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Published: January 7, 2009
“Gravely immoral”
Pelosi wants Congress to pass law undoing Bush restrictions on stem-cell research
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat who describes herself as “an ardent Catholic,” wants to undo the Bush administration’s restrictions on stem cell research by having Congress nullify the outgoing president’s executive orders on the issue. President Bush also repeatedly vetoed stem cell research bills sent to him during his tenure in office, but President-elect Barack Obama is expected to sign any such legislation should it reach his desk.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as recently as June 2008 issued a statement on stem-cell research reiterating the longstanding position of the Church: “Harvesting these ‘embryonic stem cells’ involves the deliberate killing of innocent human beings, a gravely immoral act,” the bishops said.
 Following a speech to the nation on the moral issues involving stem cell research in 2001, President Bush signed an executive order prohibiting federal funding of research on embryonic stem cells except for 60 existing cell lines. In June 2007, President Bush issued another executive order authorizing the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health to fund stem cell research only if the cell lines were “produced in ways that do not create, destroy, or harm human embryos.”
In 2006 and 2007, Bush vetoed bills sent to him by Congress that would have eliminated those restrictions, and attempts to override those vetoes failed. “If this legislation became law, it would compel American taxpayers -- for the first time in our history -- to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos,” Bush said on the occasion of his 2007 veto. “I made it clear to Congress and to the American people that I will not allow our nation to cross this moral line. Last year, Congress passed a similar bill -- I kept my promise by vetoing it. And today I'm keeping my word again: I am vetoing the bill that Congress has sent. Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical -- and it is not the only option before us.”
Political observers have said they expect President-elect Obama to undo Bush’s executive orders restricting stem cell research shortly after taking office, but Pelosi says she thinks enacting federal laws that would tie a president’s hands from issuing executive orders like those of President Bush is the better option.
"I myself would favor legislation, so it is the law," Pelosi was quoted as saying in a Jan. 4 International Herald Tribune story.
Pelosi’s position on stem cell research is not the first time she has publicly taken positions contradicting Church teachings. In an August 2008 interview with Meet the Press, Pelosi described herself as “an ardent, practicing Catholic,” but said, “I don't think anybody can tell you when life begins, human life begins. As I say, the Catholic Church for centuries has been discussing this… over the history of the church, this is an issue of controversy.”
The Speaker’s remarks prompted an outcry from Catholic bishops around the country, including Cardinal Edward Egan of New York, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, and Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. Cardinal Justin Rigali of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities and Bishop William Lori of the USCCB’s Committee on Doctrine issued a joint statement to the press that said, in part, “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi misrepresented the history and nature of the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church against abortion.”
On Sept. 5, 2008, San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer issued a lengthy statement regarding Pelosi’s remarks, which concluded: “Speaker Pelosi has often said how highly she values her Catholic faith, and how much it is a source of joy for her. Accordingly, as her pastor, I am writing to invite her into a conversation with me about these matters. It is my obligation to teach forthrightly and to shepherd caringly, and that is my intent. Let us pray together that the Holy Spirit will guide us all toward a more profound understanding and appreciation for human life, and toward a resolution of these differences in truth and charity and peace.”
So far, there has been no word on whether Pelosi has had that conversation with the archbishop.
Posted Wednesday, January 07, 2009 12:17 AM By Charles O'Connell
A past official of California Pro-Life, J.M., told us at Catholics for Life, Sacramento, that the answer to the obvious question, "Why, when there are nearly 100 proven cures using adult stem-cells, is there such a mania in the so-called scientific community for destroying innocent human life", is simply a matter of a kind of perverse arrogance. One recalls in the PBS documentary on the Los Alamos test of the first atomic bomb, "The Day After Trinity", that the atomic scientists went ahead with the test without benefit of any assurance that the whole atmosphere would not ignite - something called "universal conflagration" - a larger version of an atmospheric condition actually prevailed at earlier times in earth's history when the oxygen content of the atmosphere was as high as 33% and was indeed known to have ignited. This willingness to destroy the world for the sake of an experiment was described by one of the key scientists on the Manhattan Project as "technological arrogance", a sense of god-like power at being the first to discover and assume control over extremely powerful natural forces - as if discovery and control constituted their creation. Albert Einstein said that the discoveries of biological science would be far more significant than those of physics-based science. The nuclear bomb is now ticking away in our own bodily cells. How long will the Lord put up with this, before saying, "Enough!, time to knock down this generation's Tower of Babel"?
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Posted Wednesday, January 07, 2009 4:56 AM By Ron
And so it begins, Pelosi, Obama, Biden,Reid,et al start their murderous onslaught. May God forgive us for letting our country slide into the abyss.
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Posted Wednesday, January 07, 2009 9:14 AM By papamac
Do not be surprised at anything this morally corrupt heretic will come up with, she is a pathetic creature driven by the desire for power. Christianity as we know it will pay a heavy price for having Pelosi, Reid and Obama in power. MGB
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Posted Wednesday, January 07, 2009 11:37 AM By pete salveinini
If she pushes for this legislation, THIS TIME Archbishops of SF and D.C. HAVE to bar her publicly from communion or they risk their OWN salvation. And any priest or extraordinary minister of communion is in the same boat!
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Posted Wednesday, January 07, 2009 12:38 PM By Annika
Ms. Pelosi and her cohort will open the floodgate of federal dollars to harvest human eggs from women desperate for money. There are simply not enough existing human embryos meeting scientific standards/controls otherwise. ACL, a leader in human cloning efforts, consumed hundreds of women's eggs in MA in its published study at attempted human cloning in Scientific American. ACL is seeking Calif. funds. With access to the enormous coffers of the Fed, harvesting human eggs will be a big part of these embryonic projects. The danger to women is enormous; massive hormonal stimuli to induce ovulation, harvesting large numbers of eggs (12+) at a time (3 times invitro harvesting), risk of infection, botched surgical technique like perforated bowel, and permanent infertility not to mention death. With Fed $s, this will become a buisness, targeting poor and foreign women. A new killing field for the culture of death. Perhaps Ms. Pelosi could demonstrate her personal commitment to stem cells by subjecting her own body to the dangerous and invasive proceedures of harvesting her eggs.
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Posted Wednesday, January 07, 2009 1:03 PM By Pax Christi
I'm counting on all the Catholics who voted for Obama and his lackeys like Pelosi to show them the path that is hard and narrow but leads to life. Are you up to the task?
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Posted Wednesday, January 07, 2009 1:14 PM By Brett M
And she considered herself a devout catholic in a past interview? Um... yeah.
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Posted Wednesday, January 07, 2009 1:50 PM By Anne T.
Susan B. Anthony, who was against abortion, is rolling over in her grave over supposed "feminists" such as this. All they do is destroy in the name of womanhood instead of building up. She is one of the coldest women I know about. All she wants is power, power and more power. Any woman, or man, who can give her/his approval to partial birth abortion has to have a heart of stone.
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Posted Wednesday, January 07, 2009 2:46 PM By Sieber
Thank you, Doug Kmiec & thank you ,too, St. John's Seminary for your support of him.
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Posted Wednesday, January 07, 2009 3:11 PM By Petroski
What a troubling moment in the history of our beloved Catholic Church in America.....
I am forced to give the US Bishops a failing grade in their ministry, as evidenced again by the large numbers of Hispanics (70% or so!!!) and other ‘catholics’ (50% or so of weekly mass attendees) who have once again voted-in the party of death – obviously ignoring the more vocal catholic leaders who tried, unsuccessfully, to inform their consciences for election day decisions. But 50% merely laughed at the Teaching Authority of the Church, proceeding with their own agenda as has been the case since Vatican II - beginning with their original disagreement over the sin of birth control. This disobedience and the stubborn defiance of a good number of people still in the pews on some Sundays has been tearing the faith apart, brick by brick, and has become a cancer in the Body of Christ within the western world.
The deeper problem, as I see it, is this: you have as bishops, for far too many years, been trying to minister to both faithful catholics and, since Vatican II, a growing number of ‘new protestants’ who are now also sitting in the pews on more occasions.
I believe it has been, and will continue to be, impossible for you to effectively minister to two such disparate groups under one roof, as has been attempted for far too many decades to our misfortune. It greatly weakens your effectiveness with the remnant of faithful Catholics who see you making too many compromises because you are being pulled in two entirely different directions on so many of the issues at the center of this fiercely contested culture war. You have had to compromise principles to effect the current state of affairs, and that continues to happen, to the discredit of you - our leaders – as you continue trying to appease these non-believers among us who have decided, this time, not to walk away from the church, but instead to try changing it from within by constantly chipping away at our traditional beliefs – until they may correspond more closely with their own silly, personal, notions on issues like abortion / the right to life for the unborn, homosexuality, birth control, pornography, promi
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Posted Wednesday, January 07, 2009 3:24 PM By AnnCA
Something must be done about Nancy Pelosi. It's time for the bishops to act.
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Posted Wednesday, January 07, 2009 3:26 PM By Elizabeth
In all due charity.....................
I wish Ms. Pelosi and the other so called 'ardent' Catholics would leave the Roman Catholic Church and move over to the Anglicans who believe, I am told , in abortion, homosexual marriage, etc............
Why would people want to belong to a Church that they TOTALLY disgree with the teachings?
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Posted Wednesday, January 07, 2009 6:02 PM By Dan
"In all due charity..................... I wish Ms. Pelosi and the other so called 'ardent' Catholics would leave the Roman Catholic Church and move over to the Anglicans ..." Elizabeth, given that we will have at probably many more years of Nancy Pelosi in Congress, wouldn't it be better to wish for her conversion to Catholicism? If she joins the Episcopalians she needn't confront her sin. If she pins her hopes on a Catholic world-view, she can bring light into the present darkness.
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Posted Wednesday, January 07, 2009 8:24 PM By JLS
It's the dankness of the mind that she suffers.
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Posted Thursday, January 08, 2009 11:41 PM By Almond Milk
There are three people walking up a very tall hill, at the other end of the hill is a puddle of mud. The first person goes over the hill and falls in the mud puddle, that person actually first gets shocked, but then starts to love it, that first person plays in it, and even wants to stay but is forced to leave because it was getting dark, but when they got out, they left that mud on them because they like the mud. They never clean up. They rub it on their face and clothes. The second person falls also in the mud, he doesn't like the mud but he does nothing to remove it, he keeps falling back to that mud from time to time but he still doesn't like it but continues to do nothing about it. The third person goes up that hill too but just as he goes over it and then heads down, he too fall in, but he is disgusted, he gets out immediately and cleans himself and tries to never fall in again. The moral to that story is that confession cleans us but some people just don't want to change, some actually like being soaked with mud (sin), some don't like the mud (sin) but do nothing to clean themselves (like repenting and confessing) and some truly care to get up and clean themselves in Christ, they try to not fall in that mud (sin) puddle again. Pelosi likes the mud. That is how her actions speak.
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Posted Friday, January 09, 2009 6:00 PM By JLS
Almond Milk, I like your parable about the mud. My jeep normally is splattered and soaked with mud. My conscience tells me I should wash it more; but then it takes a good two or three hours of hosing before I manage to rid it of 90% of the mud, most of which sticks to the underside. But surprisingly, my dog is designed by God to be mud free within an hour of rolling through a mud bog. So, I'll be scratching my head for a while.
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Posted Friday, January 09, 2009 11:54 PM By Almond Milk
JLS I don't think I told that parable very well like mother Angelica did, she told it better. I just wanted to get the point out. Now the rest to your jeep and dog comments, huh? If you need help with unscratcheding your head, just ask away. Lol glad you have a good sense of humor. I do... : )
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Posted Sunday, January 11, 2009 8:20 AM By Jack
We need ALL bishops to stop being silent and begin kicking these fake Catholic nuts for politicians (Pelosi, Schwarzenegger, all of the Kennedys, Biden, Casey, Dodd, Kaine, etc. out to infiniti) out the door. There were deficiencies in the past when it came to sticking up for the Faith, and we can't go back and re-do that. However, we can and must do it now and stop the murder of innocent children, stop euthanasia, stop experimenting on unborn children and then killing them once they have 'served their purpose', stop allowing immoral relationships to be considered 'marriage.' Hold these politicians accountable, and if they don't conform to the teachings they say they believe in, boot them out. How many meetings with archbishops do these 'intelligent leaders' need?? Don't allow them to lead more Catholics and more souls in general down into the abyss of hell with them.
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Posted Sunday, January 11, 2009 3:59 PM By Joseph Davis
Here we go again what that language, what judgement. This type of research would never have been possible if we had fought harder against IVF in the first place.
As an outsider ( the US not the Roman Catholic Church) it is hard to understand why Americans condemn this type of murder abortion and embyronic stem cell but actually advocate the owning of guns and do not seem to be prepared to do anything when some gunman goes berserk and kills fellow students. And you could do something about the violent content of many of the movies that eminate from your fair State. And do not many of your States have Capital punishment. I believe that President Bush never commuted the death scentence when he was govenor.
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Posted Sunday, January 11, 2009 4:09 PM By Mark from PA
Jack, the bishops need to educate people about the sanctity of human life and the dignity of all persons. They don't need to kick people out the door. They need to be brought to a deeper fullness of faith, not booted out.
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Posted Sunday, January 11, 2009 7:34 PM By JLS
Joseph Davis, guns do not kill, but people do. Murder and guns are two different things. You seem to be stacking up 1.5 Million aborted human beings and weighing them against a few hundred murdered by guns each year in the U.S. If you are Catholic, then why do you not see the difference, and why do you stump for something that is not immoral, ie gun ownership, instead of against abortion. Look at the numbers: Abortion vastly outweighs anything done with war or murder. Where is your voice against the further atrocity of abortion by means of so-called contraception chemicals? God has sent and does send moral men to war to kill others, in which case it is not murder. Do you understand the difference between killing and the special case of killing which is murder? All murder is killing, but not all killing is murder. The Magisterium does not prohibit capital punishment.
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Posted Monday, January 12, 2009 9:29 AM By Almond Milk
Joseph Davis there is nothing wrong with guns. Guns actually have been used for hunting for food, for protection. I disagree with your views on guns. A person that kills would use anything, even knifes, are you going to outlaw knifes, how about scissors or anything sharp. If a person is a killer, they don't need just a gun to commit murder, they can even use their own hands to kill someone. Your reasoning is incorrect. But I'm sure it is easier to blame a weapon (guns), instead of putting the responsibility on a person who chose to commit a heinous crime. Sin should be blamed, people's own free will to choose evil actions.
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Posted Monday, January 12, 2009 4:45 PM By Joseph Davis
Some people have seen the word "guns" and gone off the deep end. What I was saying is 'that violence begets violence' and we have no hope of reducing the act of abortion if we live in a vioilent society. It does not matter what weapon you use to commit murder it is still against the 5th Commandment. I do know that the Church says that there 3 occasions when it is not a sin if death is the out come of an act. Enlightened societies are realising that the death penalty does not stop crime.
By the way what is the ratio of murders using a gun to other weapons in the USA? In Canada ?
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Posted Monday, January 12, 2009 6:17 PM By Almond Milk
Joseph Davis you made some good points. I don't mind gun ownership, but I do think we need tougher laws on having them. Plus no one has gone in the deep end at all, you just misunderstand our posts. I just get tired of people making statements that condemn gun ownership. I think it is mighty nice to learn to properly use a gun, but as for me, I probably won't own one but I respect the rights of others who want to own guns. They have that right, we just need tougher laws, class requirements on proper usage and storage etc etc.
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Posted Monday, January 12, 2009 8:06 PM By JLS
Davis, you're the one who went off the deep end. You know what you are saying. Your take on violence does not square up with the lessons we find about society and the Will of God in the Old Testament. It is idolatry and sexual licentiousness that destroys society; violence follows.
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Posted Monday, January 12, 2009 10:28 PM By Joseph Davis
I think you are missing the point, as far as I'm concerned you can have a whole arsenal of guns, explosives knives axes etc.( bye the way have you tried to board an aircraft with some of the things that Almond Milk asks if I wanted outlawed). what I am saying is that if you tolerate a violent society your hope of getting people to care about the unborn is limited. JLS compared 1.5 million abortions as far worse that a few hundred who might be murdered in some other be it gun or baseball bat. However murder is murder no matter the age of the victim.
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Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009 5:42 AM By Dai Yoshida
Joseph Davis: Show me your so-called "enlightened society" and I'll show you disproportionate number of teenage suicide. (Check out Japan and their cavalier attitude towards teenage sex, contraception and abortion) Catholic faith has nothing to do with your imaginary Utopia. I think you need to go over your Catechism again.
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Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009 1:13 PM By Joseph Davis
Dai Yoshida I was not thinking of Japan as an enlightened society. And I do not see how introducing the Death Penalty would change any of the problems you mentioned. I prefer the Gospels and other writings of the New testement as a first stop then what the popes have said particularly the present Pope, A most enlightened man. I do have a Catechism of the Catholic Church ( two copies) but only to look up on perhaps points I'm not sure of.
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Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009 1:30 PM By Almond Milk
Joseph Davis abortion(this is the sin of murder committed by society, man, women etc.) is one of many reasons why people are more violent. Your points still don't make sense. You are still pointing the finger at objects not accountability of humans and their sinfulness.
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Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009 2:09 PM By Joseph Davis
Almond Milk objects are operated by human beings, I fully realise that the objects themselves are quite inert. Even the instruments used by a doctor to procure an abortion are of themselves neither good nor bad.
What I am trying to say, though you seem to see it as me attacking your right to own and carry a weapon, is that if a person can kill another adult he or she will have scant regard for the being whose live has just begun and is so small even the mother carring it may not be aware of it. You say the sin of abortion causes a more violent society I disagree and so that it is the other way around.
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Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009 3:12 PM By Almond Milk
Joseph Davis your comments to me are one's to ponder at. I enjoyed our dialogue, good to read other points of view. : ) I may not always agree but it sure is good to learn how other people view things. : )
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Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009 5:03 PM By Eileen
Joseph Davis, Almond Milk is absolutely right. You keep placing the cart before the horse. When mothers and fathers can legally kill their own existing but pre-born sons and daughters, how can we then bring up the danger of guns and ask others to not kill. Life starts in the womb. Life is the beginning horse that is necessary to pull the living cart of every living good or bad action. When a society devalues and legally kills life in it's most vulnerable place, a mother's womb, everyone's life becomes vulnerable in the logic of evildoers. How can the same society that kills their unborn ask others not to kill? Society needs a conversion of mind, of heart, of soul and of intellect. Guns do not have minds, hearts souls and intellects. It is wiser to defend the importance and the beginning of life than to wonder why inanimate objects are used to destroy life at a later date..
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Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009 6:46 PM By JLS
Also, Davis, how would you recommend people defend themselves against a tyrannical government gone haywire? After all, that is the main purpose for the Second Amendment. There was no gun crime worth mentioning in the era when the Constitution was created: The problem was tyrannical governments. That is what it is all about. But then surely you are a believer that man has evolved into a higher being by now, after 250 years of effort, and that we no longer have any nature which would want to tyrannize others, and hence no need for guns in society's hands. Because our loving government will comfort us with all its graces and goodness, such as getting rid of unborn babies, unwanted children, old people, sick people, people who hate everything which radicals accuse them of, the Church, etc.
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Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009 7:14 PM By Trent
Joseph, you are right. A person who'd kill another adult may have scant regard for babies. Fostering a disregard for life is fostering a disregard for life. BUT, also remember how society plays up babes. Even politicians kiss them.
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Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009 7:39 PM By Almond Milk
Eileen thank you. : ) You bring up good points.
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Posted Wednesday, January 14, 2009 6:38 AM By Dai Yoshida
Joseph Davis: Look at the facts. US States and EU nations that abolished the death penalty and imposed strong gun control laws do not have proportionately lower percentage of abortion. However eloquent your arguments are, the numbers don't add up. So much for enlightened society.
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