On a somewhat related topic, I frequently see people claim that Adolph Hitler was a Catholic and that the Church never excommunicated him because they felt nothing he did was against Catholicism. I know Hitler was a baptized Catholic, and I assume that he was not a practicing Catholic as an adult. (Does anyone know otherwise?) As for the excommunication issue, my impression is that the Church normally does not formally excommunicate someone unless they are a member of the clergy teaching false doctrine or behaving in a scandalous manner. Excommunication of a lay person would be rare, and then only if the person was claiming to be an orthodox Catholic. Most people who leave the Church do so quietly and the Church never bothers with the formality of excommunication. Does anyone have any information on this topic?
She also goes on national tlevisioin shows and insists she is an orthodox Catholic who aboies by Church teaching.
Is this the same report as the article references because in this report it looks like Burke and I are in agreement ?
http://www.examiner.com/article/nancy-pelosi-banned-from-catholic-communion
Nancy Pelosi banned from Catholic communion
September 26, 2013
Conservative Catholics -- both politically and religiously -- can now rejoice: due to her House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) longstanding support for abortion, she must be denied Communion under the law of the Catholic Church, said Chief Justice Cardinal Raymond Burke, head of the highest court at the Vatican.
Burke referenced Canon 915, a part of Canon law which states those Catholics who obstinately persevere “in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
As Cardinal Burke noted, “[Pelosi] is a person who obstinately, after repeated admonitions, persists in a grave sin--cooperating with the crime of procured abortion--and still professes to be a devout Catholic.”
This comes after a June press conference where Pelosi was asked if there was a difference between abortion at 26 weeks, and the house of horrors that was the Philadelphia abortion clinic of Dr. Kermit Gosnell.
Pelosi's response: “As a practicing and respectful Catholic, this is sacred ground to me when we talk about this. I don’t think it should have anything to do with politics, and that’s where you’re taking it and I’m not going there.”
Pelosi also has a long history of supporting abortion and and has a 100% rating by NARAL Pro-Choice America. And it probably also doesn't help that she was involved in the creation of Obamacare, and the NHS mandate compelling all religions to pay for contraception, abortions, and sterilization methods, whether the religion allows them or not.
Cardinal Burke said, “This is a prime example of what Blessed John Paul II referred to as the situation of Catholics who have divorced their faith from their public life and therefore are not serving their brothers and sisters in the way that they must--in safeguarding and promoting the life of the innocent and defenseless unborn, in safeguarding and promoting the integrity of marriage and the family."
The cardinal continued: “To say that these are simply questions of Catholic faith which have no part in politics is just false and wrong. I fear for Congresswoman Pelosi if she does not come to understand how gravely in error she is.”
Hitler had been baptized, as had Josef Stalin. That didn’t keep them from turning into atheistic monsters of mass murder. They both ruled in the name of human perfectibility devoid of divine influence.
Those who point up Hitler’s Catholic origins are usually more interested in attacking the Catholic Church.