Theological error from none other than Nancy Pelosi's highly credentialed (by his organization) Canon Law expert in the Diocese of San Francisco.
“This has been the consistent teaching of the Church from the very beginning, a teaching already discernible in the natural moral law, and so a teaching from which no Catholic can dissent in good conscience,” he said.
These are the words of Nancy Pelosi's Archbishop in San Francisco. His name is Salvatore Cordileone who not long ago partnered with the Mormon Church in opposing marriage equality in the California Prop. 8 fight. He was responding to a press inquiry directed to him in the aftermath of an interview by Rep. Pelosi where she avoided taking a position on whether an unborn fetus of 20 weeks was a human being. The interview took place on January 22 in conjunction with current Republican legislation further undermining the law of the land per Roe v. Wade and the right of women to choose.
Pitted against a conservative canon law theologian, she avoided answering because as a professed Catholic and mother of five children and a lawmaker, she well understood the history of her Church as ambiguous and historically contradictory on this question. The same is true of the Church's position overall on abortion.
Canonical penalties for abortion changed over the centuries. Women (yes, only the women) convicted of abortion in the early Church were subject to exile. Then, later "Women who commit abortion before the fetus has life shall do penance for one year or for the three forty day periods or for forty days, according to the nature of the offense;...."
Later, women were excluded from communion for life; then, amended to exclusion from communion for ten years.
The penalty for murder, in contrast, was the ultimate punishment....excommunication.
Never dealt with by the Church or the good Archbishop is the biological fact that 50% of all pregnancies result in spontaneous abortions. That is, either the Catholic God allowing the forces of nature they believe he created prevail, or actual direct causal action by their Creator to initiate the abortion. Archbishop, how do you square the laws of nature with your view of "natural moral law"?
These issues never have been ruled on with so called infallibility; theologians have disagreed for centuries on both when human life is present in a fetus and whether abortion of any type is "murder." And she speaks as a lawmaker for both Catholic and believers of other faiths, or no faith in her elected position.
But, clearly she has a more informed grasp of her Church's erratic history on these issues than this highly trained theologian, who was assigned by a discredited Pope to straighten out those rebellious San Franciscans on liberalism, homosexuality and gay marriage a couple of years back.
Catholics, including authoritative theologians such as Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and several Popes including Innocent II and Gregory XIV have indeed dissented on these questions. Salvatore, indeed your Church has not been "consistent" from the very beginning as you incorrectly cite history.
Further, Salvatore, your position was not written into centuries of your Canon Law until about 100 years ago. But, also written into Canon Law of all these centuries is the Law of Primacy of Conscience. The Vatican even today has acknowledged that is does not know when the fetus becomes a person. Thus, your Law makes these matters a moral choice by the "faithful" empowered by this Law in defining legitimate laws and norms.
Nancy Pelosi and millions of other American Catholics properly exercise their right to their own conscience and moral choice on these matters. You, sir, have distorted your appointed role as teacher and shepherd of your flock into that of a bully.
Thank you leader Pelosi for not being intimidated by the bully and for taking the time and effort to understand your Church's history and their Law on matters impacting women and families worldwide, irrespective of whether they submit to his authority or prefer to have their choices governed with their own conscience.
