Posted on 06/25/2013 7:57:55 PM PDT by smoothsailing
by Steven Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 6/25/13 10:24 PM
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi is lauging off a letter from a top pro-life priest who is asking her to revise her pro-abortion position to make it conform to the pro-life teachings of the Catholic Church or to leave the Church.
LifeNews reported on Father Frank Pavone’s letter to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Pavone made an appearance on Fox News this weekend to underscore his point.
In an interview with the liberal web site Think Progress, Pelosi attacked Pavone, calling him hysterical:
"My faith is very deep and has been my whole life. I love my faith and my faith has nothing to do with whoever he is. The arrogance of it all! It’s like something ancient, medieval…The Church taught me as I was growing up that every person has a free will and has the responsibility to live up to a moral standard. And I respect women’s judgment and values to do that.
Whether this priest thinks his judgment should be another woman’s judgment is absolutely ridiculous to me. But nonetheless it’s what they say. I grant the Church where they are on abortion. That’s where they are, that’s where they have to be. But my faith isn’t about what their position is. My faith is about, Christ is my savior, the church is his church, and has nothing to do with Priests for Life…I wouldn’t even dignify whatever it is they said. It was a highly emotional statement that they made. If it were more intellectual I might have paid attention to it. He was acting hysterically."
Below is the video of Pavone’s appearance followed by the full text of the open letter to Pelosi.
Dear Mrs. Pelosi,
Last Thursday, June 13, you were asked a question in a press briefing that you declined to answer. The question was, “What is the moral difference between what Dr. Gosnell did to a baby born alive at 23 weeks and aborting her moments before birth?”
Given the fact that the Gosnell case has been national news for months now, and that Congress, where you serve as House Democratic Leader, was about to have a vote on banning abortion after 20 weeks fetal age, this was a legitimate question.
Instead of even attempting to answer the question, you resorted to judgmental ad hominem attacks on the reporter who asked it, saying, “You obviously have an agenda. You’re not interested in having an answer.”
Mrs. Pelosi, the problem is that you’re not interested in giving an answer.
Your refusal to answer this question is consistent with your failure to provide an answer to a similar question from me and the members of my Priests for Life staff. Several years ago, we visited your office with the diagrams of dismemberment abortion at 23 weeks, and asked the simple question, “When you say the word ‘abortion,’ is this what you mean?” In response, nothing but silence has emanated from your office.
In what way is this refusal to address an issue of such national importance consistent with the leadership role you are supposed to be exercising? Public servants are supposed to be able to tell the difference between serving the public and killing the public. Apparently, you can’t. Otherwise, you would have been able to explain the difference between a legal medical procedure that kills a baby inside the womb and an act of murder — for which Dr. Gosnell is now serving life sentences — for killing the same baby outside the womb.
Moreover, you stated at the press briefing on June 13, “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.”
With this statement, you make a mockery of the Catholic faith and of the tens of millions of Americans who consider themselves “practicing and respectful Catholics” and who find the killing of children — whether inside or outside the womb — reprehensible.
You speak here of Catholic faith as if it is supposed to hide us from reality instead of lead us to face reality, as if it is supposed to confuse basic moral truths instead of clarify them, and as if it is supposed to help us escape the hard moral questions of life rather than help us confront them.
Whatever Catholic faith you claim to respect and practice, it is not the faith that the Catholic Church teaches. And I speak for countless Catholics when I say that it’s time for you to stop speaking as if it were.
Abortion is not sacred ground; it is sacrilegious ground. To imagine God giving the slightest approval to an act that dismembers a child he created is offensive to both faith and reason.
And to say that a question about the difference between a legal medical procedure and murder should not “have anything to do with politics” reveals a profound failure to understand your own political responsibilities, which start with the duty to secure the God-given right to life of every citizen.
Mrs. Pelosi, for decades you have gotten away with betraying and misrepresenting the Catholic faith as well as the responsibilities of public office. We have had enough of it. Either exercise your duties as a public servant and a Catholic, or have the honesty to formally renounce them.
Sincerely,
Fr. Frank Pavone National Director, Priests for Life
She can’t live forever.
Seriously, can anyone out there tell me why she has not been excommunicated?
She’s already dead inside.
Pelousy seems intent on digging herself as deep into the bowels of Hell as possible. May God have mercy on her soul. As for me — f’ her.
Well, she can if she repents to God! (And one presumes also turning what's left of her life around... but that's up to God.)
I’m Protestant so I’m not fully knowledgeable about excommunication. Is it possible to be excommunicated without there being any public record of it?
Because the Roman Catholic Church has become what the Democrat-Republican Party is: mere lip-service to their founding principals.
The reason that the RCC's voice was dismissed with respect to contraception is directly related to its refusal to actively punish supporting abortion by its members.
Catholic belief is that she has excommunicated herself, willingly.
I still believe there should be an official ceremony. The intent of excommunication is that the sinner repents and saves themselves. Even someone as vile as Pelousy should have that opportunity. I suppose it’s my own sin that wants to watch her “officially” trash it and condemn herself to Hell.
Because the Bishops are politically "correct"?
I wonder that too but then I remember the Kennedys. Basically the exact anti-morality of the Catholic Church.
I don’t even think they had any problem divorcing their spouses and getting whatever they wanted from the church to allow it.
Oh. My. Goodness.
This lady is so deceived by Satan that she can’t even makes sense or act rationally. I can’t stand the sight of her but some part of me really feels sorry for her....she is going to suffer ETERNALLY if she does not repent. Ugh.
I thank God, as weak & sinful as I am, that by His Grace, I at least know the truth.
Some people will blow crap about how in embracing things contrary to the church she's excommunicated herself
, which is a load of BS as it reduces excommunication (a form of discipline) to a mere "go spank yourself".
Seriously I cannot understand why at the very least her communion privileges have not been suspended. I know her bishop threatened it once but never followed through.
Excommunication is not simply a form of punishment, it is an opportunity to repent. I do agree that the Church should make these opportunities more publicly known, esp. for cases like Pelousy.
She is, presumably excommunicated “de facto,” because she is persisting in a mortal sin.
The problem is not only her personal sinfulness, but the public scandal it is causing, using “scandal” in its technical sense of misleading others into sinfulness.
For that reason, she probably should be publicly excommunicated, for her own sake (a last step to wake her up to her terrible position, poised over the pit of Hell) as well as for the sake of others who are misled by her.
But excommunication is a painful and difficult business.
“Live up to A moral standard”
not a subjective, relative one you determine, Nancy. An objective, bigger than yourself, standard God desires ALL OF US live up to.
By her worldview it doesn’t matter what morals you have as long as you live by them. Pelosi’s logic means people that sacrifice virgins to the volcano gods are morally sound because that’s the standard they live up to.
She’s chosen to let her standard be that abortion is totally wonderful and great. It’s not God’s standard, the 6th Commandment sums it up clearly. She is also into wealth confiscation and she’s okay with government stealing money from some to give to those government likes, and she is covetous and envious of her neighbor’s goods.
But since she sets her own moral standards (which is also idolatry) and thinks she only has to live up to her own inferior moral standards, she thinks she’s gonna be just fine. I would have serious doubts about that.
God must really get tired of people saying they believe in him, but are very okay with killing the unborn.
Scriptures says, He knew us before we were born and still in our mother’s womb. If God seems to think we are important enough to know us before we are born, shouldn’t Christians of any faith agree to that standard and stand against abortion?
There is a woman senator right now filibustering a bill in the Texas Senate. She does NOT want the post-20 wk anti-abortion bill to pass. The 20-wk abortion bill states babies in beyond 20 wks feel pain and abortion should be limited.
If you can say a prayer for her to fail in her attempt. She has until midnight to complete her filibuster WIHTOUT any other points of order called, and the bill will fail. She has earned 2 pts out of 3. If she gets another, her filibuster will fail.
Thanks.
Prayers appreciated for the safety of 20 week in vitro babies’ lives.
Sort of yes. The Bishop sends you a letter by personal messenger. The public will not know about it (unless the receiver makes it known). This is done in the hopes that the sinner will repent and return to Jesus. They do not do the bell, book and candle thing anymore, though I wish they would.
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