Pelosi to Bishops: drill your brains?

Pelosi to Bishops: drill your brains? August 27, 2008

Wait, that can’t be right. Nancy Pelosi cannot have respond to the rather heavy dose of correction she received from various and sundry Bishops and Cardinals, some of her colleagues in Congress and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops with an offer to drill their brains, right?


Oh, wait! I see!
She asked some of the “Drill here, drill now” people chanting in Colorado if she could drill their brains. Which seems like a strange remark – what does it mean, actually? Is she saying these people have oil-for-brains? That would be strange. It’s sort of like, “…oh, yeah?, well, the jerk store called, and they’re running out of you!” One of those really bad retorts that you make when your wit is too slow and your anger is too vast.

“Drill Here! Drill Now!”
“Oh, yeah? Well…the GOP jerk store called, and I’m gonna drill your brains because I ain’t running out of you!”

Nope. Still doesn’t work.

Maybe she meant: Oh, yeah? Well the Bishops and Cardinals called and they’re jerks and I’m running out of spin!”

Yesterday she made a response, one which Deacon Greg said was, “not, to put it diplomatically, an act of contrition.”

Pelosi did not exactly put her thumb behind her teeth at her churchmen, but she basically said she’d side with Augustine, a Doctor of the Church, born in 354 AD, who was making his best educated guess about the issue of life and ensoulment based on what folks knew at the time about, and when a mother feels the first stirrings of life within her.

While Augustine was brilliant, Mrs. Pelosi – who does not seem to be any smarter than I am – actually knows more than Augustine ever did about what is going on in the womb; technology allows us to see the beating heart of a weeks-old baby; to see the moment a sperm fertilizes and ovum and the process of cell separation begins. We’ll have to guess what Augustine would have taught about abortion, life and ensoulment had he had those images before him.

As before, I find it very difficult to understand how her acceptance of Augustine’s idea that there is no soul within the baby until the mother feels him move, at between 12 and 16 weeks squares up with her abysmal voting record on abortion and all things embryonic.

IF she really, truly believes that it’s perfectly fine to abort a living human fetus because “it has no soul, early on” then her votes in favor of late-term abortion, partial-birth abortion and so forth means that, well…for all the twisting and turning she’s doing with Augustine, she really doesn’t give a damn whether there is a soul there, or not. In her world, a woman’s right to destroy the baby – even when it has been partially delivered – trumps the life of that child, even after she has accepted it’s “ensoulment.”

Well, alright then, honey, if that’s how you really feel, you’re entitled to your opinion, and your votes, and yes, you’ll answer to God for them someday, and maybe to all of those little souls, too.

“After she was elected to Congress…she studied the matter more closely.

“While Catholic teaching is clear that life begins at conception, many Catholics do not ascribe to that view…”

Well, the formation of our consciences is a life-long thing – but it seems to me that on so serious an issue, Mrs. Pelosi should continue to study and not close her mind – or her reason – based upon what she seems to think are the fail-safe musings of St. Augustine. And she should consider her abortion record in light of her public utterances about ensoulment.

If Nancy Pelosi believes what she says she believes – that ensoulment happens somewhere between the 12th and 16th week of gestation, then her voting record is then evidence of either a monstrous disregard for the soul and dignity of a human being created by God, a seriously inconsistent and expedient mindset or simply an incoherent thought process.

In any case, monstrous disregard, expediency or incoherence do not seem to be to be the best and laudable qualities of a Speaker of the House in the Congress of the United States.

Also, while I am loath to ever gauge the state of another’s soul – I know my own failings, too well – one does have to wonder if Mrs. Pelosi could not use a retreat and a serious spiritual adviser, or at least a Catechism? Mrs. Pelosi has recently contributed an essay to Kerry Kennedy’s rather uneven book on the views of modern Catholics (example: Bill Maher says if he were Pope, he’d abolish the church – yawn), in which she writes:

My granddaughter was getting ready for her First Communion…and she said to her mother, “I want to explain to Mimi” — that’s me — “that it is the body and blood of Christ. When we go to church, it is the body and blood of Christ.” So her mother, in the interest of trying to simplify, said “Yes, the host and the wine represent the body and blood of Christ.” And my granddaughter said, “Not represent. Is, it is the body and blood of Christ.” My granddaughter was buying into it, okay. But it is hard. Every Sunday for me it’s hard. Christ had died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Now think of it, we say that every week. Do I really believe he’s coming again? Yes, I believe he’s coming again. Christ died, Christ is risen, Chirst will come again. This is my body, this is my blood. They’re asking a lot. In my era, we didn’t question any of it.

Actually, Mrs. Pelosi, there is no “your era” or “my era” – time is an illusion and God is Eternal – and so is the Truth. It seems to me that if one is going to be a Roman Catholic, or an Orthodox Catholic, one should at the very least, be open to an idea and able to participate in what the church calls “the Source and Summit of our faith” in solidarity of belief.

A “symbol”? Has she read John, Chapter 6? Has she read Paul’s admonition about the importance of the Eucharist and how it must be received? The church has been soaked in the blood of martyrs for centuries, for the sake of the Holy Eucharist, has seen countless thousands give up everything for it, has seen prisoners risk harsh punishment in order to sneak in the species for masses, has seen thousands of ordinary people build hospitals and schools and vast charities because of what they find therein…and its just a “symbol?”

Flannery O’ Conner, dead 44 years, answers Mrs. Pelosi’s “symbol” from the grave:

I was once, five or six years ago, taken by some friends to have dinner with Mary McCarthy and her husband, Mr. Broadwater. (She just wrote that book, “A Charmed Life.”) She departed the Church at the age of 15 and is a Big Intellectual. We went at eight and at one, I hadn’t opened my mouth once, there being nothing for me in such company to say. . . . Having me there was like having a dog present who had been trained to say a few words but overcome with inadequacy had forgotten them.

Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the most portable person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one.

I then said, in a very shaky voice, “Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.”

That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.

The jerk store never did call for ol’ Flannery. Perhaps Mrs. Pelosi should drill O’ Connor’s brains and see what she can learn.

Meanwhile,
Kathy Shiedle also wonders if Pelosi’s “drill your brains” remark is a subconscious tie-in to her abortion controversy. Seems Kathy and I are on parallel wavelengths, which means I’m in good company!

And American Papist has a great timeline of the Pelosi kerfluffle.

Related: The Catholic Vote and the Counterbalance to Abortion

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