This article comes from EWTN News.
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Pelosi asks Catholic clergy for immigration help, praises sisters who undercut bishops
Speaking at a conference, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on Catholic clergy to play “a very major role” in supporting immigration reform. However, she also praised the group of religious sisters whose endorsement of the health care reform bill undercut the U.S. bishops’ push for abortion funding restrictions.
Her remarks came Thursday on Capitol Hill at the Nation’s Catholic Community Conference sponsored by Trinity Washington University and the National Catholic Reporter.
"The cardinals, the archbishops, the bishops that come to me and say, 'We want you to pass immigration reform,' and I said, 'I want you to speak about it from the pulpit. I want you to instruct…',” Pelosi said, according to Fox News.
The House Speaker, who says she is Catholic, said that some people who oppose immigration reform are in the pews and the clergy “have to tell them that this is a manifestation of our living the Gospels.”
A Pelosi spokesman later issued a statement saying the Speaker “believes the faith community has played and will continue to play a role in our national debate.”
In other remarks at the conference, Speaker Pelosi discussed the recent health care reform legislation, claiming it respected “the dignity and worth of every person.”
"I thank so many of you who helped get that passed. Thank God for the nuns. Thank God for the nuns,” she commented, according to CNSNews.com.
The Speaker was referring to a March letter of support for the health care bill from NETWORK, a woman’s religious group which claimed at the time of its letter to have the support of 59,000 religious sisters.
Pelosi continued: “. . .Imagine, 15, 16 leaders of orders representing 59,000 orders -- and I didn’t realize it was Dominican, Benedictine and Franciscan, Notre Dame de L’Amour, Notre Dame School Sisters, every possible kind of name you can think of, there they were on the list. And they wrote to us saying, ‘We support this life-affirming legislation.’ We were so proud of them and they helped us do just that."
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) spokeswoman Sr. Mary Ann Walsh in March said that the letter “grossly overstated” its numbers, was signed by “a few dozen people” and did not come “anywhere near representing 59,000 American sisters.
“The letter had 55 signatories, some individuals, some groups of three to five persons. One endorser signed twice,” she added. “There are 793 religious communities in the United States.”
The U.S. bishops opposed the health care bill on the grounds that it lacked statutory restrictions on abortion funding, among other reasons.
