On Monday we posted remarks from the homily for the annual March for Life Vigil Mass held on January 28 delivered by pro-life champion Joseph F. Naumann, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, and chairman of the U.S. bishops’ conference (USCCB) pro-life committee. Archbishop Naumann was blunt in his criticisms of President Joe Biden but also encouraged us to “pray and fast that the President will cease attempting to confuse people about Catholic teaching by trampling on the sanctity of human life while presenting himself as a devout Catholic.”
I thought of that—especially the part about sowing confusion–as I listened to portions of a January 18 podcast titled “You and Me Both with Hillary Clinton.” The “Me” in this case is Hillary Clinton, a pro-abortion United Methodist, with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.), a pro-abortion Catholic.
It is impossible to exaggerate how self-important and dismissive both women are or how much they have contributed to ending the lives of over 62.5 million unborn babies. It also is next to impossible to appreciate how much they truly hate “deplorables” in general, pro-lifers in particular from just their words. You have to hear the scorn dripping from their voices to really understand.
In the podcast, they argued that pro-lifers (as Pelosi put it) “were willing to sell the whole democracy down the river for that one issue.” She went on to say, “I think that Donald Trump [was] president because of the issue of a woman’s right to choose.”
And for good measure, Pelosi added that pro-lifers’ support for President Trump “gives me great grief as a Catholic.”
Pelosi and Clinton seem to take the position that because they are mothers (and grandmothers), somehow that gives them the last—and definitive– word on abortion.
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For example, Clinton chuckled, “We will wrap up on the note, I think, of your nine grandchildren? And my three. So we have a dozen perfectly good reasons to get up every day and continue the fight for the future we want, not just for our grandkids, but really for every child to live up to his or her God-given potential. That’s what it’s all about.”
But, as one commentator observed, “Interesting Fact: It’s nearly impossible to live up to your ‘God-given potential’ when a doctor intentionally ends your life while you’re still in the womb.”
Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco, Pelosi’s own Archbishop was not happy with her comments. Here are portions of a statement Archbishop Cordileone made in response on January 21:
To begin with the obvious: Nancy Pelosi does not speak for the Catholic Church. She speaks as a high-level important government leader, and as a private citizen. And on the question of the equal dignity of human life in the womb, she also speaks in direct contradiction to a fundamental human right that Catholic teaching has consistently championed for 2,000 years.
Christians have always understood that the commandment, ‘Thou shall not kill,’ applies to all life, including life in the womb. Around the end of the first century the Letter of Barnabas states: “You shall not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shall you destroy it after it is born’ (#19). One thousand, eight hundred and sixty-five years later, the Second Vatican Council affirmed: ‘Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes’ (“Gaudium et spes,” n. 51).
Pope Francis continues this unbroken teaching. Addressing participants in the conference “Yes to Life! – Taking Care of the Precious Gift of Life in Its Frailty” on May 25, 2019, he condemned abortion in the strongest possible terms: ‘is it licit to eliminate a human life to solve a problem? … It is not licit. Never, never eliminate a human life … to solve a problem. Abortion is never the answer that women and families are looking for.’ And just yesterday (January 20, 2021) Archbishop Gomez, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, reiterated the declaration of the U.S. bishops that abortion is for Catholics the ‘preeminent priority.’ In doing so, he acted rightly and collaboratively in his role as USCCB President, and I am grateful to him for doing so.
Preeminent does not mean “only,” of course. There are certainly many evils we must confront and many goods we must pursue. …
I myself will not presume to know what was in the minds of Catholic voters when they voted for the Presidential candidate of their choice, no matter who their preferred candidate was. There are many issues of very grave moral consequence that Catholics must weigh in good conscience when they vote. But one thing is clear: No Catholic in good conscience can favor abortion. “Right to choose” is a smokescreen for perpetuating an entire industry that profits from one of the most heinous evils imaginable. Our land is soaked with the blood of the innocent, and it must stop.That is why, as Catholics, we will continue to speak out on behalf of those who have no voice to speak for themselves and reach out to, comfort and support those who are suffering the scars of the abortion experience. We will do so, until our land is finally rid of this despicable evil.
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in his National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.
