Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi / Archbishop George Niederauer
Posted on 01/13/2010 4:05:52 PM PST by NYer
.- Archbishop George Niederauer responded today to Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) recent comments that she has “some concerns about the Church's position respecting a woman's right to choose.” Justifying her decision to support abortion by citing her free will “is entirely incompatible with Catholic teaching,” the archbishop insisted.
Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi told Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift in a December 21, 2009 interview that she disagrees with the Church on certain issues but considers herself a “practicing Catholic.”
“I have some concerns about the church's position respecting a woman's right to choose. I have some concerns about the church's position on gay rights. I am a practicing Catholic, although they're probably not too happy about that. But it is my faith. I feel what I was raised to believe is consistent with what I profess, and that is that we are all endowed with a free will and a responsibility to answer for our actions. And that women should have that opportunity to exercise their free will,” Pelosi said.
Archbishop Niederauer countered in his January 13 column, “Embodied in that statement are some fundamental misconceptions about Catholic teaching on human freedom.” God gave human beings the capacity to choose between good and evil in order to give them the gift of freedom, even at the cost of many evil choices, the archbishop said.
But this gift of freedom, the freedom wrongly cited in justifying a woman’s right to choose, among other fallacies, does not justify the position that “all moral choices are good if they are free,” insisted Archbishop Niederauer, because “the exercise of freedom does not imply a right to say or do everything.”
Addressing those who advocate for “reproductive choice” while claiming to be Catholic, Archbishop Niederauer emphasized, “it is entirely incompatible with Catholic teaching to conclude that our freedom of will justifies choices that are radically contrary to the Gospel—racism, infidelity, abortion, theft. Freedom of will is the capacity to act with moral responsibility; it is not the ability to determine arbitrarily what constitutes moral right.”
The belief in the validity of arbitrarily determining right and wrong is widespread both in and outside of the Church, the archbishop noted.
Touching on the meaning of one's conscience, the San Francisco archbishop described it as “the judgment of reason whereby the human person, guided by God’s grace, recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act. In all we say and do, we are obliged to follow faithfully what we know to be just and right.”
“As participants in the life of the civil community,” Archbishop Niederauer wrote, “we Catholic citizens try to follow our consciences, guided, as described above, by reason and the grace of God. While we deeply respect the freedom of our fellow citizens, we nevertheless are profoundly convinced that free will cannot be cited as justification for society to allow moral choices that strike at the most fundamental rights of others. Such a choice is abortion, which constitutes the taking of innocent human life, and cannot be justified by any Catholic notion of freedom.”
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“Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi told Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift in a December 21, 2009 interview that she disagrees with the Church on certain issues but considers herself a “practicing Catholic.””
Yeah? Well, she needs all the “practice” she can get. LOL!
Niederauer - 1
Pelosi - 0
“...she disagrees with the Church on certain issues but considers herself a “practicing Catholic.””
That’s a pretty neat trick.
Kind of like I believe that Jesus Christ was just a smart philosopher, but I’m a christian.
No Nancy, you are not the arbiter of Truth.
Tertullian, The Soul 27,3 208 A.D.
“We acknowledge, therefore, that life begins with conception, because we contend that the soul begins at conception. Life begins when the soul begins.”
Tertullian, Apology 9, 197 A.D.
“...murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the foetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man- killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed.”
St. Hippolytus of Rome, Philosophoumena, or Refutation of all Heresies, 222 A.D.
“...for this reason women who were reputed to be believers began to take
drugs to render themselves sterile, and to bind themselves tightly so as to
expel what was being conceived, since they would not, on account of
relatives and excessive wealth, want to have a child by a slave or by any
insignificant person. See, then, into what great impiety that lawless one
has proceeded, by teaching adultery and murder at the same time.” 9:12
St. Basil, the Great, First Canonical Letter to Amphilochius, 374 A.D.
“A woman who has deliberately destroyed a fetus must pay the penalty for murder.” 188:1
“Those also who give drugs causing abortions are murderers themselves,
as well as those who receive the poison which kills the fetus.” 188:8
St. Augustine of Hippo, Enchiridion of Faith, Hope, and Love, 23,86, 421 A.D.
“...though I know not whether man can find an answer: when it is that a
human being in the womb begins to live, and whether there is also a
certain kind of hidden life there which is not yet apparent in the movements
of the living being. It seems very rash to deny that those fetuses ever lived,
that are cut away and ejected limb by limb from the wombs of the pregnant,
lest the mothers perish too, if the fetuses be left there dead.”
Religious belief aside, this is an instance of an educated, thoughtful, and very literate man arguing with an idiot. Adding theologoca, elements here, Pelosi, by her position as Speaker and by her clearly irresponsible beliefs of Catholic doctrine is now in the position of leading Catholics and others into Mortal Sin. Excommunication may be the least of her problems.
I didn’t know this was possible. How can she say she is a practicing Catholic if she voluntarily left the church?
Pelosi argues: I believe people have free will; therefore any law that limits freedom to abort is contrary to the Church’s teaching on free will.
Pelosi picked up that particular bit of idiocy from Catholics for a Free Choice. She’s too stupid to realize that it’s an argument against the existence of ANY law.
Does she define herself, then, as a "protestant"?
She disagrees with the Church; she has not left it. Her bishop has met privately with her on several occasions, with no success. He has now adopted a more public forum for admonishing her. I doubt it will have any effect on her.
“Pelosi argues: I believe people have free will; therefore any law that limits freedom to abort is contrary to the Church’s teaching on free will.”
This makes no more sense than to say:
I believe people have free will; therefore any law that limits freedom to commit adultery is contrary to the Church’s teaching on free will.
or
I believe people have free will; therefore any law that limits freedom to steal is contrary to the Church’s teaching on free will.
or
I believe people have free will; therefore any law that limits freedom to be racist is contrary to the Church’s teaching on free will.
So Nancy disagrees with God but still considers herself a practicing Catholic? Free will means we have the choice to obey the Commandments or to disobey the Commandments. She is using her free will to allow the murder of the unborn. That is her choice. Nancy Pelosi is profoundly immoral and malevolent. I pray that she repents.
We'll amen, Mr. Archbishop!
Liberals have the most screwed up way of thinking, no matter what their religion.
Note - I am looking for a break down of members of both houses and their professed religion. I'm not Catholic and I know that not every baby killer in congress is Catholic, I want to see which ones profess my religion.
Pelosi is causing grave public scandal by her grave public sin.
Archbishop George Niederauer is causing grave public scandal by refusing to enforce Canon 915. His sin is more grave than hers.
Yet, she has no problem with a law that compels you to buy insurance or go to jail.
By lying -- something she seems to be quite good at.
She may be a 'practicing' Catholic, but she's a practiced liar.
Glad to see her bishop blasting her.
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