The video below is almost two years old and I recall hearing something of this story then, but I have never seen the full video. I remember only hearing a grainy recording and so it made less impact. But in this video two statements by Mrs. Pelosi are juxtaposed and the impact is stronger than the story I heard back then.
In the first half of the video, Minority Leader of the House, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi goes on at some length about the Word becoming flesh. She sort of goes into preacher mode and I get the feeling that she is suddenly quite uncomfortable with where she finds herself. Suddenly a woman who is not unaccustomed to public speaking becomes slow and halting and rather grasping for words. But the gist of her comment is this:
When people ask me about my word, I say it is the Word. The Word became flesh and that is beautiful. And we need to give voice the Word in terms of Public Policy.
She goes so far as to say that we are going to answer to God for whether we do this or not.
OK, I am with you Mrs. Pelosi. The Scriptures should surely inform public policy. But I want to add immediately that I’d like to see the unabridged version of Scripture used. Care for the poor, the immigrant, the prisoner, the disadvantaged, all to be sure. But also the unborn. And while we’re at it, there are a few teachings about homosexual activity, and the sacredness of traditional marriage, and more than a few comeuppances to people in power. We could go on but you get the point.
But wowsa! Talk about setting yourself up for a doozy of a followup question. The Word made Flesh…are you really sure you want to go down that road with your pro-abortion stance?
Perhaps this explains her rather sudden stammering and searching for words. You can almost see the gears turning in her head, and the discomfort on her face.
Sure enough the question comes later. In the second half of the video the reporter asks in effect,
Mrs. Pelosi at a community conference, you have remarked how the Word becoming flesh should be reflected public policy. Can you state when the Word became flesh? At the annunciation or at the birth?
Mrs. Pelosi’s answer indicates a sudden shift away from the notion that faith should be discussed in public or affect public policy. She consigns any such discussion to the closed doors of a Church. So much for the Word becoming flesh being reflected in public policy. Her exact quote is:
Whatever it [i.e. the Word made Flesh] was, we bow our heads when we talk about it in Church and that’s where I’d like to talk about that.
Hmm… So in one public setting, at a community conference, she gets to wax eloquent about the Word made flesh and even with the fire of preacher warns us of judgment day, if we don’t abide by the vision. In the another public setting she dismisses it as a topic unfit for a setting outside the Church.
A word about this video. I do not personally care for the subtext “Pelosi eats her words in xx Seconds.” In the first place, though I vigorously disagree with Mrs. Pelosi on most things, I consider it disrespectful to refer to public officials merely by their last name. This is done a lot today even at the presidential level, Bush this…. Obama that. Public officials, even those with whom we have vigorous disagreement, should be called either by their title, their full name or by the prefix Mr., Mrs., or Ms.
Further I don’t know if eating her words is an appropriate expression. It is too gleeful for a tragic situation. Mrs. Pelosi is tragically misled on the question of abortion and other matters of the faith. To the degree that she has voted to fund abortion or advocated for such funding she is guilty of at least material cooperation in abortion. Gleeful attitudes, while understandable for those who have been in the fight so long, are not the right attitude. Prayerful hope that the reporter’s question may have sparked her conscience is better, and prayer for a conversion of mind and heart in this matter is best.
With that in mind, here is the video. I beg your pardon if this is old news for you. But I missed it, and thus suspect others did too.
By the way, in the comments let’s prescind from the question of denial of communion to pro-abortion Pols. It’s above our pay grade and there’s nothing we can do about it. Leave it to the bishops, and/or send your remarks directly to them. I am only a pope…err… a Msgr. Pope.
She is a very confused person and a very unfaithful. If i am an American, i will never never give my precious & sacred vote for her. I don’t want to place a person like her. She will give America a dirty Public Policy and a destroy life in the process with her gang mates. And the sad reality is, she will bring Americans to hell. Let us pray for her conversion just the way Saul (the St. Paul) had it.
Msgr – A minor point of correction. In the first half of the video, Nancy Pelosi was not Minority Leader, but was Speaker (May 6, 2010). I think a key problem with political participants – both office holders as well as supporters/voters – both liberals/Democrats as well as conservatives/Republicans – is that they constantly confuse the ends with the means. God, Christ, Heaven are the ends; the Gospels and following our Lord are the means. Politics is only secondary but many treat it as the ends (or as Baal, depending on their “enthusiasm”) and treat the Gospels as the means to support those ends. We’ve seen a lot of scripture quotations to support political positions over the past few weeks, especially from the President. “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all filthiness.”
“For what does it profit a woman to gain the whole House of Representatives world and forfeit her soul?”
Greg V. – That’s very good. How about:
“O generation of vipers, how can you speak good things, whereas you are evil? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” (Mt 12:34);
and one of my all-time favorites
“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof.” (Jn 8:44)
This video troubles me because it seems that Ms. Peolis really does know the Truth and in the second part seems trapped by her public position and her political aspirations–who of us does not get caught in that bind, albeit less spectacularly than she is–from time to time? Living the truth is so much harder than just knowing it on an intellectual basis and the temptation to separate thought from life is strong in all of us. I see not just embarrasment at having been the recipient of a “gotcha” but also a great deal of very real pain and it seems to be it comes from the realization of that terrible, tragic conflict between the internal of faith and the externals. I will conitnue to oppose her in any and every way I can, but this video has made it easier for me to pray for her as well.
I agree with this post 100%. If millions of dollars were being thrown at me and tons of face time–and power over people’s lives, I have no idea want kind of bizarre and contradictory things I would be saying and doing.
This just shows the Truth is the Truth even when we are commited to denying it. Cognitive Dissonance explained. At my paygrade well below Pope and Msgr Pope I will just pray for her soul.
Msgr., what makes my head spin like Linda Blair is Mrs. Pelosi is my contemporary. She can not say she has been poorly catechized. She received a Catholic education starting with the Baltimore Catechism, which is nonparel to this day. When I see her, and all of the rest from polticos, to janitors that are as confused all I can think of is S. Sr. Lucia of Fatima and her remark that the world is suffering “diabolical disorientation”. I once heard a man I think of as brilliant, Mario Cuomo, use St. Thomas Aquinas to justify his position on Abortion/murder. Had I not known better , he would have convinced me. Someone has to stand up an and take these people to task Anathema sit !
My words may be true or false, but the Word of God, Jesus Christ, is never false; He is Truth itself. When a Catholic is asked, “What do you believe in?” it is better to say first off, “I believe in the Word of God,” rather than “I believe this or that article of faith.” And this is why: if one believes that the Word of God is absolutely truthful, then it follows that all He revealed is the truth. If you reject any one thing He revealed, you deny His truthfulness and you cast a pall of doubt over any of His words. Moreover, He gave His authority to teach on matters of faith and morals first to Peter and then to the apostles as a group, and promised that the Holy Spirit would forever preserve from error in matters of faith and morals all those who possess this teaching authority. Peter passed this “teaching authority” (Latin “magisterium”) to others, who today are called bishops. Bishops, not priests and not laypersons, have the magisterium and the assurance of the Word of God that whenever they are teaching the same thing in matters of faith or morals what they are teaching is the truth. So, when the Pope and our bishops are all teaching the same thing on a point of faith or morals, let us say not, “I believe this or that because it makes sense to me,” but rather, “I believe them because they have the magisterium of the Word of God.”
Ms. Pelosi is just one of a long list of Catholic Democrats who put abortion before Jesus. There once was a website called ‘Herods Heros’ that kept track of these villians…
Please pray for this woman. Nancy Pelosi is obviously a very, very confused and haunted woman.
These are such crazy times I could see a Pope being made a bishop. 😉
Jose, can you see…. retirement, due to political and theological fatigue?
Baal requires that children be sacrificed to him.
For me, the saddest part of the video was when she said, “It will come again. It will come again.”
Ms. Pelosi is not confused or misled or ill informed.
Ms. Pelosi goes to church. Ms. Pelosi is well read, well educated, well traveled and has personal contact with community and religious leaders of all stripes.
It is simple: Ms. Pelosi has chosen this world over the next.
Amen, Mary. Public figures like Mrs. Pelosi know what they’re doing, they have made a choice.
So-called ‘Catholic politicians’ like Mrs. Pelosi and our current vice president Mr. Biden would have the public believe that Catholic teaching regarding the sin of abortion is somehow a recent development in Catholic Christianity. I have heard both of these alleged Catholics talk about how the church has historically struggled with this issue. They need to stop touting that kind of ridiculous nonsense in order to justify the public positions they take in support of “choice.” The teaching of Christ’s church has always been unambiguous regarding the preciousness of the lives of the the unborn. In fact, in one of the earliest known documents of Christian Apostolic teaching, the Didache – written around the year 100 A.D. we see a clear Apostolic teaching – “Do not abort a fetus or kill a child that is born” – Didache 2:2. The ambiguity that these politicians want to shroud themselves in has ~never~ existed throughout church history. Church teaching in this matter is, and always has been abundantly clear. Catholic politicians who say anything contrary, know better. They have indeed made a choice.
That was embarrassingly sad.
The video, not the post:)
Give thanks for Grace and may God Bless the Pope and the Magisterium of the Church!
That stated, pray for all who are dead in their sins because they do not have the strength to see or hear or respond well on their own – they have lost too much Grace. So, pray for a return of that Grace so that they can see / hear and repent.
What a great question by the reporter !! Wow….just Wow !!
I believe the situation Ms. Pelsosi finds herself in is “being lifted on her own petard”. One cannot speak out about faith when it is convenient and cut off discussion when it is not.
I agree about praying for her eternal soul, but concurrently she needs to be brought to task by the appropriate Church hierarchy for her public scandal and the fact that she may be leading others into mortal sin by her words.
Thanks for sharing. Actually it seems that she first spoke from her heart and then her brain challenged it. I have to think the Holy Spirit was at work here and this gives me hope for all of us. In a small way this is proof that God loves all of us just as he finds us.
On the subject of abortion again? I came across a whole new, budding and disturbing controversy reportedly by Doctors Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva which one can check out at; http://www.opposingviews.com/i/religion/premeditated-murder-newborn-babies-justified-morally-equivalent-abortion. Also can be found at many other sites by entering the doctors names in any good search engine.
I have difficulty believing that they’re serious but, crazier things have caught on.
Let’s congratulate the young reporter with the courage to bring the Word to the public Square for discussion.
Jose, can you see retirement, due to political and theological fatigue?