[J.P.’s Moment of Common Sense on Broad View, KRNG 101.3 FM Reno. Listen live Saturdays at 11:00 AM Pacific Time.]

In case you missed it, on Thursday Nancy Pelosi used the Roman Catholic Church as cover for her rabidly pro-abortion position in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Specifically, she called herself a “practicing and respectful Catholic.”  The word “respectful” in that description is debatable but unfortunately the word “practicing” is accurate and the Catholic Church must bear the blame.

For decades we’ve watched American bishops pussyfoot around the most important moral issues of the modern world and Pelosi’s performance Thursday demonstrates how much damage their pussyfooting does.  The former Speaker of the House, like other liberal politicians, uses her standing as a practicing Catholic to defend and promote practices which defy Catholic doctrine—her Catholicism is used as a weapon to undermine the morality for which the church supposedly stands.

Pelosi was fielding a question about a House bill—H.R. 1797—introduced by Rep. Trent Franks from Arizona in response to the horrific things we learned about the abortion business from the Kermit Gosnell trial.  Testimony during that trial described living babies left to die in despicable conditions, sometimes left to swim for their lives in toilets, sometimes kicking and squirming untended amid medical waste on a table until Dr. Gosnell came to callously snip their spinal cords with a pair of scissors.  The District of Columbia is the only political area the federal legislature controls directly so H.R. 1797 makes abortion after twenty weeks illegal in the District of Columbia.  [Note: subsequent to its original introduction, H.R. 1797 was amended to cover the entire country.]

Science has discovered many things since 1973 when Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in the United States.  One thing we’ve learned is that after twenty weeks unborn babies can feel pain, just like you and me.  So ripping open their neck and snipping their spinal cord is unpleasant, as is pulling them out of the birth canal feet first, stopping them with their head still undelivered, and sucking their brains out with a vacuum.  Trent Franks’ bill simply recognizes what we know about the ability of unborn babies to feel pain and makes it illegal to hurt them.

Science has also discovered that after twenty weeks babies can survive outside the womb so H.R. 1797 is a combination of common sense and basic human decency.  Since these are viable human beings, they deserve rights of their own including legal protection from killers.

Dr. Gosnell was convicted of murder for killing three babies born alive during abortion procedures.  The three babies were twenty three, twenty four, and twenty five weeks old.  Here is the specific question Nancy Pelosi was asked Thursday by a reporter for The Weekly Standard:

“Madam Leader, you mentioned the bill that passed out of the House Judiciary committee.  Members who have proposed that bill have done that in the wake of this murder trial in Philadelphia.  They argue that there really isn’t much of a moral difference between what someone like Dr. Kermit Gosnell did to infants born at 23, 24, 25 weeks into pregnancy, and what can happen [legally] at a clinic down the road in Maryland where a doctor says that he’ll perform elective abortions 28 weeks into pregnancy.  So the question I have for you is what is the moral difference between what Dr. Gosnell did to a baby born alive at 23 weeks and aborting [the same baby] moments before birth?”

The first thing Pelosi did was mock the reporter for asking the question, then she proceeded to lie about the content of the bill, then she invoked her Catholicism to give herself cover for a morally untenable position.

At some point the Catholic Church must remove that cover and let these politicians scurry under some other rock.  It’s fine and dandy for the Catholic Church to issue proclamations opposing abortion but when unrepentant sinners who defy the church’s position on the sanctity of life are allowed to receive communion at Sunday mass and call themselves “practicing Catholics” during press conferences, those proclamations are worthless.

Joe Biden is another one.  Like Pelosi, there’s been discussion over the years about whether he should be denied communion at mass or even excommunicated because of his pro-abortion activities.  The bishop of Biden’s hometown in Pennsylvania said Biden would be refused communion there but his current diocese in Delaware waffled.  It’s not a question of being a sinner—it’s fundamental to Christianity that we are all sinners—but a matter of being unrepentant.  Catholics are not supposed to take communion unless they are reconciled with the Lord, which by Catholic definition Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden are not.

There was a moment of hope for pro-lifers in May when the new Pope implied in a letter to Argentinean bishops that pro-abortion politicians are ineligible for communion, a position he’s expressed before, but when Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden traveled to Rome in March they received communion at a papal mass presided over by Pope Francis himself.  Clearly, Pelosi and Biden traveling to Rome for a mass is their way of thumbing their noses at the Catholic Church in general and the new Pope in particular.  “We dare you,” they are saying, “we dare you to deny us communion.”

It is, in fact, time for the Pope and American bishops to dare.  There’s plenty of moral ambiguity in the secular world—we don’t need that kind of crap from the Church.

That’s... today’s dose of common sense.

“To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice.” —Aristotle

“His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay...  And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.” —Daniel 2:33 and Daniel 2:42

From Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA        Tweet

June 22, 2013 - There was a mother on the news the other day, her father (her child's grandfather) had been shot shielding his grandson from a stray bullet from a drive by shooting. She said something that stood out to me, she said "Our young people today, they have no value for life." Her eyes showed something that many people's lack, they showed deep sorrow for our youth. Imagine how this next generation will view this world, and the generations to follow. Look at their leaders, their role-models, their churches. All of them send the same message that life is of no value. The silence of the church sends the same message. The largest, most powerful church in the world, has been silent on many of the most important issues for such a long period of time under guise of being loving and tolerant to all. It's time to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, as is commanded in the Bible. It's time for them to re-evaluate the difference between worldly love and biblical love. – Samantha, Michigan

June 16, 2013 - More disgusting than the trial testimony about what happened in the Gosnell abortion office was the media's refusal to adequately cover the story. These were the worst inhumanities since Nazi Germany and the media pretty much ignored the whole mess. – Sheila, Missouri

June 16, 2013 - Pelosi’s anger at the question is a telltale sign of a guilty conscience. I doubt she can even figure this out. – MDLION, IHTM

June 15, 2013 - .... Nancy Pelosi calls herself a "practicing" Catholic .... You'd reckon that by now (for Goodness knows she's already older than dirt) she'd have practiced enough and have become a Journeyman -- or even perhaps a Tradesman -- Catholic? AS well, if he's allowing her to partake of The Host, might her Bishop? – Brian A., Michigan