continue to afford living in our two bedroom house in a mostly blue-collar town.
- Posted by MattMatt — actually, I did think you were speaking of politicians, rather than soldiers, as “those who provide us freedom.” Thanks for the correction. I do not see the relationship between Iraq and our freedom so it didn’t occur to me. I think our military is doing a great job at a job they did not have to do.
The information about Clinton wanting the company with Dick Cheney as its CEO to receive no-bid contracts has to be something only available on Fox News, and I only watch real news programs.
My tripe is predictable because the truth of it has finally come to light and become common knowledge. It is not surprising that Americans would frequently repeat the reasons their Constitution is being trampled.
It is not accurate or fair to infer that I think too highly of myself. I was merely trying to use some detail to demonstrate how wrong one can be when they assume a person’s training based on their left or right political leanings. To imply educated people are smart enough to move to the right and all leftists are uninformed is kind of simplistic, isn’t it? You said public schools — the institutions that made this country’s middle class possible — are terrible and assumed that I had attended them. I thought it pertinent to mention that you were speaking with a person who was educated, probably about the same way you were. Having learned I am educated, you chose to switch your criticism of me to “naive” instead. That’s ok. You can believe that a thorough pro-life stance is naive. There are a lot of us though. When I was educated in Catholic schools, they told me killing was a mortal sin. I continue to believe that. Apparently, the current President does not, so I cannot support him or his successor.
Let’s assume you are correct with all of this, though, and bring it back to my point about practicality over ideology. How many abortions did your 2000 and 2004 votes actually prevent? How many innocent Iraqis did you help kill with those votes? Moral choices in the American ballot box are not black and white. However, some ultra-conservative U.S. bishops make it sound as though they are, and those are the ones who are naive.
- Posted by Timothy RowanTim -
You need not have understood what I meant by “those who provide us freedom” in that particular post to know Gore’s lawsuits to block military votes (30,000) in Florida, were what I was talking about in each previous post. As you appear to be someone who thinks highly of himself, I’m guessing you did get it and instead of addressing the facts saw a good opportunity to smash Bush and Cheney.
Everything you’ve written is unoriginal, predictable liberal tripe: Bush and Cheney conspired to give your tax money to Halliburton, Halliburton is evil, all their bigwigs pocket the money, they don’t actually employ anyone or build infrastructure anywhere in the world, John Doe’s phone call about his kid’s baseball game is being monitored by guys in black suits in a van outside his house, everything Bush does from the time he gets dressed in the morning is criminal, he’s an idiot yet he tricked us all into believing Iraq was a threat. Blah, blah blah.
Which president was it that first insisted on giving no bid contracts to Halliburton? Bill Clinton.
Which president and vice president were the ones first quoted as saying things like, “We know Iraq has nuclear weapons and is conspiring with terrorists to use them on US soil?” Bill Clinton and Al Gore. These same sentiments were repeated by many, many liberals until it became popular to claim Bush lied about these things.
Using insulting names to describe the conspiracy theorists, like yourself, who make wild claims about the malicious intent behind every republican action and even more ridiculously allege that the American media is anything but in the tank for every leftist issue and politician, is not something for which I intend to apologize.
Frankly, you can talk all day long about how many degrees you’ve earned or how well your peers respect you. Your views are still dangerously naive.
Healthcare consultant? You must be very concerned about the fact that socialized medicine will put us in a situation much like Canada, with 825,000 people on a waiting list for surgery and an average 6 month wait. Maybe you fear we’ll become like England with 1.2 million people on the waiting list for surgery. Ask your expatriate friend about NICE - the agency in England whose sole purpose is to discourage use of prescriptions and surgeries. Maybe he can help you research the fact that life expectancy of American cancer patients with the 13 most common types of cancer averages five years longer than any country with socialized medicine.
- Posted by Matt