Vatican City, Oct 9, 2021 / 05:20 am (CNA).
Pope Francis met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Saturday.
The first Italian-American Speaker of the House was in Rome to give the keynote address at the opening session of the G20 Parliamentary Speakers’ Summit. She also met with the Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi.
At the time of publication, the Vatican had released no information about what the pope and Pelosi discussed, in line with its usual custom for papal meetings with non-heads of state.
But it noted the audience in its daily bulletin for Oct. 9, saying that the House Speaker was accompanied by her husband, the businessman Paul Pelosi, and entourage.
Photographs released by the Vatican showed that Pelosi also met with Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and “foreign minister” Archbishop Paul Gallagher.
The day before, the 81-year-old discussed the environment, migration, and human rights during a visit to the Vatican.
The Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development announced the visit on Oct. 8 in a post on its Twitter account.
Pelosi was accompanied to the Vatican on Friday by Patrick Connell, the chargé d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See.
On the same day, the White House announced that former U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly of Indiana is President Joe Biden’s nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See.
Pelosi, a Catholic mother of five, has clashed repeatedly with the archbishop of her home diocese over her support for abortion.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone launched a prayer campaign last month aimed at inspiring “a conversion of heart” among politicians supporting abortion.
“A conversion of heart of the majority of our Congressional representatives is needed on this issue, beginning with the leader of the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi,” the San Francisco archbishop said.
“I am therefore inviting all Catholics to join in a massive and visible campaign of prayer and fasting for Speaker Pelosi: commit to praying one rosary a week and fasting on Fridays for her conversion of heart.”
Cordileone urged Catholics and people of goodwill to sign up for the “Rose and a rosary for Nancy Pelosi” campaign.
A rose will be sent to the Speaker “as a symbol of your prayer and fasting for her,” he explained.
In May, Pelosi said that she was “pleased” with a Vatican letter to the U.S. bishops which addressed Communion for pro-abortion politicians. She claimed that the Vatican had instructed the bishops not to be “divisive” on the issue.
In response, Cordileone said the Vatican was in fact promoting “dialogue” between bishops and pro-abortion politicians, “to help them understand the grave evil they are helping to perpetrate and accompany them to a change of heart.”
“Speaker Pelosi’s positive reaction” to the letter, he noted, “raises hope that progress can be made in this most serious matter.”
In July, Cordileone criticized Pelosi after she cited her Catholic faith while defending efforts to permit federal funding of elective abortions.
“Let me repeat: no one can claim to be a devout Catholic and condone the killing of innocent human life, let alone have the government pay for it,” he said.
Pelosi had a 15-minute audience with Benedict XVI in 2009.
The Vatican said that the German pope “took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death.”
Pope Francis is expected to receive Joe Biden on Oct. 29, in the U.S. president’s first official visit to the Vatican since his inauguration, according to sources at the Apostolic Palace.
Joe Biden, the second Catholic president in U.S. history, is due to attend the G20 summit in Rome on Oct. 30–31.
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What to say?
Pope Benedict spoke to her in ’09. She’s had 12 years to figure out his message. Maybe Francis will have better luck getting through to her?
Thank you, CNA staff, for reminding us that Nancy is the first Italian-American Speaker of the House and a mother of five. Surely, these are the highly relevant facts that should be highlighted, given the circumstances. This was a thoroughly revolting spectacle that should, but won’t, discredit this papacy and everyone associated with it in the eyes of the institutional US Church and the mainstream Catholic press. Pelosi and the Francis Vatican are pursuing the same anti-Christian agenda. Her fanatical support for abortion doesn’t matter to these people; in fact, they probably secretly agree with her even on this issue.
The photo-op American Trinity: Father James Martin, Momma Pelosi, and Uncle Joe Biden. Still can’t find Cardinal Zen or Archbishop Cardileone anywhere on the visitors list as prepared no doubt by Cardinal Parolin.
But, in truth, we do not know what was actually said, or unsaid…
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and ran over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops (Norman MacLean A River Runs Through It). Imagery poetic and beautiful nonetheless deeply sorrowful. “Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.” Words that were never spoken during the flow of history. At significant moment Rome 2021 witness to faith in Christ with love for infant life, or unspoken, a silent sentence. Onlookers. We strain for lack of words. Cardinal Cordileone’s plaintive rose may speak more eloquently than harsh truth. When a heart ices over it might melt. Pontiffs wield enormous power, a slight shade of priorities the key to the course of things for good or evil.
No, we don’t know the conversation.
But what does it say for a pope’s public silence with a politician, Catholic we’re told, that has for decades promoted, legislated, and funded abortion with her political power and, further, publicly corrected the Church and the Pope on the morality of abortion relative to its objective nature?
But we can imagine. Not out of the realm of possibility that they expressed joy at ridding the world of that repentant former playboy President, who saved more unborn lives than any human being in history, and they are now quite comfortable in describing as a non-Christian for his efforts, while they agree to ignore the slaughter they aid and abet.
The heretical “Catholic” Pelosi ditched the customary chapel veil while visiting the Pontiff but had no problem donning a headscarf and abaya when visiting the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.
Look for Cornwell to churn out a fawning work to be titled “Pelosi’s Pope”.
Our national suicide attempt is all but complete.
This is a joke, right?
One cannot help but wonder how many abortions were conducted worldwide during their meeting.
Well, well. Aren’t those cozy photos? Photos which of course Pelosi and her minions will use to further push their narrative that she is in good standing with the church. Even while she fights for abortion right until the day of birth, and beyond, which is a belief NOT in good standing with the church.. Maybe the Pope should have at least attempted to look stern, or less friendly, as befitting a person who is upholding the “right” of women to murder their children. But then, “who am I to judge?” seems to be his go to position on issues of morals within the church.I believe I was taught that aiding and abetting another in the commission of their sin, would be my sin as well. Where does this fact leave the Pope??
Is hell a place??
The photos nauseate me.
Many American Catholics will use this visit and the accompanying photos as an opportunity to proclaim that it’s “OK for Catholics to be pro-“choice”. And from a secular POV, as our population continues to decline and it is becoming more difficult to staff our hospitals with caring workers in all departments even as our baby boomer generation is aging with the usual old-age health care issues, we will eventually see the killing expanded to include seniors who “make the choice to end their lives,” at least, according to their families and co-workers who have become accustomed to a “culture of death.” God, forgive us all and come to our aid! Holy Spirit, convict Speaker of the House Pelosi and all others of her ilk, and help them to reverse the path that they have set for the U.S.A.