It finally happened.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s bishop has barred her from receiving Holy Communion because of her efforts to enshrine abortion in U.S. law through legislation she shepherded through the House of Representatives. Finally, after years and years of ensuring that Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider receives over a half-billion dollars ANNUALLY from the Federal Government, Archbishop Cordileone has applied a medicinal course of action. Predictably, many are up in arms over this perceived, “punishment.”
Let’s dig deeper.
This week I saw two images that I share here in juxtaposition. In one, Nancy Pelosi led a rally vowing to do all in her power to enshrine Abortion in American Law. VOWED. Right hand raised in defiant clenched fist against scores of millions she would see aborted in the coming decades, just as the 62 million aborted over the past fifty years–millions of whose demise she secured funding for.
And then there was the nursing school pinning ceremony and Florence Nightingale Pledge taken by former student and good friend, Laura, pictured above. A young Catholic woman, magna cum laude theology and philosophy graduate, former contemplative religious, now a newly minted Registered Nurse set to pursue graduate studies in midwifery– with right hand raised in a gentle open palm, ready to receive life into the world, and reciting the following oath, not with Pelosiesque anger and defiance, but with love and earnest sincerity:
“I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly, to pass my life in purity and to practice my profession faithfully. I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous, and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug...”
It goes on from there.
Two Catholic women. One lost beyond measure and neither deserving of Eucharist, as none of us is. But one of these women, 82 years old, has raised her right hand in a clenched fist and sworn a diabolical oath formed in the furnace of Hell to ensure that millions more babies will be slaughtered in what is sure to be her Congressional swan song. The other Catholic woman has engaged years of study in theology and philosophy, and took two tough courses in biology taught by me in undergrad as the base of her bioethics studies. She has furthered all of that in contemplative religious life, an accelerated nursing program, accelerated RN to BSN program, and now has her sights set on doctoral studies in midwifery. By the time she’s done, she’ll have almost fifteen years of higher education and six degrees, all in the pursuit of not just being a clinician, but a Catholic clinician who abides the highest-ever articulated code of morality and bioethics: that of the Catholic Church.
Archbishop Cordileone knows physicians and nurses like Laura. He sees the life that the Eucharist gives them and the fruit that it bears in their lives, and he sees Pelosi’s self-delusion, diabolical oath-taking, and venomous spirit, and he sees the sands in her life’s hourglass running out. So, he took medicinal action for the sake of her soul.
It’s not a cause for cheering or gloating.
This week I saw Pelosi in juxtaposition to the kind of daughter God is STILL calling her to be. She could kill all pro-abortion legislation in the House if she so chooses.
But her clenched right fist stands in stark contrast to a young nurse’s open right hand swearing before God to pass her life in purity, practice her profession faithfully, and to eschew all evil in her profession. The contrast should cause us to tremble with fear for Pelosi, for it shows how far she has fallen. It should occasion in us prayers for her conversion.
Pray for them both.
Pray for our bishops.
Pray for women in crisis pregnancies.
Coming Home 