The Time Has Come...to Excommunicate Nancy Pelosi. Biden next?

By Kathleen Gilbert
WASHINGTON, D.C, February 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) -

Reports have surfaced that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a self-avowed "Catholic" adamant abortion supporter, intends to head a delegation to Euope that will meet with Pope Benedict XVI.
Today the Drudge Report headlined a report by Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) on Houston's KSEV radio that Pelosi hopes to pass the federal economic stimulus bill in time for her join the group, which reportedly leaves Friday evening.
According to Il Tempo, Pelosi will arrive in Rome Sunday afternoon, her first visit to the city since becoming Speaker of the House. It has not been determined when Ms. Pelosi plans to meet the Pope.
Speaker Pelosi has drawn severe criticism from Catholic leaders for her misrepresentation of Catholic doctrine in light of her extreme pro-abortion position.
In a Meet the Press appearance last August, Pelosi justified her support for abortion despite professing Catholicism by saying that "the doctors of the Church haven't been able to make that definition" on whether life begins at conception.
"The point is, is that it shouldn't have an impact on the woman's right to choose," she continued. "This isn't about abortion on demand, it's about a careful, careful consideration of all factors and - to - that a woman has to make with her doctor and her god."
In September Pelosi's bishop, Archbishop Niederauer of San Francisco, invited her to discuss witih him the abortion issue. Pelosi stated she would "welcome the opportunity," but there is no report of Pelosi having yet scheduled a meeting with the archbishop.
Fr. Tom Euteneuer, president of Human Life International (HLI), told LifeSiteNews.com that HLI will be briefing the Vatican "so they are aware of her dismal record on life issues.
"It is our hope that the Holy Father will not grant the floundering Speaker of the House what she surely wants and expects, a quick and valuable photo-op, but will rather give her a stern lecture on contraception and abortion and let her know that her eternal salvation is in danger," said Fr. Euteneuer.
"Further, this would be the perfect opportunity to formally excommunicate the Speaker, as she has done everything a public official possibly can to declare her lack of communion with the Holy Father and the Roman Catholic Church on every conceivable issue."

Vatican Official: Bishops Have no Choice But to Refuse Communion to Pro-Abort Politicians

By Hilary White
ROME, January 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com)

Archbishop Raymond Burke, in an exclusive interview last week, told LifeSiteNews.com that the issue of pro-abortion politicians continuing to receive Holy Communion is still one of major concern and that it is the duty of bishops to ensure that they are refused.
He told LifeSiteNews.com, "I don't understand the continual debate that goes on about it. There's not a question that a Catholic who publicly, and after admonition, supports pro-abortion legislation is not to receive Holy Communion and is not to be given Holy Communion."
"The Church's law is very clear," said Archbishop Burke, who was appointed last year by Pope Benedict XVI as the head of the Church's highest court, the Apostolic Signatura. "The person who persists publicly in grave sin is to be denied Holy Communion, and it [Canon Law] doesn't say that the bishop shall decide this. It's an absolute."
Among the US bishops directly to address the issue, Archbishop Burke was one of around a dozen who vigorously supported a directive of the Vatican that said pro-abortion Catholic politicians "must be refused" Holy Communion if they attempt to receive at Mass. Others have refused to abide by the Vatican instruction and the Church's own Code of Canon Law, saying they would rather focus on "education" of such politicians.
Archbishop Burke called "nonsense" the accusation, regularly made by some bishops, that refusing Holy Communion "makes the Communion rail a [political] battle ground". In fact, he said, the precise opposite is true. The politician who insists on being seen receiving Holy Communion, despite his opposition to the Church's central teachings, is using that reception for political leverage.
In 2004, when self-proclaimed Catholic and candidate for the Democrat party, Sen. John Kerry, was frequently photographed receiving Holy Communion despite his vigorous support of abortion, the US Bishops Conference issued a document which said only that it is up to individual bishops whether to implement the Church's code of Canon Law and refuse Communion. The issue has remained prominent with the appointment of Joe Biden, another pro-abortion Catholic politician, as Vice President of the United States of America.
Archbishop Burke recalled previous experiences with Kerry, pointing to the several occasions when the senator was pictured in Time magazine receiving Communion from Papal representatives at various public events. Burke said that it is clear that Kerry was using his reception of Holy Communion to send a message.
"He wants to not only receive Holy Communion from a bishop but from the papal representative. I think that's what his point was. Get it in Time magazine, so people read it and say to themselves, 'He must be in good standing'."
"What are they doing? They're using the Eucharist as a political tool."
In refusing, far from politicising the Eucharist, the Church is returning the matter to its religious reality. The most important reasons to refuse, he said, are pastoral and religious in nature.
"The Holy Eucharist, the most sacred reality of our life in the Church, has to be protected against sacrilege. At the same time, individuals have to be protected for the sake of their own salvation from committing one of the gravest sins, namely to receive Holy Communion unworthily."
Archbishop Burke also dismissed the commonly proffered excuse that such politicians need more "education". Speaking from his own direct experience, he said that Catholic politicians who are informed by their pastors or bishops that their positions in support of pro-abortion legislation makes it impossible for them to receive Holy Communion, "I've always found that they don't come forward."
"When you talk to these people, they know," he said. "They know what they're doing is very wrong. They have to answer to God for that, but why through our pastoral negligence add on to that, that they have to answer to God for who knows how many unworthy receptions of Holy Communion?"
Archbishop Burke said that the issue had been debated enough. He rejected the idea that the matter should be left to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, saying the Conference has no authority in the matter. "This is a law of the universal Church and it should be applied."
"I think this argument too is being used by people who don't want to confront the issue, this whole 'wait 'til the Conference decides'...well the Conference has been discussing this since at least 2004. And nothing happens."
When asked what the solution was, he responded, "Individual bishops and priests simply have to do their duty. They have to confront politicians, Catholic politicians, who are sinning gravely and publicly in this regard. And that's their duty.
"And if they carry it out, not only can they not be reproached for that, but they should be praised for confronting this situation."