When will Canon 915 be applied in the case of pro-abortion Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi?
It is not enough that she may, perhaps, from time to time, choose on her own not to go forward for Communion.
It must be made clear by the Church’s pastors that she is not to receive.
From Townhall:
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has been selected to receive Planned Parenthood’s “highest recognition of leadership, excellence, and outstanding contributions” to the abortion movement. Pelosi will accept the award at Planned Parenthood’s annual gala in Washington D.C. March 27.
The award is named after the organization’s founder, Margaret Sanger. Sanger’s 1914 publication “The Woman Rebel” was found illegal due to the “obscene and immoral materials” found therein.
Sanger believed women had the basic right to abortion: “No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.” Perhaps she was not aware that this freedom has already been called chastity.
It comes as no surprise that the current president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, acknowledged Obamacare as the “greatest advancement for women’s health in this generation.” The Obama Administration has touted the abortion pill mandate enshrined in the bill as being both “lawful and essential to women’s health.”
Richards said Pelosi has been an unwavering abortion supporter:
No one is more deserving of this honor than Leader Pelosi, who has fought tirelessly throughout her career to protect and expand women’s access to health care. [abortion = health care] As the first woman to serve as Speaker of the House, Leader Pelosi recognized that women’s health is a mainstream issue impacting women and families. Her leadership in passing the Affordable Care Act and her ongoing commitment ensures that the promise of the law is realized for millions of women as the greatest advancement for women’s health in a generation. [It’s all great for Big-Business-Abortion.]Previous award winners have included Hillary Clinton and actress Katharine Hepburn.
Nancy Pelosi creates terrible public scandal. By her manifest scandal in the public square she does harm to the Church.
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This becomes a greater scandal with every passing day. Sometimes I feel like this is a genuine threat to my faith. Why should I bother? How can I tell the fellow parishioner who votes straight down the line for this stuff that they’re in error? I can’t any more.
Somebody should write The Pope about this.
Is anyone monitoring how often she presents herself for communion?
Is it an occasion of sin to be curious?
Is it a sin to think that a website with pictures and dates would be a good thing?
Am I going down a rabbit hole?
Just pray on March 27, 2014 …
“Pope Francis is scheduled to receive US President, Barack Obama, in audience in the Vatican, on Thursday 27 March 2014.” — http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2014/01/21/pope_francis_to_receive_us_president_barak_obama/en1-765968
“Pelosi will accept the award at Planned Parenthood’s annual gala in Washington D.C. March 27.”
To instruct Nancy Pelosi not to present herself for Holy Communion is not enough to undo the better part of a century of American Catholic error. She and all the faithful must be instructed frequently and consistently — in public discourse as well as from the pulpit and in private direction — on the grave evils of abortion, contraception, inchastity, and sacrilegious Communion. All of us must be willing to accept, and to carry out, the entire Will of God on Whose Mercy too many of us seem appallingly quick to presume.
Neither the instruction nor the willingness can be expected to show broad restorative effects in an instant. That, however, is scant excuse for any American Catholic to refuse the graces that are freely and widely available — and whose administration is apt to be driven underground in the persecution that is virtually sure to follow the assertion of the Church’s duty to enforce canon law in order to arrest the scandal to which Fr. Z makes reference.
Cardinal Donald Wuerl and Archbishop Cordileone, I hope you do something about this scandal to the Faith. Please implement His Eminence Cardinal Raymond Burke’s judgement on these politicians.
Thank you Father for continuing to point this out. The Church leadership in the United States (unless perchance the Holy Spirit happens to, with all charity, punch them in the mouth) will doubtless continue to ignore this little problem of tens of millions of people receiving Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin. I am a former member of this group and it is not a good place to be. We are all (except for Father Z) too afraid of hurting people’s feelings. Hurting someone’s feelings is seemingly the worst sin one can commit for most Americans in our day and time.
@Mike I have to ask: is the Catholic Church (institutionally speaking) in America at present really worth a violent persecution? All our contemporary culture seems to need to do is to threaten us with being portrayed as ‘not nice’ or the worst vice of all ‘intolerant’, and we put our tail between our legs and run away. Why would they waste the effort on a Diocletian style persecution?
Sure hasn’t the Pope got the opportunity to publically rebuke Obama when he meets him shortly?
On the other hand…
If a person is of good will, is seeking the Lord, and supports abortion, who am I to judge?
Cardinal Donald Wuerl prefers the nurturing, gathering do-ya-need-a-hug, bunky? approach.
Don’t look for him to put Nancy Pelosi and Canon 915 in the same sentence anytime soon…
Priam1184 asks:
To be sure, the Church’s institutional structure in this country is increasingly unable to bear the weakness (largely due to ill formation) of the vast majority of American Catholics in the pews, pulpits, and chanceries. No matter how swiftly they surrender, though — and it is entirely possible that the coming implosion will eclipse what American Catholicism has already suffered — they cannot eviscerate the authentic message of Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. And it is that message, the message of Christ’s redemption of a fallen world, that the Church’s enemies will never stop hating.
The eternal light of Christ’s hope that the Church shines on the world’s lies ensures that not even harrying Her into relative obscurity (and is that not something of what She experiences now at the hands of the “mainstream” media?) will sate the world’s appetite for destruction. That same light, ever bright and infinitely piercing, will guide the path of Her faithful remnant, though a martyr’s death await them.
I think we should take Fr. Z’s Canon 915 script (above) and use it as a base for a baseball trophy with a masked catcher at the plate, Pelosi sliding in (trying to be a “real Catholic”) and the umpire (Cardinal Burke or the pope) throwing her out with, “You’re outta here!!!” in large letters above it all.
I hate to say this, but don’t hold your breath for the bishops to say a word, and if they do, it will be as nuanced as it can possibly be. It would likely be something like this:
“The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is disappointed that Rep. Nancy Pelosi has chosen to accept an award by Planned Parenthood. We continue to urge Rep. Pelosi to rethink her positions on life issues, and we look forward to continued dialogue with her.”
Pelosi is in good company. Another recipient of the Margaret Sanger award was Wallace Kuralt. In the 50’s,60’s and 70’s, he was head of the Eugenics Board in North Carolina. Over 7000 women, mostly poor and black were sterilized in this state alone. Under his watch, 485 women were sterilized in Mecklenberg County. He retired in 1972, but Planned (Un)Parenthood gave him the Sanger Award in 1983, for a job well done. (He was the father of newsman Charles Kuralt)
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/28/144375339/a-brutal-chapter-in-north-carolinas-eugenics-past
Usquequo, Domine?
One wonders what the actual object handed to her will be. The No More Back Alley trophy, a gold plated wire coat hanger, mounted inside a rim of red Kryptonite, and a red gold diagonal bar?
Seems appropriate as she has been instrumental in leading others to vote pro-death. A eugenics award! You would think that might be a wake-up call.
Yet another victory for the pastoral approach.
This is the first time that this has happened to me but I must admit that I agree with Planned Parenthood’s decision on this one. Pelosi DOES deserve this recognition, this …uh…’award’.
She has earned it….and her name will live on….in infamy.
Hillary Clinton accepted the “award” in Houston one day after visiting the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. She and Pelosi have so much in common.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/hillary_clinton_leaves_flowers_for_our_lady_of_guadalupe_asks_who_painted_it/
List of all recipients of this ‘award’ is interesting – and scary.
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/politics-policy-issues/ppfa-margaret-sanger-award-winners-4840.htm
If the USCCB remains silent about this, we have a massive problem on our hands.
TNCath got it right. The USCCB will be “disappointed” at best.
“Profiles In”…Oh, forget it.
Nancy Pelosi on when life begins:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM2VqqNLWxQ
This delusional Catholic is oblivious to the CCC. 2270-75. 2322.
“From it’s conception, the child has the right to life. Direct abortion.. is a “criminal” practice, gravely contrary to moral law. The Church imposes the canonical penalty of excommunication for this crime against human life.”
The fact is that she’s heretical and perhaps guilty of a criminal practice. But, the other fact is that much of the American clergy worship at the alter of the Democratic Party and hate the GOP, so they will take no action against these criminals and heretics.
Magpie, LOL!, that line just keeps on giving.
TNCath, That statement will word for word will come from the USCCB office of whatever.
This has gone on too long, How Long O Lord?
Cardina Wuerl and certain others have adopted a “pastoral” approach. The problem with it and other “pastoral” approaches is that it’s all but impossible to find any beneficial consequences. Does anyone know of a Catholic politician who has changed on abortion because of this “pastoral” approach?
Mainly, it just permits those who work to undermine the Church to think they are Catholics in good standing.
robtbrown,
Good point. Pastoral without charitable correction = permissive.
Orthodox Chick,
My point was not about correction, although that might be part of it.
Rather, it is that for something to be called pastoral, the sheep have to be fed. Just because a pastor is a nice guy doesn’t mean that the sheep aren’t starving. When I was in Rome, I had a conversation with someone who was insisting that Cardinal Bernardin was “so pastoral”. I referred him to an article in 30 Giorni noting that under Bernardin’s leadership mass attendance and collections in the Archdiocese of Chicago had declined considerably. I asked him how the Cardinal could be considered “pastoral” with stats like that.
Re: “pastoral approach”. I’d like to know what the “pastoral approach” looked like in a practical situation. Has it ever been attempted? Specifically, what has anyone ever done, or even tried to do, with Pelosi? Has a Pastor ever spoken with her about this? With the “canonical approach” of Card. Burke (and others), you have concrete steps clearly laid out, with real consequences. We’ve seen it in action. Has it changed anyone’s mind to being for life? I don’t know. But, it has produced other benefits.
dans0622,
I’m afraid that “pastoral” simply means friendly.
Some years ago I met a ret priest from the diocese of Louisville, a very good man. He told me that when he first met Abp Kelly, his reaction was that was the first bishop he never feared. Then he said that later, he noticed that the conservative pastors were all being replaced by liberals.
Abp Kelly was a Dominican who had a very good education–a Licentiate in Theology and a doctorate in canon law. Later, he worked in administration for the US bishops, where, forgetting his education, he hitched his star to Cardinal Bernardin. De mortis nihil nisi bonum–but Abp Kelly was, IMHO, a man who sold out for the sake of a miter.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if the Pope decided to issue some formal excommunications for these highly regarded political figures, who by their own actions, have shown that they persist in grave mortal sin? Wouldn’t this provide our Bishops and Priests with the air cover they need so they are not put in such difficult of a position? Leadership in the church starts from the top down. The church militant should be marching in unison.