Shea and Pelosi: Pro-Abort Catholics Stick Together

Mark Shea is outraged that being one of the foremost advocates of abortion in the country is preventing Nancy Pelosi from receiving Communion:

Given that Pelosi performs no abortions herself, what exactly is she guilty of (beyond thoughtcrime) that literally millions of other Catholics are not equally guilty of in thinking that criminalizing abortion is a bad, counter-productive idea and that the real way to reduce it is to attack demand? Having a reluctance to force people to be arrested for something only 13% of Americans want to arrest them for?

Go here to read the rest.  Let’s take the above statement a good deal more seriously than Shea obviously intends it to be taken.  Throughout her political career in Congress Pelosi has been an advocate for abortion.  This is what Pelosi supports:

In May, House Democrats reintroduced the so-called Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), purportedly to prepare for such a future, though it would go much further than granting the tenets of Roe statutory legitimacy.

The legislation, which has been repeatedly introduced over the past several years without being acted upon, establishes a federal statutory right to perform and obtain abortions, including after fetal viability (under the broad cover of “health”), and specifically forbids states from subjecting abortion to ultrasound requirements, mandatory waiting periods, informed-consent requirements, and other health and safety regulations, such as admitting privileges.

The WHPA also protects so-called “webcam” abortions (i.e., dispensing abortion pills without an in-person doctor’s visit), forbids banning abortions on the basis of a baby’s race, sex, or disability, and forbids banning particular techniques such as dilation and evacuation (D&E) procedures, better known as “dismemberment” abortions because they entail literally ripping unborn babies apart in the womb, then removing them from the uterus limb by limb.

Go here to read the rest.  Pelosi also supports tax payer funding of abortions, banning conscience protections for doctors and nurses who object to abortion, and making religious groups pay insurance premiums for the performance of abortions.  There is not a single pro-abort policy proposal introduced into Congress which she has opposed.

In 2004 Cardinal Ratzinger addressed the issue of pro-abort Catholic politicians:

5. Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person’s formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.

6. When “these precautionary measures have not had their effect or in which they were not possible,” and the person in question, with obstinate persistence, still presents himself to receive the Holy Eucharist, “the minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it” (cf. Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts Declaration “Holy Communion and Divorced, Civilly Remarried Catholics” [2002], nos. 3-4). This decision, properly speaking, is not a sanction or a penalty. Nor is the minister of Holy Communion passing judgement on the person’s subjective guilt, but rather is reacting to the person’s public unworthiness to receive Holy Communion due to an objective situation of sin.

Go here to read the rest.

Mark might wish to recall this passage in the Catechism:

2273 The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:

“The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being’s right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death.”

“The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child’s rights.”

Shea calls people to his political right anti-Christs. I can’t imagine the actual anti-Christ not being pro-abortion.