STATEMENT OF HIS EMINENCE, EDWARD CARDINAL EGAN CONCERNING REMARKS MADE BY THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Like many other citizens of this nation, I was shocked to learn that the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America would make the kind of statements that were made to Mr. Tom Brokaw of NBC-TV on Sunday, August 24, 2008. What the Speaker had to say about theologians and their positions regarding abortion was not only misinformed; it was also, and especially, utterly incredible in this day and age.

We are blessed in the 21st century with crystal-clear photographs and action films of the living realities within their pregnant mothers. No one with the slightest measure of integrity or honor could fail to know what these marvelous beings manifestly, clearly, and obviously are, as they smile and wave into the world outside the womb. In simplest terms, they are human beings with an inalienable right to live, a right that the Speaker of the House of Representatives is bound to defend at all costs for the most basic of ethical reasons. They are not parts of their mothers, and what they are depends not at all upon the opinions of theologians of any faith. Anyone who dares to defend that they may be legitimately killed because another human being “chooses” to do so or for any other equally ridiculous reason should not be providing leadership in a civilized democracy worthy of the name.

Edward Cardinal Egan

Archbishop of New York

August 26, 2008 

UPDATE:  Mike Allen and others interviewed Pelosi today, and she was apparently not asked about her attempt to deceive the public about the Church's position on abortion and this unprecedented criticism from American Catholic Church leaders in response.  For easy reference, here's a link to the statement blasting Pelosi from Cardinal Rigali and Bishop Lori and here's the statement from Archbishop Chaput and Bishop Conely.

It is remarkable that this story hasn't made it into the MSM --which means either the MSM doesn't pay attention to the Roman Catholic leadership or that they are covering for Pelosi and her abortion extremism, and by extension, Obama's.

UPDATE 2: Washington D.C. Archbishop Wuerl joined the condemnation of Pelosi's deception:

Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl, citing the teaching responsibility entrusted to bishops, issued a statement late Monday that read, in part: "Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable."

Pro-lifers are attempting to erect the Guiness Books of World Record's largest protest sign in Denver this week. H/T Jill Stanek.

Cardinal Justin F. Rigali, chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and Bishop William E. Lori, chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine, have issued the following statement:
Read More...

Bravo to the two senior Catholics in Denver.  Now if Speaker Pelosi's bishop in San Francisco was just as blunt, the damage done by the Speaker's deception on Meet The Press yesterday would be minimized.  For a complete account of what Archbishop Chaput --and the Roman Catholic Church-- believes, read his brand new book, Render Unto Caesar.  The full text of today's statement:

                      

 

ON THE SEPARATION OF SENSE AND STATE
A CLARIFICATION FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE CHURCH
IN NORTHERN COLORADO

To Catholics of the Archdiocese of Denver:

 

Catholic public leaders inconvenienced by the abortion debate tend to take a hard line in talking about the "separation of Church and state." But their idea of separation often seems to work one way. In fact, some officials also seem comfortable in the role of theologian. And that warrants some interest, not as a "political" issue, but as a matter of accuracy and justice.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a gifted public servant of strong convictions and many professional skills. Regrettably, knowledge of Catholic history and teaching does not seem to be one of them.

Interviewed on Meet the Press August 24, Speaker Pelosi was asked when human life begins. She said the following:

"I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time.And what I know is over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition. . . St. Augustine said at three months. We don't know. The point is, is that it shouldn't have an impact on the woman's right to choose."

Since Speaker Pelosi has, in her words, studied the issue "for a long time," she must know very well one of the premier works on the subject, Jesuit John Connery's Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective (Loyola, 1977). Here's how Connery concludes his study:

"The Christian tradition from the earliest days reveals a firm antiabortion attitude . . . The condemnation of abortion did not depend on and was not limited in any way by theories regarding the time of fetal animation. Even during the many centuries when Church penal and penitential practice was based on the theory of delayed animation, the condemnation of abortion was never affected by it. Whatever one would want to hold about the time of animation, or when the fetus became a human being in the strict sense of the term, abortion from the time of conception was considered wrong, and the time of animation was never looked on as a moral dividing line between permissible and impermissible abortion."

Or to put it in the blunter words of the great Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

"Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the right to live which God has

bestowed on this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder."

Ardent, practicing Catholics will quickly learn from the historical record that from apostolic times, the Christian tradition overwhelmingly held that abortion was grievously evil. In the absence of modern medical knowledge, some of the Early Fathers held that abortion was homicide; others that it was tantamount to homicide; and various scholars theorized about when and how the unborn child might be animated or "ensouled." But none diminished the unique evil of abortion as an attack on life itself, and the early Church closely associated abortion with infanticide. In short, from the beginning, the believing Christian community held that abortion was always, gravely wrong.

Of course, we now know with biological certainty exactly when human life begins. Thus, today's religious alibis for abortion and a so-called "right to choose" are nothing more than that - alibis that break radically with historic Christian and Catholic belief.

Abortion kills an unborn, developing human life. It is always gravely evil, and so are the evasions employed to justify it. Catholics who make excuses for it - whether they're famous or not - fool only themselves and abuse the fidelity of those Catholics who do sincerely seek to follow the Gospel and live their Catholic faith.

The duty of the Church and other religious communities is moral witness. The duty of the state and its officials is to serve the common good, which is always rooted in moral truth. A proper understanding of the "separation of Church and state" does not imply a separation of faith from political life. But of course, it's always important to know what our faith actually teaches.

Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.

Archbishop of Denver

James D. Conley

Auxiliary Bishop of Denver

(HT: Carol Liebau who discusses the whopper at Townhall's group blog.)

Last week I spent a couple of hours on air with Denver's Archbishop Charles Chaput.  Nancy Pelosi should read the archbishop's new book, Render Unto Caesar, but does anyone really believe she doesn't know she lied through her teeth on an issue central to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church.  (I'd love for readers and listeners to order copies for her offices in D.C. and San Francisco --and to look for the opportunity to put the book into her hands.) There is no doubt about what the Church teaches about the sanctity of unborn life, and it didn't begin teaching that 50 years ago.  Pelosi's attempt to cloud this issue is really despicable and deeply dishonest, a display of her fear of explaining her own position.  The worst part is that she is attempting to spread confusion --lies really-- about the Church's teaching which could mislead others who genuinely would like to know what the Church teaches about the issue.

Here's what the archbishop noted last week on my show:

HH: Now you bring up the pro-life issue, and we’re going to spend a lot of time talking about it, so here’s my first foray into it. We are talking on August the 19^th, and I expect to rebroadcast this interview in the future, so it will be on August 19^th, but it’s going to be rebroadcast again. But this is three days after a big gathering in Saddleback Valley Community Church auditorium with my friend, Rick Warren, who you may very well know as well, talked to the presidential candidates. Were you satisfied that that was a serious conversation about the life issue, Archbishop?

CC: Well you know, I didn’t hear it when it was on. I heard some of the tapes afterwards, some of the session, and I didn’t hear all of it, so my comments will be in that context. I certainly thought that Senator McCain gave a very clear answer, and I’m always grateful when people give me what they think in a direct kind of way. You know, for Senator Obama to say that it’s above his pay grade to know when we should begin to respect the human dignity of an unborn person I think is evading the question. We all have to make that decision. Every time we vote, whether to vote in favor or against pro-choice, or pro-abortion legislation, is making a decision. So I think that he’s made decisions, each one of us has to make decisions all the time in our voting. So to say it’s above our pay grade just isn’t dealing with the issue appropriately. So I hope that both sides of the issue will speak clearly and directly so that we can make decisions based on the facts. 

HH: Now I think probably the most controversial paragraph in the book, and by the way, my hat’s off to you for organizing this. You make people work to get to the controversy, because it’s in a context that has to be developed out of American history and Roman Catholic theology. But it’s on Page 229. “My friends often ask me if Catholics in genuinely good conscience can vote for a pro-choice candidate. The answer is I couldn’t. Supporting a right to choose abortion simply masks and evades what abortion really is, the deliberate killing of innocent life. I know of nothing that can morally offset that kind of evil.” Thank you for the clarity. Is that opinion widely held among the bishops, Archbishop? 

CC: Well, I would suspect that’s where most of us stand. I don’t know that they always say it in the same way I said it, but I think most of us stand there. You know, many of us are hesitant to speak very publicly on this issue, because we’re accused of partisanship or whatever. And I think bishops have to be very careful. I haven’t registered in a party, because I don’t want the people to use that as an excuse to say that I’m partisan. So I think bishops really stand in the same place, but may not articulate it the same way I did. 

- -     -   -    

HH: Archbishop, I want to go back to the abortion discussion. Quoting again from one of the later chapters in your book, “One of the pillars of Catholic thought is this – don’t deliberately kill the innocent, and don’t collude in allowing it. We sin if we support candidates because they support a false right to abortion. We sin if we support pro-choice candidates without a truly proportionate reason for doing so, that is a reason grave enough to outweigh our obligation to end the killing of the unborn. And what would a proportionate reason look like? It would be a reason we could, with an honest heart, expect the unborn victims of abortion to accept when we meet them and need to explain our actions as we someday will.” Are you aware of any such proportionate actions out there, proportionate reasons right now, Archbishop? 

CC: Well, let me give you two answers to that. You know, as I say, it’s hard for me to come to the conclusion there are proportionate reasons. But here’s a case where I’m certain there would be. If you have two candidates running for the same office, they’re the only choices, both of them are pro-choice, but one is much better on the other issues than the other. I think that you can choose the lesser of two evils with a clear conscience. You don’t have to. You can decide not to vote, or you can vote for a third person who couldn’t be elected. But in those circumstances, you would be voting for a pro-choice candidate, but not because the person is pro-choice, but because the alternative is a worse situation. I also know that, and this is the second point, I know many good Catholics who have given a lot of serious thought to the abortion issue, and will still vote for a candidate who is pro-choice. They’ll try to discourage that person from holding that position, they’ll work really hard within their party to get the party to change its platform if it’s pro-abortion. But they’ve kind of examined all the issues, and weighed them together, and still feel that in a particular situation, that the candidate that they are going to vote for who is pro-choice is a better of the two. And the Church, you know, says you can do that if you have a truly proportionate reason. And I hope they work hard at it, and I don’t always understand how they arrive at their conclusion. It’s hard to imagine in my mind anything worse than the destruction of more than a million unborn children in our country every year through abortion. But I think that sincere people really do arrive at those conclusions sometimes.  

Note how the archbishop tries to understand how a Catholic could vote for a pro-abortion rights candidate.  But there is no mistaking the centrality of the issue or where the Church stands on it.  Speaker Pelosi was being as deceptive as any public figure I have ever heard address the subject of Catholic doctrine, and the bishops should immediately issue the necessary rebuke less anyone be misled by the willful deception.

The only thing Pelosi accomplished by attempting this dishonest ruse is to return the focus to Joe Biden's extreme pro-choice record (though he fails to match that of Obama's which is the most extreme record possible given he voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.)  Biden supporters made much of his Catholic identity and roots this weekend, but passed over that once again the Dems have nominated a candidate who by definition is deeply at odds with the core teachings of his own church.  Biden is supposed to help shore up the Catholic vote, Why would Mass-attending, observant Catholics vote for someone who quite obviously rejects the Church's teachings?

Come to think of it, order a copy of Chaput's book for Slow Joe's office as well.

Obama told supporters in Davenport, Iowa that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s privileged status as a “quasi-governmental” institution allowed them to extend risky, subprime mortgages to homeowners because they operated under the assumption “the government will probably guarantee it.”

“When things go bad, they expect the taxpayers to bail them out,” the senator said, sounding as if he opposed a bailout.  

 In his very next breath, Obama promised assistance for Fannie and Freddie.

“As president, I would not allow them to collapse,” Obama said. “I would like to be able to punish them for their bad decisions but the problem is, they are too central right now as to how the housing market works.”

I just got off the phone with former Colorado Republican congressman Bob Beauprez who doesn’t think the liberalness of an Obama-Biden ticket is going to play well in his western state.

“It’s common knowledge out here Obama’s ranked as the most liberal member of the Senate by the National Journal,” Beauprez told me. “He’s [Biden] number three in the same ranking. Both of them managed to get to the left of Bernie Sanders!”

 “They make Carter-Mondale look like a couple of right-wingers,” Beauprez said.

Beauprez noted the Colorado press wasn't impressed with the Biden pick, either. "Thud is not what you want," he said noting the Rocky Mountain News's blunt editorial assessment of the Obama-Biden ticket. The former congressman said Biden, the "consummate Washington insider," undermines Obama's change message and would rile Colorado's Catholic base because he "defies the principle and doctines of the church" by supporting aborition measures in the Seante.

"If Biden does anything in Colorado, it's negative," Beauprez said."As we say out here, that dog ain't gonna hunt."

Beauprez said Bill Richardson would have helped Obama swing his state blue in November.

MR. BROKAW:  The Catholic Church at the moment feels very strongly that it...

REP. PELOSI:  I understand that.

MR. BROKAW:  ...begins at the point of conception.

REP. PELOSI:  I understand.  And this is like maybe 50 years or something like that.  So again, over the history of the church, this is an issue of controversy. 

Remarkable.  After all, I'm not even a Catholic -- much less an "ardent" one -- and yet I'm crystal clear that abortion rights and the sanctity of life haven't really been too "controversial" in any segment of the Catholic Church.  Ever.

Just in case Pelosi's interested, here is the official statement on abortion from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.  Perhaps the most relevant part is as follows:

Since its beginnings, Christianity has maintained a firm and clear teaching on the sacredness of human life. Jesus Christ emphasized this in his teaching and ministry. Abortion was rejected in the earliest known Christian manual of discipline, the Didache.

Early Church fathers likewise condemned abortion as the killing of innocent human life. A third century Father of the Church, Tertullian, called it "accelerated homicide." Early Church councils considered it one of the most serious crimes. Even during periods when Aristotle's theory of "delayed ensoulment" led Church law to assign different penalties to earlier and later abortions, abortion at any stage was still considered a grave evil.

If Nancy Pelosi is willing to push such obviously baldfaced misrepresentations of her own Church's teaching for political ends, can anything she says be believed?