Democrat misrepresented Church abortion teaching, say US bishops
By Staff Reporter
29 August 2008

Nancy Pelosi: Criticised

Senior American bishops have accused a leading Democrat politician of misleading the public over abortion, in the week that pro-choice candidate Barack Obama officially accepted the Democratic nomination.

In a statement Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia and Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Connecticut, criticised House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi over the way she "misrepresented the history and nature of the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church on abortion" in a nationally televised interview.

Mrs Pelosi, a Democrat who is Catholic, said in an appearance on NBC''s Meet the Press programme that Church leaders for centuries had not been able to agree on when life begins.

But the bishops said the Church since the first century "has affirmed the moral evil of every abortion".

They said: "The teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable... Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law."

Cardinal Rigali heads the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, while Bishop Lori chairs the USCCB Committee on Doctrine. The statement recalled how in the Middle Ages "uninformed and inadequate theories" about the development of a child in a mother's womb led some theologians to suggest that human life capable of receiving an immortal soul may not exist until a few weeks into pregnancy.

"While in Canon Law these theories led to a distinction in penalties between very early and later abortions, the Church's moral teaching never justified or permitted abortion at any stage of development," the Church leaders said.