Nancy Pelosi is not the good Catholic she says she is | Opinion
On her way out of her weekly news conference recently, Nancy Pelosi was asked by James Rosen of Sinclair Broadcast Group whether she hated President Trump. Rosen was referencing comments by Rep. Doug Collins, R-Georgia, who’d earlier suggested that the Democrats were impeaching the president because they hate him.
Pelosi, who had been walking away from the podium, exploded. She pointed a finger at Rosen and said, “I don’t hate anybody. I was raised in a Catholic house. We don’t hate anybody.”
Then she added, “And as a Catholic, I resent your using the word ‘hate’ in a sentence that addresses me. I pray for the president all the time. So don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that.”
I watched the exchange between Pelosi and Rosen with pride, amusement, astonishment and, ultimately, anger.
It may surprise some, but I was proud of this woman, even though I reject her politics and question her values. I have to admire anyone who is gutsy enough to say “don’t mess with me” to a room of reporters. Plus, this woman from Baltimore is — no one can deny — fierce. She reminds me a bit of my own mother (but not as nice).
But I was amused because of Pelosi’s idea that Catholics don’t hate anyone. As a Catholic, I can assure you that Pelosi does not speak for me, because I hate a lot of people, including some of the folks currently in Congress with the initials AOC.
While I am certain that Pelosi believes that her heart is bursting at the seams just like the Grinch after his conversion, her actions do not show it. Father Joe Zaleski, an archdiocesan priest who appeared on my radio show last week, observed: “It is the church’s teaching that we should not hate . . . (but) look at what she said, you know, ‘I was raised in a Catholic house not to hate,’ but then she calls (Trump) a coward, then she calls him memes . . . She says she prays for the president but, I’m not so sure I believe that.”
My astonishment stemmed from the fact that Pelosi would even make an issue of her faith when the reporter was simply asking whether she agreed with a fellow legislator’s comments. To turn a question about politics into a referendum on religion was, frankly, weird.
But my overriding emotion triggered by Pelosi’s statement was profound anger. No one should try to hide behind a religion when they have spent most of their professional lives misrepresenting, as Pelosi has done through her passionate commitment to supporting abortion.
In a “Meet the Press” interview in 2008, Pelosi said that, “As an ardent, practicing Catholic, (abortion) is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition.” A slew of bishops had to correct her.
In 2013, she opposed a bill that would have banned all abortions after 20 weeks and she is not a fan of the Hyde Amendment. She has even stated that opposing abortion is not required of Catholics.
For Pelosi to use her supposed Catholicism as a shield is unacceptable. As Matthew 7:16 notes, “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” Which means, if you have to tell people what a good Catholic you are, don’t bother.
Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer and columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News.
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