Do you believe that Catholics, and Christians in general, should be able to set aside their Christian beliefs in the case of abortion? When we face God on our last day, will He accept that we thought it wasn't our business to protect an unborn child from death because it was deemed an "issue of privacy?" See the article below about Pelosi's visit with the Pope and let's discuss this topic.
Catholic legislators must protect life, pope tells Speaker Pelosi
From Wire Reports -- Pope Benedict XVI met privately with U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, and instructed her that all Catholics, especially those who are lawmakers, must work to protect human life at every stage.
Pelosi, a Catholic Democrat from California, has been criticized by many Catholics for her support for keeping abortion legal.
"His Holiness took the opportunity to speak o f the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church's consistent teaching on the dignity of hu man life from conception to natural death," the Vatican said in a statement about the Feb. 18 meeting.
Natural law and the Church's own teaching require "all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development," the statement said.
Pelosi was making an official visit to Italy to meet members of the U.S. military stationed in the country and to discuss common security concerns with Italian government leaders.
Her 15-minute meeting with Pope Benedict took place in a small room in the Vatican audience hall after the pope's weekly general audience. Contrary to normal Vatican practice, neither the press nor photographers were allowed in the audience.
In a statement released by her staff, Pelosi failed to mention any reference to abortion in her conversation with the Pontiff, saying instead, "In our conversation, I had the opportunity to praise the Church's leadership in fighting poverty, hunger and global warming, as well as the Holy Father's dedication to religious freedom and his upcoming trip and message to Israel." The papal trip is scheduled for the second week of May.
The Speaker of the House has made no effort to hide her belief that abortion must remain legal and available in the United States and in an affront to the more than 100,000 Catholics who marched for life in Washington, D.C., on January 22nd, Pelosi issued a statement that same day which read in part: "I will work with President Obama, as I have worked throughout my entire career, to ensure a woman's right to choose.
"Decisions about whether to have a child do not and should not rest with the government. We believe a woman -- in consultation with her family, her physician and her faith -- is best qualified to make that decision," Pelosi said, evidently not catching the irony of her personal failure to consi der what her faith teaches regarding the=2 0right to life.
As a practicing Catholic and a public opponent of efforts to make abortion illegal, Pelosi has come under sharp criticism by bishops and outraged Catholics who believe that a politician who supports legalized abortion should not be allowed to receive Communion. In particular Pelosi angered many Catholics last August when she erroneously told the television program "Meet the Press" that for centuries Church leaders had not been able to agree on when life begins.
"We don't know" when life begins, she told interviewer Tom Brokaw, "I don't think anybody can tell you when life begins, human life begins. As I say, the Catholic Church for centuries has been discussing this," she said.
The truth, of course, is that the Church "has affirmed the moral evil of every abortion" since the first century, as Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia and Bishop William E. Lori of Bridgeport, Conn. reminded her in a statement released at the time. "The teaching has not changed and remains20unchangeable: direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law," their statement read.
Bishop Slattery corrected Speaker Pelosi’s erroneous belief that the Church’s position on human life has been inconsistent in a letter which was sent to every parish and published as well on the internet. When later in the campaign, the then-Vice Presidential nominee, Joe Biden, tried to argue that the question of abortion belongs to the private realm of faith, rather than to the common realm of natural law and the public arena of rights and responsibilities, Bishop Slattery purchased a three-quarters’ page ad in the Tulsa World to correct the confusion caused by Speaker Pelosi and now-Vice-President Biden’s erroneous statements concerning the Church’s consistent pro-life ethic and her opposition to abortion.
Untroubled by her refusal to work with other legislators to protect the right of the unborn to life, Pelosi claimed in an April teleconference with Catholic News Service and other media representatives that she has “a sort of serenity" about receiving Communion.
"The Church sees it another way, and I respect that," she said, adding, that she hoped the U.S. bishops would not use the refusal of holy Communion as a way of punishing Catholic politicians who promote abortion.
"Think of that word Communion, that which brings us all together as Christians, as Catholics," Pelosi said. Denying a Catholic the Eucharist "would be something that would shatter that union," she said, with obvious indifference to the fact that she herself has placed that union in jeopardy by her consistent refusal to adhere to or promote the moral teaching of the Church.
