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Correction: In my video on Nancy Pelosi I should not have neglected to mention the many great and holy nuns who served at Trinity College in DC in the past. Even during the late 50s and early 60s there were many fine and holy nuns leading students to holiness. There were however Sister Ann Gormly and Sister Margaret Claydon who seemed to have participated in the deformation of students or at heartily approved of it.

December 10, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Nancy Pelosi calls herself a ‘devout Catholic’ yet is one of the most pro-abortion politicians in America. Have you ever wondered how she got there? In this episode of The John-Henry Westen Show, I take a rather fascinating look into Nancy Pelosi’s stance on Catholicism and morality in politics. You'll learn how she got to where she is and what can and should be done about it.

Last week House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was in the news again touting her “Catholic faith.” She was asked by a reporter if she hated President Trump and she lectured the reporter about not hating anyone and even praying for the President. Have a look.

Sounds pretty Catholic. In fact, there are many Catholics who were indeed very proud of Nancy for standing up for Catholic values in that impromptu little speech.

And yet Nancy Pelosi is one of the biggest abortion-pushing politicians in America.

Pelosi boasts a 100 percent voting record from Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Rights Action League.

But more even than that, Pelosi has consistently painted her pro-abortion position as consistent with Catholic teaching, and she’s done the same with her support for same-sex ‘marriage’.

In June 2013, in response to a question from a reporter about a late-term abortion ban proposed in Congress, Pelosi said that the issue of late-term abortion is “sacred ground” for her.

Her most in-depth interview on the subject was with NBC’s Tom Brokaw in 2008 where Pelosi tried to make a theological argument about abortion being consistent with Catholic teaching. Have a look.

And she’s done the same thing with same-sex ‘marriage’. In a 2015 interview with MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts, Pelosi said that same-sex “marriage” is perfectly “consistent” with Catholic Christianity. Pelosi told Roberts she brought her grandchildren to see her receive an award from the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, to show the young children that “marriage equality is important.”

Pelosi, who described herself as a faithful Christian and “mainstream Catholic,” said her pre-adolescent grandchildren needed to see and be present at a gay and lesbian celebration in order “to give them the image that we have for all people,” meaning the image the Catholic Church has for all.

She said that same-sex marriage “is important,” and that her grandchildren “have been hearing this [message supporting gay 'marriage'] their whole life” because “they go to Catholic school.”

Pelosi said, matter-of-factly, that same-sex 'marriage' “is consistent with the dignity and worth we [Catholics] attribute to every person.”

What I found most interesting in my research was that Pelosi left clues as to how she got to where she is today and they make for a very powerful lesson.

Over the years she’s mentioned at least twice that her family was not where her pro-abortion beliefs came from. Speaking with NBC’s Chuck Todd in 2019 she said: “I have served many years in Congress with members who have not shared my very positive, my family would say ‘aggressive,’ position on promoting a woman’s right to choose.”

But Pelosi went into greater detail in an interview with the National Catholic Reporter’s Joe Feuerherd in 2003. Asked about abortion, Pelosi said, “I come myself from a family that does not share my views on choice.” Fererherd retorted, “That must make for some interesting dinner table conversations.” In part of her reply Pelosi added, “I think there are occasions where they would like me to be less visible, that they don’t like to see any disagreement between the church and any of us.”

So, if it’s not from her family, how did she get to be the pro-abortion-while-still-claiming-to-be-a-devout-Catholic Nancy Pelosi we know today?

The answer seems to be the false teaching she received at what was supposed to be a premiere Catholic college run by nuns. And as a parent that saddens me greatly. I’m saddened especially in light of these lines in Pelosi’s memoirs. “My parents didn’t raise me to be Speaker, they raised me to be holy. That was their measure of a successful child.” (Nancy Pelosi, Know Your Power, p. 27)

Indeed, it seems her parents raised her with the right morals, but her morals were corrupted by corrupt religious, who in turn were not disciplined by the hierarchy.

The first hint I heard that Pelosi might have been deformed by a false Catholic education, was in a comment of hers gushing about Pope Francis in 2013. “He’s sounding like the nuns” she said of Pope Francis’ liberal stances. Have a look.

So, what was that false Catholic education she received that so distorted the faith her family tried to pass on to her? The answer comes in a fascinating article by Kevin Carey published in 2011 in the Washington Monthly.

It’s about Trinity women’s College in Washington DC, founded by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. The article inadvertently reveals the rebellion against the Church’s teaching that the nuns lived and evidently passed on to their students. It reveals the lame attempts of Church hierarchy to correct the nuns all the while allowing them to continue to deform the faith in many young women. And finally, it reveals the disastrous consequences not only for those women, but for their children, their grandchildren and all of society.

In that article, author Kevin Carey speaks of Trinity College alumni including two of the most prominent female pro-abortion politicians in the USA. In addition to Pelosi there is also Kathleen Sebelius who after serving as the Governor of Kansas was the Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama Administration. Trinity also boasts many other women and according to Carey, “when Forbes magazine recently published its list of the 100 most powerful women in the world, only Princeton undergraduate alumnae outnumbered those of tiny, little-known Trinity College.”

The distortion of the faith these nuns passed on to their students is revealed by Carey. He notes that in 1984 two of the nuns from the College “joined twenty-three other nuns, priests, and brothers to sign a pro-choice statement that was published in the New York Times. The Vatican reacted angrily and forced all the other signers to make “public declarations of adherence to Catholic doctrine on abortion.” Only the two sisters (from Trinity College) refused. Wow.

Carey continues, “The Vatican demanded that they be dismissed from the order. The order refused that, too. After four years of stalemate, the sisters resigned to continue their work as lay members.”

And those nuns continued their rebellion until the day the article was written.

“Pelosi attended a special morning Mass in Trinity’s small stone chapel,” wrote Carey, “sitting in the front pew surrounded by her many grandchildren. Sister Claydon was in the audience. Anti-abortion protesters picketed outside. A few weeks earlier, President McGuire had preemptively called the archbishop of Washington to inform him that she had no intention of canceling the Mass.”

There were of course many more of these types of influences on Nancy Pelosi that distorted her faith including the scandalous example of Fr. Drinan, but that’s for another time.

So how can Catholics address this matter? Well, there’s a simple answer that Christ Himself recommended and has, at least since the Second Vatican Council, been for the most part ignored or disdained. It’s Church discipline. It can start with simply denying someone in public grave sin of Holy Communion after a warning but even beyond that excommunication. All for the purpose of saving the person’s soul.

In Matthew 18, Our Lord says, If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Pelosi has been warned and warned and warned for decades about her sin in supporting the killing of unborn children, a sin at least as grave as supporting racism – and imagine how fast that would have been dealt with!

In 2008, when she made those comments we heard earlier about abortion being consistent with Catholic teaching, about 26 US bishops confronted Pelosi in public statements. Shortly thereafter, in early 2009 when Pelosi was visiting the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI made a point of speaking to her about the need for her to create “a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.”

But talk, as they say, is cheap and many, including Cardinal Raymond Burke, have said over and over again that pro-abortion politicians and especially Pelosi “must be denied Holy Communion.” This is because in addition to the public scandal that it causes, it harms Nancy’s own soul. (see 1 Corinthians 11:29) And also it distorts the truth, making many think Christ’s Church is actually okay with abortion and same-sex ‘marriage’. And finally, we can see the harm it is causing also to her own children and grandchildren who are growing up with this example of false Catholicism. A faith that is not Catholic at all, it is a false Church and one that leads to eternal damnation rather than eternal life.

In 2013, Priests for Life Founder Fr. Frank Pavone wrote a public letter to Pelosi which gained media attention. In his letter, Pavone wrote: “Mrs. Pelosi, for decades you have gotten away with betraying and misrepresenting the Catholic faith as well as the responsibilities of public office. We have had enough of it. Either exercise your duties as a public servant and a Catholic, or have the honesty to formally renounce them.”

In an interview with Think Progress, Pelosi responded to Fr. Pavone’s letter saying he was being “hysterical.”  “The arrogance of it all! It’s like something ancient, medieval,” she said. She also said that while she understands what the Catholic Church teaches on abortion, “my faith isn't about what their position is.

Pelosi insisted, “My faith is very deep and has been my whole life. I love my faith and my faith has nothing to do with whoever he [Father Frank Pavone] is.”

She added, “The Church taught me as I was growing up that every person has a free will and has the responsibility to live up to a moral standard. And I respect women’s judgment and values to do that. Whether this priest thinks his judgment should be another woman’s judgment is absolutely ridiculous to me. But nonetheless it’s what they say.”

She said that her faith is “about, Christ is my savior, the church is his church, and has nothing to do with Priests for Life…”

Fr. Pavone accused Pelosi of making “a mockery of the Catholic faith and of the tens of millions of Americans who consider themselves 'practicing and respectful Catholics' and who find the killing of children — whether inside or outside the womb — reprehensible.”

“Whatever Catholic faith you claim to respect and practice, it is not the faith that the Catholic Church teaches,” he wrote. “And I speak for countless Catholics when I say that it's time for you to stop speaking as if it were.”

Will you join the LifeSite staff in praying for Nancy Pelosi’s conversion? She was deformed in the faith due to the failure to discipline wayward religious, the same kind of failure to discipline which has led to the sexual abuse crisis in the Church. Let’s pray too that the Church once again takes on the hard job of disciplining both laity and clergy recognizing such discipline as an act of love, as St. Paul says in order to save the soul.

The John-Henry Westen Show is available by video on the show’s YouTube channel and right here on my LifeSite blog.

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John-Henry is the co-founder, CEO and editor-in-chief of LifeSiteNews.com. He and his wife Dianne have eight children and they live in the Ottawa Valley in Ontario, Canada.

He has spoken at conferences and retreats, and appeared on radio and television throughout the world. John-Henry founded the Rome Life Forum, an annual strategy meeting for life, faith and family leaders worldwide. He is a board member of the John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family. He is a consultant to Canada’s largest pro-life organization Campaign Life Coalition, and serves on the executive of the Ontario branch of the organization. He has run three times for political office in the province of Ontario representing the Family Coalition Party.

John-Henry earned an MA from the University of Toronto in School and Child Clinical Psychology and an Honours BA from York University in Psychology.