Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday admonished visiting US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic who advocates abortion rights, that “all Catholics” should uphold the Church’s teachings on life.
Benedict “took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death,” the Vatican said in a statement.
These “enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists as well as those responsible for the common good of society to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development,” the statement said.
Pelosi, the highest-ranking US official to see the pope since President Barack Obama took office last month, describes herself as an “ardent” Catholic while advocating reproductive rights.
The top lawmaker drew fire from the US Catholic Church last August after she appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” when, responding to a question about when human life begins from anchor Tom Brokaw, she said: “The doctors of the Church have not been able to make that definition… We don’t know.”
She added: “The point is, is that it shouldn’t have an impact on the woman’s right to choose.”
Cardinal Edward Egan of New York expressed “shock” over the comments, saying, “What the speaker had to say about theologians and their positions regarding abortion was not only misinformed; it was also, and especially, utterly incredible in this day and age.”
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