OPINION:
Are you familiar with the word “devout?” It’s most commonly used in a phrase like “She was a devout Catholic.” As a matter of fact, if you go to the dictionary and look it up, that is the very example that they use.
The definition of the word devout is “having or showing deep religious feeling or commitment.” It also has a secondary definition, “totally committed to a cause, or belief.” It isn’t partially committed, not kind of committed, but if you are devout in your belief, you are totally committed to the cause or to that belief.
I mention this because Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. She is from San Francisco, California. She is Catholic, or so she tells us. The media often refers to her as a “devout” Catholic. If we look at the definition of devout, according to Webster, she either has deep religious feelings and is committed to the cause, or she’s not considered a devout Catholic. This past Thursday, Nancy Pelosi got very angry. She was mad at the Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordelione. The Archbishop said that he’s not excited about legislation that the Democrats have put forth in Congress to try to make Abortion legal anytime, anywhere for anyone, for any reason, at any time during pregnancy.
Mr. Cordelione said this proposed legislation is nothing short of child sacrifice. He said it was clearly in reaction to the recently passed Texas Heartbeat law. If you’re not familiar with the Heartbeat Law that just passed in Texas, it says that once a baby’s heartbeat can be detected in the womb, one may no longer abort that baby.
You can no longer kill the child in the womb once that little heart is going. That means there’s a human being in the tummy. The Archbishop of San Francisco said this measure by the Democrats to codify Abortion on demand is child sacrifice.
He said it is undoubtedly the type of legislation one would expect from a devout Satanist, not from a devout Catholic, As you might imagine. Nancy Pelosi did not take kindly to this reference. This is her bishop. This is the Archbishop of San Francisco, where Nancy Pelosi is from. This is her Christian leader if she is indeed a devout Catholic, but Mrs. Pelosi said, “The archbishop of the city and I had a disagreement about who should decide this.” She continued. “I believe that God has given us free will to honor our responsibilities.” The media refers to both her and to Joe Biden as devout Catholics, but to repeat it again, the word devout means you are wholly committed to your belief and what Nancy Pelosi is saying is instead, “I know better than my archbishop as to what God’s intent is.”
Let’s take this a step further because Pope Francis is the worldwide leader of the Catholic Church. According to Catholics, the Supreme Leadership of the Bishop of Rome, commonly known as the Pope, comes from his role because he is the successor to Saint Peter, to whom Jesus said, “You are the rock on which my church will be built.”
Saint Peter was the first pope, and the line continues from there throughout time. The most current person in that line is Pope Francis. If you’re Catholic, Pope Francis is God’s chosen leader, and if Nancy Pelosi is indeed a devout Catholic, he is her Christian leader. She must believe he is God’s chosen leader. If not, perhaps she is not that strong of a believer after all.
Pope Francis recently said of Abortion, “It’s more than a problem. It is a murder.” How clear could he be? He said it was murder. “Whoever performs an abortion kills, any way you look at it.” The Pope went on and said, “Pick up any embryology textbook for medical students. By the third week after conception, all the organs are already there, all of them, even the DNA, it is human life.
Mrs. Pelosi, of course, disagrees. She knows better than the Pope regarding human life.
Nancy Pelosi, herself a mother of five, said, “For us, having a child was a complete and total blessing, which we enjoy every day of our lives, but it’s not our business how other people choose the size and timing of their family.”
Many would strongly disagree with that statement. Do you remember Scott Peterson? He was convicted of murdering his wife. What you may have forgotten is that he was charged with two murders. Do you recall why? Because his wife was pregnant at the time. He killed her. He also killed their baby. Scott Peterson chose the size and timing of his family. He is now doing time in prison on the west coast of the United States.
The Women’s Health Care Protection Act is what Congressional Democrats are calling this abortion bill. It is their attempt to overturn the different Republican legislatures in several states around the country that have passed heartbeat bills protecting children in the womb.
You can generally hear a heartbeat after being pregnant for six weeks, sometimes as soon as five weeks, but either way, you can listen to that little heartbeat. Early in my political career, I remember going to our local health center, and they brought in a woman who was incarcerated in the local jail. They brought her into the health center because she thought she was pregnant, and the county wanted to verify.
She was indeed pregnant. The county Doctor gave her a little set of headphones attached to a stethoscope, and they put the stethoscope on her belly. I was standing there. I watched this whole thing unfold. They put the stethoscope on her stomach, and they asked if she could hear that. She said, “Yes, yes, it’s a heartbeat!”
She cried when she heard that heartbeat. There was a tiny human being inside of her.
She cried, but shockingly within three minutes, she said, “All right, get rid of it.” “It” not him, not her, but it. She was initially so touched by the humanity of that heartbeat but not touched so much that she would inconvenience herself.
She called for an abortion on the spot, and I remember thinking, “Wow. How could you hear that heartbeat and then toss that knowledge aside?” This was about 1993. That heartbeat could bring her to tears, yet she would instantly discard that evidence of human life and kill it.
And that’s what Nancy Pelosi is saying is okay. The Archbishop isn’t the only one who disagrees with her. Just this past week, Pope Francis was traveling in Eastern Europe and spoke very specifically about Abortion. On the airplane, he could not have been more concise. He said, “Abortion is more than a problem. Abortion is homicide. Abortion, without being ambiguous, whoever has an abortion kills.”
“The principle is so clear,” the Pope said, “the principle is so clear, and to those who cannot understand, I would ask is it right to kill a human life to solve a problem. Scientifically it is a human life.” The Pope then used an example that he’s used many times. He asked rhetorically, “Would you hire a hitman to solve a problem?”
Nancy Pelosi can claim she’s Catholic all she wants but as long as she’s promoting that women can and should get abortions anytime right up until birth, she is clearly not following her alleged “devout” Catholic belief.
One of the opponents of the Texas Heartbeat law is the Satanic Temple. Ironically they are opposing it on the grounds of religious freedom. Their participation in the process raises an interesting point, however.
Nancy Pelosi finds herself not only angry at the Archbishop from her home diocese in San Francisco and not only in vocal disagreement with her Pope, but in this process, perhaps most shocking, Nancy Pelosi finds herself aligned with the Satanic Temple rather than with her own Catholic Church.
• Tim Constantine is a columnist for The Washington Times and hosts “The Capitol Hill Show” podcast every week from Washington, D.C.
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