Following Meeting with Pope, News of Secret Meeting between Pelosi and her Bishop on Abortion

LifeSite ^ | February 18, 2009 | Kathleen Gilbert

[NYer]

SAN FRANCISCO, February 18, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In the wake of House Speaker Pelosi's closed-door meeting with Pope Benedict XVI last weekend, news has erupted that earlier this month Pelosi secretly met with her own bishop, Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco, to discuss her stance on abortion.  Pelosi had publicly accepted an invitation to meet with Niederauer after the Speaker attempted to justify abortion in light of Catholic teaching last year during an interview on NBC's Meet the Press.

Michael Voris of Real Catholic TV broke the news today that the promised meeting took place Sunday, February 8 in a third-party home in San Francisco.  Voris reports that Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said that the Speaker described the meeting as "cordial and pleasant ... a fair exchange and good." 

When asked whether Pelosi had changed her position on abortion to agree with Catholic teaching, Daly stated, "You won't see that happening.  She is not changing her position on abortion."

Attempts by LifeSiteNews.com to reach the Archbishop's office were unanswered by press time.

Pelosi got in hot water with Catholic Church officials and laity after she told Tom Brokaw of Meet the Press last August that "the doctors of the Church haven't been able to make that definition" on whether life begins at conception.

"The point is, is that it shouldn't have an impact on the woman's right to choose," she said.  "This isn't about abortion on demand, it's about a careful, careful consideration of all factors and - to - that a woman has to make with her doctor and her god."

Archbishop Niederauer joined a chorus of bishops condemning the comments, issuing a lengthy statement to correct Pelosi's error and invite her to "a conversation with me about these matters."  Pelosi immediately responded, saying she would "welcome the opportunity ... to go beyond our earlier most cordial exchange about immigration and needs of the poor to Church teaching on other significant matters."

Niederauer had met the Speaker in 2007 but did not touch upon the abortion issue because, Niederauer said, the issue of immigration was "very much the hot-button topic of the time."

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

"Catholic" Speaker Pelosi Denies that Catholicism Condemns Abortion
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08082502.html

26 US Bishops Have Rebuked Pelosi…So Far
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/sep/08091004.html

San Francisco Archbishop Niederauer Says He Doesn't Know Nancy Pelosi Stand on Abortion
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/feb/07020802.html

[MantillaMilitant]

"Jews" voted en masse for Obama, too, despite his anti-Israel, pro-Palestinean leanings. For too many, their "religion" is culturally, not faith-based. For many, Confirmation or Bar/Bat Mitzvah has no more religious meaning than a Sweet 16 party or prom.

I trust that the Holy Father BXVI-slapped Nancy in a firm, but loving, way. Kudos to him for no photos. They would only have reinforced Nancy in her unrepentent public error.

Pray that she has a private, then public, conversion.

[joe fonebone]

Rome, Italy, Feb 18, 2009 / 05:52 pm (CNA).- After her meeting with the Holy Father this morning, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi released a statement highlighting the positive aspects of the meeting but ignoring the Pope’s correction of her support for legal abortion.

In her statement, Pelosi says:”It is with great joy that my husband, Paul, and I met with His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, today. 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. I was proud to show His Holiness a photograph of my family’s papal visit in the 1950s, as well as a recent picture of our children and grandchildren.

In contrast, the Holy See released a statement regarding the meeting noting that Pope Benedict spoke of the requirements of the natural moral law and also the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception until natural death, which enjoin 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 development.

Comparing the two releases, Catholic commentator and author George Weigel responded saying that the statement from the office of Pelosi makes it obvious that there is more to the story: that Pelosi, who shamelessly trumpets her ardent Catholicism while leading congressional Democrats in a continuing assault on what the Catholic Church regards as the inalienable human rights of the unborn, was trying to recruit Benedict XVI to Team Nancy.

But Pope Benedict wasn’t swayed, Weigel told the National Review Online. During the meeting, the Holy Father told her politely but unmistakably that her pro-abortion support puts her in serious difficulties as a Catholic, which was his obligation as a pastor. Furthermore, Weigel asserts, Pope Benedict was directing his words to other pro-abortion Catholics in the United States: Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Barbara Mikulski, Rose DeLauro, Kathleen Sebelius, and others clarifying to them that the Catholic stance against abortion is not some weird Catholic hocus-pocus it’s a first principle of justice than can be known by reason. It is a requirement of the natural moral law says Weigel, that is, the moral truths we can know by thinking about what is right and what is wrong ,to defend the inviolability of innocent human life. You don’t have to believe in papal primacy to know that; you don’t have do believe in seven sacraments, or the episcopal structure of the Church, or the divinity of Christ, to know that. You don’t even have to believe in God to know that. You only have to be a morally serious human being, willing to work through a moral argument which, of course, means being the kind of person who understands that moral truth cannot be reduced to questions of feminist political correctness or partisan political advantage.

Though it is apparent that Pelosi is deeply confused about what her church teaches on the morality of abortion, Weigel continues, she has now been informed, and by a world-class intellectual who happens to be the universal pastor of the Catholic Church, that she is, in fact, confused, and that both her spiritual life and her public service are in jeopardy because of that. Weigel adds that even though President Obama is not Catholic, he should understand that he will get the same message if, as expected, he meets with His Holiness later this year.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"For 40 years (since the Second Vatican Council), the church has been teaching Catholics moral relativism..."

Lest anyone get the wrong impression here, "The Church" has not changed Her teachings to embrace moral relativism. On the particular subject of abortion, the actual Second Vatican Council (Gaudium et Spes, the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) said this:

"Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes."

Canon Law still provides for excommunication latae sentenciae (automatically) in cases of deliberate abortion.

So the official teaching of the Church on this matter has not, and will not, change. What changed (and this is hard to explain, and perplexing) is a kind of pastoral style which emphasizes "dialogue" and "sensitivity" to a morally vitiating and exaggerated degree. There have been "Church Laws" against abortion, but precious little enforcement for more than a generation.

The "pastoral style" of false compassion, of corrupt hierarchs ignoring their plain duty, results in malformed consciences, of which the scandalous voting behavior of Catholics and the stated opinions of Madame Pelosi are only the most prominent evidence.

Time for us lay people to step in and enforce a little "sensus fidelium." There's actually nothing wrong with the Catholic Church when the Catholic Church acts Catholic.

[MrB]

Serve her the Bull.

Lord knows she's served us enough Bull.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Here's another comment that may interest you.

[Professor_Leonide]

No matter how you slice it, Nancy Pelosi is full of bull.

[MrB]

Fine, if they want to cling to that pansey “she excommunicated herself”,

then make a public announcement by an official spokesman (Bishop) to that effect,

and refuse to give her communion.

[MayflowerMadam]

“Sorry I missed the program. Do you recall the priest’s name?”

I don’t recall, but he sure was a cutie-pie! He was tough on Pelosi and didn’t back down when BO played devil’s advocate in a half-assed defense of Pelosi and her motives. I’ll see if I can find his name.

[MrB]

Yeah... “social justice”, a meaningless phrase intended simply to silence any opposition to the fascist processes that the speaker intends to implement,

is more important than mass infanticide.

[MrB]

As a exercise, step through the horizontal Commandments and see where the left/liberals stand on each of them...

[NewJerseyJoe]

> Lest anyone get the wrong impression here, "The Church" has not changed Her teachings to embrace moral relativism.

Lest anyone be misled by the previous comment, here are just a few concrete examples:

CONCILIAR TEACHING	HOW INTERPRETED BY ROME1
The liturgy of the word is stressed (Sacrosanctum Concilium,2 §9), and the banquet aspect (§10), as well as active participation (§§11,14), and therefore the vernacular (§§36,54).	The New Mass.
Catholics should pray with Protestants (Unitatis Redintegratio, §§4,8).	Eucharistic Hospitality.
The Church of Christ subsists in (not is) the Catholic Church (Lumen Gentium, §8),	It is also in “separated Churches” (Ut Unum Sint,3 §11).
which has separated brethren in separated “Churches” (Unitatis Redintegratio, §3),	All the baptized are in Christ’s Church (Ut Unum Sint, §42).
which ought to be as sisters (Unitatis Redintegratio, §14).	And so there is no need to convert, e.g., the Orthodox.4
Seminarians should take into account modern philosophy, progress in science (Optatam Totius, §15),	Secular university studies and abandoning Thomism.
psychology, and sociology (§20).	Open spirituality and subjective morality.
Marriage and married love equated (Gaudium et Spes, §§48,50).	Annulments fiasco.
The Church renounces privileges civil authorities grant her (§76).	Catholic religion no longer to be the religion of any States.
Wish for a World Authority (§82).	Full support for UN
Rite and formulae of penance are to be revised (Sacrosanctum Concilium §72).	Face to face confessions and General Absolutions.5
Extreme Unction should be an Anointing of the Sick (§§73,75).	New matter, form and subject (i.e., the sick, not just those in danger of death).
FOOTNOTES TO THIS TABLE 1  How Rome's guidelines are further interpreted as seen in the parishes is a whole other story. 2  The documents of Vatican II are referred to by their introductory Latin words, or by the initials of these. 3  Ut Unum Sint, Pope John Paul II, May 25, 1995. 4  Cf., The Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, which forbade mutual "proselytizing."  Balamand, Lebanon, 17 to 24 June 1993. 5  Does this affect the "substance of the sacraments" over which the Church has no power?  (Cf., Pius XII, quoted in PRINCIPLE 5)

[BelegStrongbow]

That’s how it works: the person proves themself incorrigibly heretical and the Church rules that the position the person has taken is openly heretical and a scandal to the faithful. They are then spiritually isolated by being issued a Bull outlining their errors and requiring open and complete recanting of the error and willingness to undergo absolution, penance and restitution.

That’s excommunication, operationally.

[MrB]

So, do you think this is “in process” for CINO democRats?

[absolootezer0]

she was called out at her re-election. she got around it by saying how she was “personally” against abortion, but the will of the people was that abortion should be legal.

[BelegStrongbow]

I think it will be pursued if ordinary Catholics simply state their abhorrence of the situation and how much scandal it causes them. Publicly. With a parish priest in earshot. The Church usually does not take draconian action unless there’s a serious threat to either the congregations or the operation (can’t help saying it: look at the pedophile scandal and what it took to get proper action).

So, threads like this, blogs and general ruckus-raising are just what the Holy Father can use to order the actions taken.

[Constitutions Grandchild]

Fr. Jonathan Morris. He’s stationed in Rome now.

[Constitutions Grandchild]

Thanks. I had forgotten the procedure under Canon Law. That's sure enough the way it works. Abp. Burke would probably be the one to draft it up (or someone under his authority). That would be the next step.

[BelegStrongbow]

And not Bp Neideraurer? Isn’t he her bishop and thus her episcopal ordinary? Should the draft not be drawn up by his chancellery?

[nina0113]

The Pope, and your church, would be crucified by the leftist press, but I figure the Pope could care less.

And that's different from every other day how? He's used to it. So are we.

[kassie]

You’re right.