“She never gets one Catholic fact right”
Pelosi admits she’s been counseled by archbishop and lobbied by hierarchy – but won’t change her mind on abortion, other moral issues

In an interview with Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift published on the magazine’s website on Dec. 21 and in the print edition dated today, Pelosi said, “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 practically mourn this difference of opinion because 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.”

Asked Clift: “Is it difficult for you to reconcile your faith with the role you have in public life?” Pelosi responded, “You know, I had five children in six years. The day I brought my fifth baby home, that week my daughter turned 6. So I appreciate and value all that they want to talk about in terms of family and the rest. When I speak to my archbishop in San Francisco and his role is to try to change my mind on the subject, well then he is exercising his pastoral duty to me as one of his flock. When they call me on the phone here to talk about, or come to see me about an issue, that's a different story. Then they are advocates, and I am a public official, and I have a different responsibility.”

Pelosi's Catholic-lite construct here suggests that free will means the ability to judge what is right and wrong, with each person's conscience being the final arbiter. Coherency in her concept of Catholic teaching would mean legalizing rape and murder and allowing each person to choose and then take responsibility for his or her own actions. More than the far left liberal that many claim her to be, Pelosi seems to favor anarchy.

Had Pelosi chosen to do a minimum of research before speaking, she might have consulted the users' manual for the Catholic Church, the Catechism, which some American bishop or other must have sent her as a stocking-stuffer this year. There our aspiring theologian would have found a different definition. Freedom, according to the Catholic Church, (CCC article 3) is the person's ability to choose between good and evil. He can choose to do something good or something evil but he cannot choose to make evil good. To take responsibility for one's actions is to recognize that one has chosen evil and to accept the consequences both in this world and the next.

The position of the Catholic Church is that abortion, the taking of an innocent human life, is intrinsically evil.

How can this woman possibly identify herself as Catholic with a strait face?" (Botox?)

Bishop Vasa Affirms Church’s Use of Excommunication

BAKER, Oregon, January 7, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Bishop Robert Vasa of Baker Oregon has written a column in the diocesan Catholic newspaper defending the Catholic Church’s teaching on and use of excommunication.

The article by the outspoken and deeply pro-life bishop aims to show that the practice is motivated by mercy and charity, and that the bishops who resort to its use are not “tyrannical power mongers,” contrary to the typical mainstream media treatment of the subject.

Rather, he explains that the first purpose of excommunication is for the good of the person being excommunicated. “It is intended primarily as a means of getting the person who is in grave error to recognize the depth of his error and repent,” says Vasa.

Vasa says that the declaration itself does not cause the excommunication, but rather, by excommunicating somebody, the bishop “only declares that the person is excommunicated by virtue of the person’s own actions. The actions and words, contrary to faith and morals, are what excommunicate.”

In response, Niederauer said that "embodied in that statement are some fundamental misconceptions about Catholic teaching on human freedom" - misconceptions he noted "are widespread both within the Catholic community and beyond."

"Human freedom does not legitimate bad moral choices, nor does it justify a stance that all moral choices are good if they are free: 'The exercise of freedom does not imply a right to say or do everything,'" wrote the archbishop, citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

"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," he continued.

"Freedom of will is the capacity to act with moral responsibility; it is not the ability to determine arbitrarily what constitutes moral right."

"While we deeply respect the freedom of our fellow citizens," Niederauer concluded, "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."

Life Site News