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Friday March 19, 2010


Pelosi Invokes ‘St. Joseph the Worker’ to Pass Pro-Abortion Health Bill

By Kathleen Gilbert

WASHINGTON, DC, March 19, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – On the solemn Catholic feast of one of the most prestigious patron saints of unborn children, St. Joseph, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has invoked the husband of Mary and the stepfather of Jesus to help pass the abortion-laden health care bill.

“Today is the feast of St. Joseph the Worker,” Pelosi told reporters Friday on Capitol Hill. “It’s a day where we remember and pray to St. Joseph to benefit the workers of America, and that’s exactly what our health care bill will do.”

However, Catholic commentators quickly pointed out that Pelosi’s Catholic pitch was less than pitch-perfect: March 19 is actually the Catholic feast of St. Joseph, husband of Mary, and not the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, which takes place on May 1.

AmericanPapist blogger Thomas Peters wrote that, “When I first heard about this I thought it was a joke. But Nancy Pelosi’s callous way of twisting her faith to suit her politics is beyond parody.”

As more pseudo-Catholic organizations voice support for the health care bill, the Obama administration has jumped at the chance to win a “Catholic” endorsement for the bill in the hope of persuading conservative Democrats in the House to vote the measure through. Taking up that line, Pelosi noted that she was pleased “that we’ve got a letter representing 60 leaders of religious sisters” pushing the bill.

“Every order that you can think of was there saying that they wanted us to pass this life-affirming legislation,” she claimed.

Network, a social justice lobby of religious sisters, earlier this week joined the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in urging support for the bill as “the REAL pro-life stance.” Since then, however, a coalition of traditional nuns have rushed to back the USCCB’s condemnation of the anti-life bill, which all major pro-life organizations have deemed completely unacceptable on the life issues.

In addition, a quickly-growing number of bishops have individually issued statements warning their flock not to be “fooled” by the left-wing religious sisters’ endorsement.

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