RUSH: Let’s go to Pelosi. This was on Meet the Press yesterday. I want you to hear this, and we’ll comment after it. Tom Brokaw said, ‘Senator Obama saying the question of when life begins is above his ‘pay grade,’ when whether you’re looking at it ‘scientifically or theologically,’ if he were to come and say, ‘Help me out here Madam Speaker,’ what would you tell him?’
PELOSI: As an ardent practicing Catholic, uh, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition, and, uh, Senator — uh, I’m — Senator — Uh, St. Augustin’ (sic) said at three months. We don’t know. The point is is that it shouldn’t have an impact on a woman’s right to choose. Roe v. Wade talks about very clear definitions of when the child — uh, eh, er, first trimester, certain considerations second trimester, not so third trimester. The — the — there’s very clear distinctions.
RUSH: You know, folks, this is just embarrassing. As I’ve often wondered, is she genuinely this uneducated, uninformed, silly, stupid, whatever — and I’ve concluded there isn’t a word to describe the status of her brain. The Catholic Church doesn’t know? The Catholic Church hasn’t stipulated? The ‘doctors’ at the Catholic Church? You mean the pope goes and consults the doctors to find out when life begins? Really? The doctors have more to say than God-d? I mean, Nancy, cite anybody. Don’t cite the Catholic Church. You’re putting them in an untenable position. You’re fixing it so every priest, no matter how wacko left the priest might be, cannot support you. Good grief, ladies and gentlemen! Life begins at conception. Where else can it begin?
Peggy Noonan had a great way — I’m going to have to paraphrase what she wrote — of reducing this to its most simple, its most elemental. If life doesn’t begin at conception, then why the hell wear a condom? If life doesn’t begin at conception, then why the hell take the pill? Well, the church doesn’t allow the pill. I know the church doesn’t allow the pill because life begins at conception — and the church is not cool on condoms, either, logoed or otherwise. But that’s the point. This is not something that we’ve been arguing about for centuries. St. Augustine said life begins at three months? St. Augustine knew that Roe v. Wade was going to come along and basically say the same thing? Ed Morrissey, writing at the Hot Air blog, has done yeoman’s research into this.
He writes today: ‘The notion that the Catholic Church declared abortion a sin at the same time as the Pill is patently absurd, and shows that Pelosi has either lied about studying the issue in terms of Church history or lied about what she found. Church writings specifically naming abortion as murder appear as early as 70 AD in the Didache, the first written catechism of the Christian church: … ‘Tertullian, sometimes known as the Father of the Latin Church, wrote with equal clarity and force: ‘In our case, a murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from the other parts of the body for its sustenance.” This is AD 179, the year 179, following year 70. ‘The Catholic catechism is extremely clear on the nature of its position on human life, and has been remarkably consistent on this point for almost 2,000 years, and it finds that position in the Old Testament. Human life begins at conception, not at birth, and not at some point consistent with Roe for convenience.
‘In Psalm 51, David refers to his sinfulness beginning at the moment of conception, and sinfulness requires physical life and a soul to exist.’ So there you have it in the Old Testament. The Catholic Church has not thrown the Old Testament under the bus, the last time I looked. This is a giant embarrassment, or ought to be. Where’s Brokaw? Where is the media on this? She got away with this kind of inane, insane rambling, trying to fit one of the most sacred religious beliefs held by Catholics all over the world into a political issue that would conform with a rogue Supreme Court decision called Roe v. Wade in 1973. Now, that is hubris. That is arrogance like I cannot believe. She has placed herself above the doctors of the church, above ‘St. Augustin,’ as she said. She has placed herself above the pope and everything the Catholic Church has ever said about this. And of course Brokaw just sits there, ‘Heh, heh, heh. Oh. Good.’ Well, that’s not entirely true. Brokaw did challenge her on this. I have to be honest. It’s with the natural gas business that he just sat there. He said, ‘But wait a minute, the Catholic Church at the moment feels strongly that life begins at the point of conception.’
PELOSI: (mumbling) And this is, like, 50 years or something like that. So again, over the history, uh, of the church, this is an issue of, uh, controversy.
RUSH: No, it’s not an issue of controversy in the church. It’s an issue of controversy with the followers, with the parishioners, with the flock like you. Note the 50 years. I’ve always said, ‘A person’s historical perspective begins with the day they were born.’ So her use of 50 years there, ‘Well, it’s been a bone of contention, a controversy in the church for 50 years,’ meaning her adult life. That’s what she is relating it all to. Th-th-th– (sigh) I’m sorry to stutter, folks. I’m in stunned bewilderment and disbelief over what I consider to be not just stupidity and silliness but arrogance and hubris, and the ignorance that these people have over how this kind of comment is going to come back and bite her presidential nominee. I guess she thinks that she has to provide some sort of Democrat Party interpretation of Catholicism that permits Obama to get away with his infanticide belief.
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RUSH: Now, look, don’t misunderstand me on this, folks. You’ve got a lot of liberal politicians who, for their own purposes, from Mario Cuomo to John Kerry to any number of them, will twist the Catholic Church’s doctrine abortion to fit their own personal desires to attach firmly the Democrat political policy dogma and this sort of thing. The way Cuomo did it, he did it at Notre Dame University, he went to Notre Dame University, and he said, ‘Of course I understand the sanctity of life, I’m pro-life and so forth, but I cannot impose my political will, my religious views on people. I cannot impose my religious views on the rest of the country.’ Yet he was perfectly comfortable imposing his tax views on the rest of the country and every other view he had. But it was just a cop-out to allow him to remain pure to Democrat policy. But neither Cuomo nor Kerry nor any of the others has ever come along and spoken for the Catholic Church like Pelosi did yesterday on Meet the Depressed. That’s the arrogance and hubris. I don’t care whether she said the Catholic Church’s doctors or doctrines, some people say she might have been saying ‘doctrines,’ doesn’t matter. She was speaking for the Catholic Church, and that’s brazen. This is going to come back to bite. The, quote, unquote, third most powerful woman in the United States of America telling the world what the Catholic Church’s official position on life is, the church cannot let this stand. How they deal with it, we’ll just have to wait and see.
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RUSH: Joseph in Palm Coast, Florida, it’s great to have you on the program, sir.
CALLER: Hi.
RUSH: This place was in the path of Fay. You guys got a lot of rain up there, right?
CALLER: Turned off. Hi.
RUSH: Hi.
CALLER: I’m a former Catholic priest and a Jesuit, and —
RUSH: Wait a minute. You have to educate me. What’s a former Catholic priest?
CALLER: I was dispense bid Pope Paul VI about 35 years ago from the automations of the priesthood.
RUSH: I see. Okay.
CALLER: But I’m still a priest, and times of emergency I can absolve from sin when someone’s in danger of death.
RUSH: I see. Last rites.
CALLER: Yeah. Yeah. But as to the theology, listening to Pelosi, she is misrepresenting what the Catholic church teaches. For one thing, the theologians don’t teach what the Catholic Church teaches unless it’s accepted by the church.
RUSH: I know.
CALLER: St. Augustine —
RUSH: You can go to Catholic encyclopedia, you can go anywhere you want. This is just a flat-out expedient political lie.
CALLER: Right, but people don’t know that, the people don’t know how the church works.
RUSH: Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait. Just a second here, Joseph. Catholics know it, and there are a lot of them, and the Democrats are going to need ’em, and that’s one of the reasons they put Biden on the ticket, ’cause he’s a Catholic.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: But this isn’t going to fly. The Catholics know what’s what.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: They may get mad at the pope now and then, but Nancy Pelosi is not going to be accepted as redefining church doctrine no matter what their political points of view are.
CALLER: I don’t know. Some people might go along with her, but she’s misleading the public about where the church’s teaching comes from. The pope —
RUSH: She’s not ‘misleading.’ She’s lying!
CALLER: Okay. If you want to say that.
RUSH: I do want to say that.
CALLER: You know, Jesus Christ would not start a church that would lead men into error. That’s why the pope is ‘infallible in matters of faith and morals,’ and you can’t make an error when he officially teaches the Catholic doctrine. He can’t make an error. He can’t tell people something that’s going to lead them into error. And when the council defines something, it must first have the approval of the pope before it becomes official —
RUSH: Exactly.
CALLER: — Catholic doctrine.
RUSH: And the pope, as we all know, is not Nancy Pelosi. And we know that Pelosi would never be the pope. The question is, Pope Benedict is going to hear about this if he hasn’t. He cares. He’s the pope. He cares about the Catholic Church. The most powerful woman in the United States of America has just lied about his church. Something has to happen here at some point. I don’t know what. I don’t know what steps publicly the Catholic Church takes in a situation like this. But the first thing that is going to happen is, American Catholics are going to hear about it on this program, just like we have not forgotten, do you know that the Drive-By Media nowhere, no place, no how, has played Barack Obama when the cameras had shut down in Chester, Virginia, last week, praising China and its infrastructure? That has not made it to the Drive-Bys. It will, and if it doesn’t make it to the Drive-Bys it’s going to make it to the American people because we’re not going to let go of that, just like we’re not going to let go of this.
This is not just about abortion. This is about the hubris, brazen arrogance of a foolish, dangerous woman who as Speaker of the House is on a mission total folly; making a mockery of not only sacred beliefs, but common sense and intelligence on a daily basis. This is the woman who said that Obama is ‘a gift from God.’ His leadership and talents are a gift from God. So if that’s how they’re going to appeal to the values voters and if they want to bring abortion up, if they want to bring it up in this campaign we’re going to welcome it. We will welcome them bringing it up again. They cannot win on this, no matter how they fool themselves. The American people did not vote Roe v. Wade. A bunch of liberal judges on the Supreme Court wearing black robes did it, and the American people have never had their say on it. And this is another way liberals fool themselves into thinking they are the majority, when they are not.