Pelosi on The Today Show: "I'm a Conservative Catholic"

The Today Show

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Matt Lauer just completed an interview with Nancy Pelosi. After some standard stuff about her "historic" role as the first woman to lead a congressional party, Lauer asked a a pretty probing question:

"When Republicans chose Newt as their leader, Democrats were quick to say they had gone too far right. Why shouldn't the Republicans now say that in choosing you, the Democrats have gone too far left?"

Pelosi answered by stating that while she represented her district in SF (implying that she was being very liberal in representing a very liberal district), she will lead "right down the center" of the Dem caucus.

She then added the following statement: "When people call me a liberal, I call myself a conservative Catholic."

I had heard Pelosi make the same statement in an interview yesterday, so this clearly seems to be a standard part of her defense to the charge that she's too liberal to lead successfully.

I'm not Catholic, but I have to assume that many true "conservative Catholics" will be upset by hearing Pelosi claim that label. It is hard to imagine an authentic conservative Catholic supporting unrestricted abortion, including partial birth abortion, as does Pelosi.

Pelosi failed to vote to ban PBA even when an exception was included for the life of the mother. I think it is thus fair to categorize her as a pro-abortion extremist. Given that record, to go on national TV and call herself a conservative Catholic seems the height of gall and duplicity.

As a sidenote, Pelosi also trotted out what the Dems have apparently decided to make their new theme: "Safety and Soundness," apparently some combination of national security and economic progress. Instant nominee for the "Lamest Political Slogan of the Decade."

[Mike Fieschko]

I do! I do! Does Mary Jane come along with being Spiderman? :)

Remember the beer ads with Bob Uecker showing some guys how he (pretending to be Whitey Ford) threw the curve, and someone said 'Wasn't Ford a lefty?'

Someone more clever than I could really do a Pelosi with that one ...

Come to think of it, now we've got the label for it ... do a Monica ... do a Pelosi ...

[RobbyS]

I suggest that ypu read John Noonan's book Contraception which includes a discussion of the Church's position on abortion and infanticide as well as contraception. The Church has always been against infanticide, which was the killing of children after birth. The prohibition of abortion and even contraception has been a doctrine that has developed. The ambibuities have to do with the physical facts of embryonic development. The Church has not always said that life begins at conception, but that the taking of human life at its earliest stages was wrong. This was directly contrary to the pagan practice, but more or less consistent with Jewish beliefs, which the Church basically just took over. The basic doctrine is that it is wrong to take the life of a child after it has been formed in the womb, but this was generally believed to be after six weeks, after the quickening. It was not until the 1840s, when the process was actually observed, and the cell theory was firmly established, that epigenesis finally replaced the quickening theory. It is instructive, however, that Church Fathers such as Tertullian opposed the use of abotifacients and even contraceptive drugs on the grounds that they were morally wrong.

[DaughterofEve]

Woo-hoo WOW!

[Travis McGee]

Just another conservaive pro partial birth abortion Catholic.

Too bad lightning didn't strike her.

[Zviadist]

In a Catholic Church not completely destroyed from within, as is the modern American church, the like of Pelosi would be excommunicated.

[sneakers]

She calls herself a conservative Catholic?! She may have been born into a Catholic home but that doesn't make her a good Catholic. If you're born in a garage it doesn't make you a car!

[Pablo64]

OK, you put a lot of info into your post to me, but from what I read, it basically went along with what my contention was from the beginning. Was there something there that I missed, or were you simply agreeing with me?

[RobbyS]

We don't agree if your contention is that the Church has not always opposed abortion. That not true. It is true that the Church has not always taught unequivocally the modern pro-life position. The Bible, after all, does not explicitly state it, but contains what one might say its seed. Within Catholic tradition --one might say the Christian tradition--that seed has grown. We might say that it early flowered in the the most exaulted and prescient teachings of early Church Fathers that all life, however young, is sacred. However, such views were obscured by those who looked to the science of the day so that it was not certain whether abortions performed before the "quickening"could be classified as homicide. After all, if there is no man, then there can be no killing of a man. When the emerging facts of modern embryology produced conclusive evidence in the 19th Century, the Church affirmed the doctrine in terms of epigenesis and has not wavered from it. The mainline Protestant Churches have wavered , but in general the evangelical churches have not and teach what is essentially the same as the official Catholic teaching. Many Christians, Catholic and Protestant, have pullled back from that teaching, but the teaching is clear and it is essentially what it was in the early Church.

[Pablo64]

If your idea of being against abortion is for the Vatican to issue a pastoral directive stating that abortion up to 40 days from conception is okay, then I guess you've got me. Apparently only those who are blindly faithful to a church rather than to God can come up with that fine a distinction. Kind of depends on what the definition of "is" is, doesn't it.

It still doesn't change my stance on abortion, however, nor does it change any of the reasons I left the Roman church. Sorry, but you've not proven anything to me.

[Petronski]

She can call herself a Conservative, Negro, Time-travelling, Cyborg Catholic if it pleases her to do so...

LMCO! Excellent take.

[Gforce11]

LOL

[Petronski]

Like to see her have audience with the Pope and tell him about abortion etc.

She could do it, I believe, with barely a bead of sweat or a jangled nerve. She believes she is right and he is wrong, which in her mind makes her a better Catholic than him.

[RobbyS]

I gathert that your leaving the Catholic Church had little to do with its stance on abortion. However, someone who looks at this matter in such absolute terms should not accuse me of accepting faith "blindly." The judgements by the popes and other teachers that you cite are juridic and concern the degree of the seriousness of the crime. You imply that these decisions were unreasonable and inconsistent with the ancient principle that all human life is sacred. I disagree. There was no denial that that the action is wrong, no acknowledgement of right as in Roe v. Wade All hinged on the question of fact: At what point is the baby alive?

[Pablo64]

No. You didn't read my original point. Someone had posted that according to official doctrine, the Catholic chuch had maintained a stance against abortion "since the first century". I noted (and still maintain) that that is not true. I'm glad that they are against abortion completely now (and have been for many years, to be fair) and I rejoice that they respect the sanctity of life from the moment of conception.

My problem has always been that the Catholic church tries to brush under the rug of history all the times that they have been wrong and never acknowledge those errors nor repent of them. This is but one issue among many, and since it is now entireley off topic I am not going to discuss this further on this thread.

If you feel that there is some merit in continuing this discussion (understanding my position) then I would be agreable exchanging points via FReepmail, or email, your choice. Otherwise, I think we have exhausted this.

[Havoc]

Ah, so a Catholic Priest who sexually abuses children - anyone for that matter - isn't really Catholic. That would mean the Pope and Bishops required practicing and non practicing Catholics all over the world to submit themselves to non-catholic heathens, now, wouldn't it. Hmm. Must be by the Holy spirit that such things happen.
Guess that's why these things are swept under the rug and the deck reshuffled - so the Holy spirit knows that these men are really 'holy' because the Pope and bishops know better than the average Joe what holiness is. oops, guess that blew your diatribe there just a tad.

[Havoc]

What makes a person a Catholic?

Ignorance of scripture? Is this a loaded question or am I supposed to guess till we get something you like? Oh wait, there's the popular debate answer - someone that keeps to the Catechism. But they also have to abide by official decree, which means that by Papal decree a practicing Catholic should believe it is not "against the Holy spirit to burn heretics." Oh, wait - Papal decree is only understandable in light of the fact that God's truth changes from day to day. or wait no, God's truth is steadfast. No wait, we're getting confused aren't we - it's that religion thing. You have to abide by official decree but when official decree is satanic in origin, that puts ya'll in a tricky spot. So I guess the requirement for what one must believe to be Catholic is subjective to the person defining it on behalf of the Catholic church - and also is dependant on the level of historical knowledge of the person the story version is being sold to. It does change things.

[ottersnot]

She's weak with the spin.
I see the Dem's electing another MINORITY leader
in 2004.

[Havoc]

Of course you are. Nativists are often frigthened by things they do not understand

One, did you even read what I said - not that I can see. And two, I understand the Catholic Church all too well. Appearances are everything and more substantive and meaningful at times than the truth - alla shuffling abusive priests and gagging those in the know in order to maintain the illusion of the "holiness of the church". The Church has a long and demonstrated history of what it is capable of. But that was not my point. Leave it to you to be distracted by a point that isn't being made in favor of one you'd rather argue.

No extra US based government has any right to influence US public policy. This is a Sovereign nation. I'm merely stating the obvious - which you take offense at for some odd reason in pretense that your church is lilly-white and unsullied by such things as meddling and unrighteous acts and proclaimations I'd presume. An absurdity in and of itself; but, again, it's beside the point.

Then, you mistate me (the which I am used to). I never said abortion was good or bad in this argument did I. My stance on it, is however, well known to my knowledge - it's a sin against God. Just because the Catholic church agrees on a moral basis is no cause for celebration that they know from whence they speak. Catholic Meddling in US policy is a threat to US sovereinty, or perhaps it's no little thing that the Chinese should be meddling in matters of national security - they have views on national security so what they have to say must bear on our Soveriegn laws..

And as far as who she represents. You missed the point altogether and are begging the question. your last question before you asked it. A Republic is Majority rule with Minority protection.

[RobbyS]

The Church has been against abortion since the first century. We can give you a long list of moralists who condemned the old pagan practice. What has not been consistent is the application of penalty. Is it or is it not homicide? THAT is not a question of faith but of fact, although early Church moralists held the use of abortifacients in such horror that they condemned it as a violation of the sanctity of the principle of the sacredness of human life. When in the 17th Century medical science began to distinguish between fetus, the human at conception and the nonhuman, the Church began to refine its notion of what abortion was.

The idea that the early fetus was as nonhuman as the sperm was gradually abandoned. St. Alphonsus still held to the Thomistic notion, but it was doctors who led the way, because, after all this was their province, not that of the theologicans. We are not talking about revealed truth, after all, beyond the point of saying that each living person has an immortal soul but about human science. "Thomas Fienus, a Flemish physician, was perhaps the first to prose the revolutionary thesis that the soul was infused not on the 40th day but the 3rd day following conception." (Noonan, Contraception, page 365.)

It took more than another two hundred years before the fusion of sperm and egg was actually observed (1842)and explained in terms of the new cell theory. The Church --and state--then refined its doctrine of abortion and reevaluated penalties based on what was now regarded as conclusive evidence.(The Texas law struck down by Roe v. Wade dates from this period). Likewise the ancient Church teaching expressed in the Letter of Barnabas, a 2nd century work, that Thou shalt not kill the fetus by abortion or commit infanticide was given on its present definition by Pius IX.

[RobbyS]

You forget that the Catholics who are trying to influnce American policy are American citizens, but as far as that is concerned, every government with an embassy in Washington is also trying to influence American policy. That includes Israel, whose lobby is now accused by some liberals of having fatally affected American policy in the Middle East.