I was reading a posting on a Catholic blog regarding our Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and her continuing habit of misrepresenting Catholic theology. You see, Ms. Pelosi has been very public in her statements in support of abortion and saying that this is not necessarily in conflict with Christ's teachings through his Holy Catholic Church.Needless to say that is unequivocally false and Ms. Pelosi knows it! Evidently she has had multiple conversations with the bishop of her diocese on the subject and yet continues to hold firm to her position.
The Catholic blog I was reading stated that in such a case excommunication was probably not in order.
First, let me digress a moment and say what excommunication is. Excommunication is done so that a parishioner is no longer allowed to partake of the sacrament of the Eucharist... Holy Communion. It does not mean that they are kicked out of the church, as everyone has a right to enter God's house and thereby hopefully repent of their sins... especially those that have been excommunicated.
And that gets to the point of excommunication. It is up to the bishop of each particular diocese to choose whether to excommunicate a parishioner and this is never done for light reasons as it is indeed the most serious penalty the Church can impose. For Catholics this means that an excommunicated member would no longer be able to partake of the sacrament of the Eucharist and receive the actual presence of our Lord in doing so.
A Bishop is supposed to use excommunication only as a last resort if he thinks by doing so it will serve as a wake up call and bring the straying parishioner back into the faith in accordance with Christ's teachings. If, by excommunication, it would only serve to drive the person in question further astray, then the penalty should not be used.
This is where I have issues with this. Perhaps I am a bad Catholic or perhaps I simply am still too ignorant of all of the aspects thereof, but I find that excommunication for someone such as Nancy Pelosi is indeed in order here.
Ms. Pelosi, in light of her status, power, and access to the bully pulpit, has incredible power to persuade people. When she knowingly espouses an evil as acceptable and claims that it is not in conflict with Catholic teaching, she is committing an egregious sin.
How many cafeteria Catholics, luke-warm Christians, or those that are ignorant of Christ's teachings have justified supporting or even getting an abortion because of Pelosi's public statements?
If her Bishop were to excommunicate her, this would show the people across our nation that Pelosi is indeed wrong. I would hope that this would bring her back into the fold of the faith, but even if not, for the Catholic church to stand by and not admonish her severely and publicly only serves for the Church to be complicit in this act of evil in my opinion.
Finally, I do not hate those that seek or have had abortions. I rather feel profoundly sorry for them and pray for them. I suspect that most people having had abortions are often conflicted and troubled for the remainder of their lives for this act. I shudder at those with the lack of conscience that are not troubled by this.
That being said, it is our duty as human beings, and certainly as Christians, to protect innocent unborn life and by allowing Nancy Pelosi to continue to spout her support of abortion, and then have the audacity to attribute it as being permissible under the Catholic faith, well I think the time has long come for the excommunication of our Speaker of the House. One would hope this happens soon so that more evil can not be promulgated under the false notion of being permissible by Christ's own church.
