Posted on 08/27/2008 5:47:34 PM PDT by markomalley
Fargo, North Dakota, Aug 27, 2008 / 06:55 pm (CNA).- Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo, North Dakota has joined several other U.S. Catholic bishops in refuting Nancy Pelosi’s recent comments that confuse the Church’s teachings about when life begins and abortion. Rep. Pelosi, meanwhile, said through her spokesman that she stands by her comments.
This past Sunday in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Nancy Pelosi told Tom Brokaw that "Doctors of the Church" have not been able to define when life begins and that because St. Augustine said life begins at three months, the viability of a child at that stage “shouldn't have an impact on the woman's right to choose.”
Bishop Aquila did not refute Pelosi at length since he said that the statement issued by Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver was "excellent" and he didn’t need to add to it.
However, the bishop did offer his take on the Speaker of the House’s comments saying, “People of good will who have studied the present day Catholic teaching as given in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, John Paul II's Encyclical, The Gospel of Life, and have read the fathers of the Church, can easily recognize the flaws in her remarks on the teaching of the Church concerning when human life begins. The right to life from conception is the pre-eminent social justice and human right’s issue of our time.
“As your bishop,” Aquila continued, “I have the responsibility to present to you the authentic teaching of the Church, to correct the misinformation she has given, and finally to warn you that those who oppose the true teaching are not in good standing with the Church.”
Noting that “The Christian teaching on abortion throughout history is unchanged,” the Bishop of Fargo called for human life to be respected from the moment of conception, be treated with dignity and protected.
Aquila also addressed the issue of Catholics who support “so-called abortion rights.” These Catholics, he said, “support a false right, promote a culture of death, and are guided by the ‘father of lies’ rather than by the light and truth of Jesus Christ.”
Aquila also stressed that Catholics who support these “rights” have “placed himself or herself outside of visible unity with the Church and thus should refrain from receiving Holy Communion” out of respect for the teaching of Jesus Christ and the Church.
On Tuesday, in an interview with the Associated Press, Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Pelosi, said that she "fully appreciates the sanctity of family" and based her views on conception on the "views of Saint Augustine, who said: '... the law does not provide that the act (abortion) pertains to homicide, for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation ...'"
While Daly could not deny that Catholic teaching is unambiguous about life beginning at conception, he tried to bolster Pelosi by saying that many Catholics do not agree with the Church’s teaching.
He also added that Rep. Pelosi "agrees with the Church that we should reduce the number of abortions" by increasing the availability of family planning such as comprehensive age-appropriate sex education and adoption programs.
CNA contacted the Archdiocese of San Francisco, the archdiocese to which Nancy Pelosi belongs, to determine whether or not Archbishop George Niederauer will issue a statement about the Speaker’s comments.
Maurice Healy, the Director of Communications for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, said that the archbishop will be addressing Pelosi’s comments in his September 5 column in the archdiocesan newspaper.
Late on Wednesday afternoon the number of bishops criticizing Nancy Pelosi's comments grew as Archbishop Jose Gomez of San Antonio and his auxiliary Bishop Oscar Cantu added their voices.
"We agree whole heartedly with the statement issued by Cardinal Justin F. Rigali, chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities and Bishop William E. Lori of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine," their statement said. |
Now are they going to take the next step at the communion rail??
All Catholics agree with the Church's teaching. Protestants don't agree with the Church's teaching.
Sheeeeesh! When are these pro lifers going to understand this edict by the most powerful woman in the world./sarc
I thought not
This Protesant agrees with the Catholic Church on Abortion.
(That's how you can tell that I started out as a Catholic. Other Christians refer to it as the Protestant Reformation. Gave myself away again!)
All talk and no action by the bishops, as usual. If Plastic Face drops dead, they will be happy to bury her as a Catholic in good standing.
No wonder CINOs slap their church in the face every election cycle as they trot out their membership in an effort to get votes, but show by their lives that it means nothing to them.
Well put (all due respect to our separated bretheren)
Would that we had bishops like St. Nicholas of Bari.
According to the hagiographic tradition, Nicholas was a participant in the First Council of Nicaea. There, he became so angry upon hearing the views of Arius that he rushed over to him and slapped him in the face, sending him to the ground. The council was so shocked at this that they immediately threw Nicholas out of the council and defrocked him. That night, the tradition says, several of the bishops of the council had the same dream: they saw Christ handing Nicholas a Gospel Book and the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) handing him an omophorion, the symbol of a bishop’s office. As a result of this dream, Nicholas was restored to the episcopacy and seated again at the council.
We also know St. Nicholas as Santa Claus.
Apparently she is daring the Church, as if saying the bishops barlk, but they don't bite.
She is directly challenging the authority and the resolve of the Church. If the Church does nothing, she wins and the Church will lose all credibility.
In the temporal, you are right.
In the spiritual, that is neither for man nor Pelosi to give nor take.
The Church Militant is temporal.
Where do you think the Church would be today if it tolerated Arians and Gnostics?
Pelosi is redefining what is Catholic doctrine. By insisting she stands by her statement Pelosi is saying the Church is a lie and has been lying to the faithful all along.
Nancy’s theology sucks. She looks sillier and sillier every time she opens her mouth
She looks pretty darned silly even with her mouth shut.
Then why do all these "protestants" attend the Mass and eat the wafer? How can it be argued that the Church truly exists where there is no discipline of the fundamentally errant?
And yes, many of the facility managers are the kind of people that Jesus chased from the temple with a scourge. As a result, they cave into pressure and avoid doing the right thing, such as getting homodsexual pedophiles out of the system, and turning a blind eye to abortion promoters who go to church for political benefit.
But the teaching survives.
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