In the world of pro-abortion “Catholics,” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is the queen of hypocrites. Describing herself as a “devout” and “practicing” Catholic, Pelosi also boasts of her championing of abortion and transgenderism. And on Tuesday, she did both in the same breath.
On Tuesday, Pelosi met with Mark K. Updegrove, president and CEO of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, in conjunction with an event during Women’s History Month. Pelosi used the time to speak of the importance of Roe v. Wade, saying, “I’m a devout Catholic, mother of five children in six years and one week.” She also said that she tells pro-lifers, “When you have five children in six years, then we will talk about it.”
If this seems familiar, that’s because it is. Pelosi has trotted all of this out before. She really should get some new material. Pelosi has often leaned on the crutch of having had “five children in six years and one week” and being a “devout Catholic” mother to those children. And here’s a hint: She only does it when she wants to sing the praises of abortion. This time was no different.
Pelosi went on to say, “That was right for me, it’s not for me to say what’s right for somebody else,” adding, “Nor is it right for you, nor is it right for the Supreme Court. This has been a precedent of the court that should be upheld by the court.”
And while she claimed to respect other people’s opinions on how they view abortion on a personal level, she then launched into describing pro-lifers as “people who don’t believe in governance.” She said such people “don’t believe in government protecting the environment,” “don’t believe in the government protecting people’s voting rights,” and they are “really big-time government in your bedroom.” Pelosi added, “Whether it’s a woman’s right to choose, LGBTQ, whatever it is. All of a sudden, there they are.”
It is noteworthy that where “a woman’s right to choose” and “LGBTQ” issues are concerned, Pelosi is in direct contradiction to the teachings of the Church of which she claims to be a “devout” and “practicing” member. On the topic of abortion, the Catholic Church teaches in paragraphs 2270–2274 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person — among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.
Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.
Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae, by the very commission of the offense, and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law. The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.
The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation.
The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined…. As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child’s rights.
Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.
As to homosexuality and transgenderism, paragraphs 2231-2236 teach:
“MALE AND FEMALE HE CREATED THEM …”
“God is love and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in his own image … God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion.”
“God created man in his own image … male and female he created them”; He blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply”; “When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created.”
Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others.
Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out.
“In creating men ‘male and female,’ God gives man and woman an equal personal dignity.” “Man is a person, man and woman equally so, since both were created in the image and likeness of the personal God.”
Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a different way. The union of man and woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator’s generosity and fecundity: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.” All human generations proceed from this union.
Jesus came to restore creation to the purity of its origins. In the Sermon on the Mount, he interprets God’s plan strictly: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” What God has joined together, let not man put asunder.
The tradition of the Church has understood the sixth commandment as encompassing the whole of human sexuality.
In the face of this clear teaching of the Church to which Pelosi claims fidelity, she not only publicly repudiates the moral teaching, but does so with vigor. She told Updegrove that abortion “isn’t about what is your religious belief,” adding, “This really gets me burned up, in case you didn’t notice, because, again, I’m very Catholic — devout, practicing, all of that.”
So, Nancy Pelosi advocates for abortion, homosexuality, and transgenderism — all while claiming to be “very Catholic.” But according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Pelosi suffers automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication for her crime of cooperation in the murder of unborn babies. And she likewise finds herself on the outside looking in due to her public sin of repudiating the moral teaching of the Church by her public advocacy of sexuality that violates the moral law.
But Pelosi is recalcitrant, jokingly saying, “They would like to throw me out, but I’m not going because I don’t want to make their day.” Sadly, the weakness of many American bishops has allowed Pelosi to continue to call herself a Catholic instead of them formally pronouncing that she is excommunicated. American bishops could take a lesson from the bishops of Mexico. But Pelosi’s jocular statement about “not going” notwithstanding, the teaching of the Catholic Church is that she has gone. Her excommunication was automatic upon her public sin of voting for and publicly advocating for abortion.
So, while Pelosi may not be in communion with the Catholic Church, she is in the company of other would-be Catholics, such as the putative president, Joe Biden, who flatly refused to answer a Catholic journalist’s question about how he could “support abortion as a Catholic.” Biden also famously stated that he does not know how many genders there are.
Pelosi, Biden, and other ostensibly Catholic politicians who fly in the face of Catholic moral teaching on life and sexuality are guilty of creating grave scandal. They are also guilty of using sexually confused people and desperate women as fodder for their own political gain.
