Letter to the faithful on the Notification sent to Speaker Nancy Pelosi

https://sfarchdiocese.org/letter-to-the-faithful-on-the-notification-sent-to-speaker-nancy-pelosi/
My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Pope Francis has been one of the world’s most vocal advocates of human dignity in every stage and condition of life. He decries what he evocatively calls the “throwaway culture.” There can be no more extreme example of this cultural depravity than when direct attacks on human life are enshrined in a nation’s law, celebrated by society, and even paid for by the government. This is why Pope Francis, as much as any pope in living memory, has repeatedly and vividly affirmed the Church’s clear and constant teaching that abortion is a grave moral evil.

 

Good for Archbishop Cordileone. A few decades tardy, but better late than never. Let's see if President Biden's Archbishop shows the same spine.

By the way, here's another link if the one above doesn't work.

 

We'll be happy to welcome her in any of our churches.

 

It’s un-American for religious organizations to attempt to control how their members vote, or what policies elected officials will pursue. It’s also not the Speaker’s job to impose Roman Catholic dogma on the United States. We have a secular Constitution for a reason.

 

Nancy Pelosi may vote, and speak, and behave as she pleases. That has not changed. Nor could the RC church enforce dogmatically-mandated political restrictions on her even if they wanted to. But neither may Nancy Pelosi force the RC church to conform to the sacraments and dogmas of her own secular religion, including the ritual sacrifice of unborn children. She may vote as her conscience dictates -- she just may no longer do so under the (tacit) aegis of the Roman Catholic Church. And it's long past time for that. This should have been done decades ago pour encourager les autres. No more hiding under the fig leaf of "but I'm a devout Christian!" when she flouts everything that Christ actually taught.

In any age but this one, Nancy Pelosi and her ilk would have been excommunicated as incorrigible long ago.

This is not a political issue. It's church discipline. And, as I already said, long past due.

 

Very wide of the mark. Leaving the wildly inaccurate and emotional hyperbole aside - no one is “ritually sacrificing unborn children” - the simple fact is that Pelosi was singled out because she’s a public figure, not because the Roman Catholic Church is serious about enforcing ‘orthodoxy’. I don’t personally have any opinion over whether Pelosi should or should not take communion in a Catholic parish or not. I don’t care. I don’t accept Rome’s right to define dogma for all Christians nor do I agree with Catholic teaching on the subject at hand. One could nevertheless agree wholeheartedly with the bishop’s moral position and yet recognize that it is overreach to attempt to coerce an elected official to toe a particular party line based on religious dogma. It’s not something to cheer on. That’s all I’m saying.

 

Was it un-American for George Washington to declare days of fasting and imprecation to God, and daily prayers from the halls of Congress in the 1790s and 1800s?
Was it un-American for 8 of the 13 states to have established state churches into the 19th century?

 

The political left has a long history of (I think deliberate) misunderstading the whole "church and state" issue. American law restricts the Federal Government (and hence the sovereign States under the Supremacy clause) from establishing a specific religious belief system as the "official" religion of the State. That's why you don't have a Church of America in the same way you have a Church of Canada or Church of England.

As anglican74 mentioned above, many states did in fact have established churches leading up to the American Civil War, but the triumph of the Federal system and the strengthening of the Federal Government at the expense of the States led to a lot of jurisprudence from the 1870's to the 1890's on issues of religious freedom and tolerance, not to mention Federal primacy over State laws governing such things. Much more legal groundwork was laid in the 1960's during the civil-rights era for this exact thing, which is why many murders of black people during that time were prosecuted as civil rights violations at the federal level rather than murder, which is a state-level charge.

This legal framework does not prohibit the public display of religious affiliation, even by elected officials of the Federal or State governments or members of the military. However, the law does prohibit the government from preferring one religion over another in terms of public policy. By the same token, it also prevents the government from disfavoring one religion over another in terms of public policy. (This is why the state prohibitions against polygamy* are not unconstitutional -- they are not specifically targeted at Mormons or Muslims, because the restriction applies equally to all citizens, not just those of the Mormon or Muslim faith.)

There is no law that prohibits a religious organization from sanctioning a government employee or elected official who violates the rules or regulations pursuant to that religious organization, except when such sanction would violate Constitutional protections. If a Senator is a member of a book club and fails to pay his dues, he can be ejected from the club. If the Secretary of State gets into a fist-fight on the tenth green of a private course, he can be ejected from the club for violating its rules. And Nancy Pelosi may be prevented from taking Holy Communion -- or even be excommunicated for her views -- without legal recourse. Hers is a voluntary association with a non-governmental organization with its own rules and regulations. Public service does not give her any special dispensation when it comes to violating those rules.

*I might be wrong, but I don't think there are any actual Federal statues that specifically forbid polygamy, but all 50 states have laws against it.

 

No, and no one expects you should, but Nancy Pelosi certainly ought to.

 

Within certain limits, I should add. The government can and does prevent, e.g., human sacrifice (at least of those who have managed to be born, at any rate) no matter how sincerely some cult or sect may insist that it's part of their ritual practice. Even ritual animal sacrifice -- as for kosher or halal preparation -- is regulated.

 

This a simple issue to me. The Catholic Church is not trying to control her. They simply have stated what their beliefs are. They were not hard to figure out. It has been written and is part of their official teaching. The Archbishop has tried to let her know this and says that he has. She has a choice she can follow her religion or not. She chose not to. So she was excommunicated. They were not trying to control her vote. They told her that this is where we stand. If you want be united with us this is what we require. Your choice. She made her choice. They could not and did not compel anything.

 

This is just so true. The RCC has most of the attributes of a CULT. The fact that a person can't have a dissenting view and still be in good standing with their church strikes me as very totalitarian. There are probably more 'cafeteria Catholics' in the US than any other type, which means that they consider themselves Catholic but they don't believe or follow all the rules.

Prohibiting a person from partaking of the Eucharist just denies them an act of grace - how does that help anything? It all about control.

 

Like I said, it’s no concern of mine if, when, or where Speaker Pelosi takes communion. I am sure she will have no problem doing so in Washington, D.C. Of course, any organization has a right to control its own conditions for enjoying the privileges of membership. But, given who she is, a reasonable person could conclude that behind the threat of excommunication is the assumption that an elected official who happens to be Catholic should first and foremost be a delegate for the Church rather than a trustee for his or her district. Historically, that is precisely the kind of public image the Catholic Church has sought to avoid in the U.S. Constitutionally, we do not have functional representation: places are represented in our system, not institutions. I find it odd that any Protestants would be cheering this on, and thus seemingly approving the notion that the Church should play the role of the Thought Police over its members. The irony of this reversal is palpable.

 

That’s between her and her confessor, is it not? A private matter like that should not impact her ability to do her job, the essence of which is to mediate and compromise.

 

Yes, to both questions.

 

I just want to make sure I got your position right. It would be ok for the Catholic Church in your mind, if they say barred random guy on the street from Communion if they were a pro choice advocate, but since Pelosi is in congress you are against it.

 

I would think that Washington and his contemporaries understood things about the US and the Constitution better than us and it is us who have strayed

 

It always shocks me that the left thinks that complete separation from religious belief by the apparatus of the state is a desirable thing.

Many courthouses across the country still have carvings of Moses and the Ten Commandments on their buildings (in his role as a lawgiver); our founding documents are thick with religious overtones ("they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights"); every president from Washington up to JFK often used explicit Christian metaphors and actual Bible references and passages in their speeches; and even our money has "In God We Trust" printed on it to this very day.

America was created by settlers who had an explicitly Christian vision of the society they were creating. America was founded and led by people who were believers (though Thomas Jefferson is debatable and Benjamin Franklin was, if not an outright atheist, then at least what he would have called a "freethinker"). Many of the American founders were of Puritan stock (John Adams, for example). They understood that America had been settled over the previous century by people fleeing religious persecution in Europe and England. America's Constitution was structured to protect and defend the concept of "natural" (i.e., God-given) rights of each citizen.* To prevent America from devolving into tyranny, an extensive structure of checks and balances was created among the various branches of government (though that system has been terribly weakened over the decades since the New Deal and Great Society programs).

James Madison, in Federalist 51, speaks about this:

*Note that the framers recognized that Governments do not, and cannot, grant rights to citizens. The only rights a human being has are given by God himself. Governments can (and do, for political reasons) grant privileges or entitlements to citizens; and unfortunately Americans have come to think of these privileges and entitlements as "rights". This is something I wish the political left would consider more deeply: a government that has the power to grant you everything also has the power to take everything from you. Limited government isn't just some right-wing slogan; it is a concept embedded in our founding principles, because our founders knew first-hand the dangers of a government that had too much power over its people.

 

The only thing I am against is non-Catholics cheering it on. The Catholic Church is an authoritarian institution and does not acknowledge freedom of conscience. It is natural that they would single out an example of public dissent.