Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced that “As a devout Catholic,” she felt blessed that she and her husband had five children over six years. But, she insists that it is not up to her what decisions other people should make, couching access to abortion as a health issue important especially for low-income women. Pelosi, like Joe Biden, supports getting rid of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer-funding for abortion. All of this contrary to the Catholic Church’s consistent, centuries-old opposition to the killing of innocent children in the womb by abortion. The second-century document, The Teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles by the Twelve Apostles, also called The Didache, testifies to the Church’s opposition to abortion in her earliest centuries. In 2:2 of The Didache, we read. “you shall not abort a child or commit infanticide.”

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco publicly rebuked Pelosi. In a statement given in response to Pelosi’s reference to herself as a “devout Catholic,” Cordileone said, “Let me repeat: no one can claim to be a devout Catholic and condone the killing of innocent human life, let alone have the government pay for it. The right to life is a fundamental—the most fundamental—human right, and Catholics do not oppose fundamental human rights.” 

Pelosi is part of a large group of Catholic politicians, most of them Democrats, who support and work for, often vigorously, the “right” to abortion in spite of their continuing to publicly identify as Catholic. The Catholic bishops of the United States are in the process of developing a document on “eucharistic coherence” in response to these politicians, offering guidance on the proper reception of Holy Communion, given that the Church forbids Catholics in mortal sin from receiving Holy Communion. Publicly supporting legislation, public funding of, and access to abortion is a grave moral evil for Catholics in public office who are obliged to use their public office to protect the lives of society’s most vulnerable. It’s a special sort of arrogance to claim the veneer of “devout Catholic” while continuing to support the legal killing of thousands of innocents weekly, while offering little to no support or options for their mothers to help them choose to bring their babies to term.

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.