Denver Newsroom, Aug 16, 2020 / 04:42 pm (CNA).- Shannon Ochoa remembers recognizing that she was attracted to women from a pretty young age.
Starting around the age of 13, Ochoa said she was “all gung-ho” for chastity talks and signing a purity promise. But she also realized that the talks she was hearing only addressed sexuality from a heterosexual perspective.
“A lot of the advice you’d get was about the opposite sex, and so when you’re sitting there, crushing on your friend next to you at the women’s talk, you’re like, ‘Oh, what do I do?’”
For a while, Ochoa said, her strategy was to say nothing. By and large, her experience of people talking about same-sex attraction was within a political context – this was around the time that California was voting on the legalization of gay marriage.
“So I was like, ‘Well, I’m just going to shut up; not tell a soul about this,’” Ochoa told CNA.
“Because that’s always helpful, right?” she joked. “Not to have a space to process?”
Eventually, through her relationship with God and others, Ochoa would come to confront her same-sex attraction and to grapple with what that meant for her as a Catholic Christian.
Today, Ochoa is one of the founders of Eden Invitation, a relatively new ministry in the Catholic Church that seeks to provide community, accompaniment and resources for people who experience same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria and who want to follow Christ and Catholic Church teaching.
“We exist to create spaces to receive the whole person, to grow systems of mutual support, and to empower for mature Christian discipleship,” Ochoa states in an introductory video for the ministry.
Both Ochoa and Anna Carter, the other founder of Eden Invitation, credit their strong faith backgrounds with providing them the framework and the love for God necessary to stay and thrive in the Catholic Church as people who experience same sex attraction.
It wasn’t really until Ochoa’s involvement with ministry on her college campus at the University of Madison Wisconsin that she “encountered the person of Jesus, in a really raw way. Where I just knew that he saw me, he knew me and he had a place for me in his Church,” she said.
While some might see Church teaching as oppressive, since it calls people with same-sex attraction to live chastely, Ochoa said she knew she could never leave the Church.
In a way, she said, she “knew too much” – she could not deny the love of God or the truth of his Church’s teachings, she said.
“I just had so many prayers where the Lord has spoken over me in intimacy, or encountering the tapestry of a Christian apology, unpacking natural law and its impact on the human person and our society, as well as our environment. It’s just so deeply woven together…that’s just hard for me to deny,” Ochoa said.
Speaking about living as a Catholic with same-sex attraction had slowly become a part of her ministry. She would incorporate the Church’s teaching on this subject into bible studies she was leading, and she slowly started attracting bible study members and friends who were wrestling with the same questions she was, about how to live a fulfilling life in the Church as a Catholic experiencing same-sex attraction.
“There was a longing in my heart to know and understand my experience that didn’t feel like it was being talked about in the Church, but there’s also a longing in more secular spaces,” she said.
After graduating college, Ochoa worked in different ministry positions, and it was then that she met Anna Carter, who shared with her a vision for a ministry that would accompany Catholics experiencing same sex attraction or gender discordance who wanted to follow Church teaching.
“I was like discerning this and bounced it off of a few friends of mine, one of whom was Shannon, a friend from the local area,” Carter told CNA.
“And then (Shannon) said, ‘That’s funny that that’s what you’re discerning. Let me tell you about my life,” Carter recalled.
“And it was just so beautiful, because it immediately shifted the perspective,” Carter said. “I think initially my idea was like, I’m going to speak and write about this.”
Instead, Carter and Ochoa started thinking about their experiences, and what kept them in the Church.
“Why did you stay Catholic? Why are we still here? What did we have that maybe some other people who have left the Church didn’t have? What do we wish we had?” she said.
Both Carter and Ochoa agreed that they had both experienced a solid foundation of theology and formation in the Christian life, but what they longed for more of was other people who understood that experience and who would support them as friends and as Christian disciples.
“And so really out of that space came this dream and this desire to give people community, in addition to formation,” Carter said.
Eden Invitation establishes community through its weekly book clubs, which meet virtually to discuss books on various aspects of the human person from the perspective of a Christian anthropology. Currently, they are reading Pope St. John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation, Christifideles Laici, or “The Lay Members of Christ’s Faithful.”
They also have an online community platform, as well as occasional spiritual retreats, among other more casual gatherings.
The ministry takes what Ochoa and Carter call a “whole person” approach to human formation. The tagline on the ministry’s website reads “Eden Invitation: original personhood beyond the LGBT+ paradigm.” They want to explore not only what the Church teaches about same sex attraction, but also, “what does it mean to be human?”
“Being a member of the body of Christ, being a temple of the Holy Spirit – that is our deepest identity,” Carter said.
“We say no to certain things, because we have a really rich and dynamic yes to what it means to be a human being,” she added. They draw inspiration from other saints who lived as single people, like Dorothy Day or Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. They talk about what it means to live a robust life as a single, chaste, lay person in the Church.
Carter said she likes to use Garden of Eden imagery in some of her talks on this topic. In the Garden of Eden in the book of Genesis, there is a tree that is off-limits to Adam and Eve: God commands that they do not touch it.
For people experiencing same sex attraction, Carter said, there is also a “tree”, so to speak, that is “100% off limits.”
“If we spend our life circling that tree and pining after that tree, of course we’re not going to think there’s any possibilities. Or if all of the teaching and all of the explanations about this experience is fixated on telling us over and over again, not to go to the tree, what are we going to look at? The tree!” Carter said.
“You know, but the truth is: we have the run of the garden, and that’s where we’ll find our vocation and mission.”
Carlos Martinez, a member of Eden Invitation, said he most appreciates the community he has found within the ministry.
“We all experience pain points and sufferings through this within the Church and outside of the Church, but having other people around you who understand what you’ve experienced…it’s just been a testament of the beauty of what the ministry is and what Eden really strives for, which is a desire to grow in holiness with God through this.”
Martinez is from Texas but currently lives in New York City as a student at Columbia University. He said he was “shocked” when he moved to New York to see so many Catholic parishes be so open about their ministries for people on the LGBT spectrum.
“I don’t say that in a negative tone,” Martinez said. It was an openness that he hadn’t yet encountered, and many of these ministries were engaged in “beautiful forms of apostolic charity” like visiting gay men’s health centers, or starting Bible studies. But a lot of the ministries Martinez encountered were more concerned with affirming his same-sex attraction, and did not emphasize true and clear Church teaching.
It was very different from his experience as a Catholic in Texas, where Church teaching was “beat like a dead horse…but then there’s no community, there’s no relationship with Christ through this experience.”
The ministries available to people who experience same sex attraction or gender dysphoria within the Church, and also want to follow Church teaching regarding sexuality, are few. Courage is one ministry that exists to support people with same sex attraction who want to be faithful to the Church, but Martinez said Eden Invitation appealed to him because of its whole person approach, and because its members tended to be younger than the average Courage member.
For Martinez, it took a lot of prayer and discernment to find where he felt the Lord was calling him to be.
“I would just pray for, okay, where is the Holy Spirit in all of this noise?” Martinez said. “I really want to be open about this. I want to share my testimony. I want to utilize this.”
“Through a lot of prayer and guidance from the Lord…where I think the Holy Spirit is the most present, which for me personally, is in what is being done in Eden Invitation.”
Eden Invitation is “where I find that the ministry is holding true…with what we believe within the Church, but also (seeks an) understanding of that and unpacking that more in solidarity with other men and women who experienced this, and confronting it with clergy.” he said.
On Eden Invitation retreats, Martinez said he has been able to have frank conversations with priests, who he encourages to speak more openly about how people who experience same-sex attraction can live fully as Catholics, rather than taking a one-or-the-other approach of affirmation or apologetics.
“You don’t hear it in homilies, you don’t hear it in a group, conversational setting with an activity or within a Bible study. The only time I was able to talk about it was through confession and through Courage,” Martinez said. “It just sucks in a way, because while we don’t know why we ….like with anything, we can utilize our sufferings, our crosses, every part of who we are, we can utilize the uniqueness of what we are and how we were made in Christ.”
“Why is this just not a conversation that we can just talk about at Mass? There’s fear of the backlash from the congregation, there’s fear with donors, there’s fear all around,” Martinez said.
“When have we ever caved to fear as a church? Did the apostles cave to fear when they were the only one who received and knew the Word of God and had to trust in the Lord to speak to the world about his good news and his glory? No.”
Martinez said he would encourage people that minister to teenagers and young adults to also be open about this topic, since most people start recognizing same sex desires or attractions at a fairly young age. He encouraged them to have open conversations about it, to be compassionate as well as clear about what the Church teaches, and to be informed about what resources are available to them, such as Eden Invitation.
He said he hoped at one point it would be easy for Catholics who experience same sex attraction to be open about their experiences and to find authentic friendships within the Church.
For Martinez, he said that within Eden Invitation, “I feel like my full, authentic self, and it has enabled me to come out to everyone. It has really been transformative for other men and women out there who experience this when I get to share my story, and people who are close with me who don’t experience this.”
“It’s very freeing that I can just express myself and be myself, knowing that my expressions, and the way I am joyful, and how excited I get about things, my personality, all comes from (God’s) love. It’s all loving, and nothing about me, about who I am, is a defection, or is some form of rejection from God. On the contrary, it’s enabling me to be closer to him.”
For Ochoa, she said Eden Invitation has given her a sense of hope and empowerment within the Church.
“It’s a space to encounter joy and hopefulness. I think that’s one of the markers we’ve seen in our community, is that there’s a certain levity,” she said. “We’re not making light of the whole situation, but there’s a certain levity in just being able to laugh about some nuances of this experience.”
Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, another marker of the community, for Ochoa and others, has been “having a sense of home. Home in the Church.”
[…]
Speaker Pelosi and Abp. Cordileone had a disagreement about who should decide this [family size and timing]? Really? That’s what she heard?
Funny. I’ve been impressed by the cardinal’s unfailing articulateness.
I agree that his articulateness has been outstanding, but his actions have been, to date, non-existent. For every Catholic who sees his remarks, ten, twenty, or one hundred will see “Catholic” Pelosi’s remarks. The Catholic Church will not “turn around” until our actions mirror our words.
I would guess that virtually every active Catholic knows someone who thinks they are a good Catholic, but who doesn’t follow Church teachings.
Speaker Pelosi’s remarks are rationalizations; she is a Catholic in name only and not practice. God will judge and I ask her to go back and study the 10 Commandments and the Bible.Dr.Maxine Turek
Nancy Pelosi is not a Catholic. She has other attitudes or free will choices that are in error with the fasith. She uses the mantle of of “Catholic” as dressing for being a good person. I am stopping here because I also am a sinner. I dread have Jesus as my judge but rejoice having Him as my savior. Mrs. Pelosi should consider these words.
Yes, God gave us free will to choose Heaven or Hell. Nancy has chosen the latter.
I note Erik Rosales’ frequent challenging questions in his capacity as EWTN’s Capitol Hill correspondent.
“…vigilantes and bounty hunters…” Silly me, I thought the Aztec Pelosi was referring to the well-paid Abortion Industry and other such head hunters.
God gave us a will to choose His good because His good leads to our eternal happiness. His sixth commandment was, is, and always shall be: “Thou shalt not kill.”
To enact laws, to proclaim a ‘right’ or a ‘freedom’ to kill, to require others to remotely participate all act against the sixth commandment. Killing a human being is a mortal sin. This life gives but a foreshadowed glance at eternity.
Jesus Christ will call Nancy to her reckoning whether she wills it or no. One prays that a spark of the Holy Spirit may inspire her intellect to glimpse the depravity underneath make-up and mask. A heart and soul at odds with God’s commandment count for more than make-up and a dress.
Always heartening reading your posts
Thank you to Gilberta for correcting my math! The FIFth commandment is “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”
Meiron, unless I’ve been misled, I believe it’s #5 you’re referring to.
Thank you, Gilberta. Good catch.👍
I have long suspected that abortion is the (I hate to use the word) “sacrament” of the liberals. I believe child sacrifice is what the devil demands to keep the liberals in power. Every single time the pro-life movement achieves any small amount of success, the liberals fight like those possessed to take that victory away from them. Child sacrifice must be protected at all costs!
Well, when a person hovers on either side of 80, she or he ought to consider that payment will soon be due. They have had their run, and Moloch will soon require payment for giving them a life of power, wealth, and prestige.
In 1998, Ginette Paris, PhD, who is a Jungian, published a book titled The Sacrament of Abortion that is a defense of, even homage to, abortion as a sort of pagan sacrifice.
Yes, a pagan sacrifice. Abortion is sometimes presented to young girls in trouble as a Rite of Initiation into “modernity.”
Of the same mentality as the late 1960s Red Guard Movement in China, which fully initiate a new generation activists into Communism, replicating the initiatory and costly Long March of 1934-35 into central China (of 100,000, less than ten percent survived), which galvanized the leadership role of Chairman Mao Zedong. Or, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge initiation of a Communist order in Cambodia in 1975-79 (two million victims, one fourth of the population). Or any smaller street-gang initiations in our cities.
And now, slow motion throughout the declining West (over 60 million in the United States since 1973). Spearheaded by Aztec Pelosi’s defense of late-term-abortions as “sacred ground” (June 2013). Once initiated with blood on one’s hands, there can be no “turning back”.
Wait, what? There CAN always be Redemption. Someone wrote a book about that, too.
Redemption even for the West as a whole, and for the whole world, and for the whole soul of each of us. “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Mt 28:19).
A question for the successors of the Apostles: “synodality, yes, and what else”?
Thanks for that information, Carl. I am going to check into that.
Might be of interest: Carl Jung was a free mason and suffered as a child from abuse wherein his personality was split into multiples. The evidence cited for this is his posthumously published “Red book”. Red is the colour the Free Masons use to paint their Abuse Rooms under their lodges/temples according to the book by Alexandre Lebreton in French. The takeaway: “Psychology” was a Free Masonic psuedo-science founded to help the Rulers of the Novos Ordo study and learn how to more effectively abuse kids and keep their victims silent. A further piece of the Novos Ordo falls into place…? The book, is called “Franc-maçonnerie et schizophrénie.” ISBN: 9781913890049. It is not a source of feelgood joy in the beauty of creation, but an executive summary and tool for those trying to understand why the Sankt Gallen Mafia seek to destroy God’s Divinely Founded Institution well into their old age with no apparent fear of damnation… One has to conclude they are seriously sick. Why C9 Bergoglio? Nineth Inner circle?? A 5-Star Amazon rateed book has been published on one of Bergoglio’s remaining C6 Cardinals, with a foreword by Archbishop Vigano:
https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Betrayals-against-corruption-Francis/dp/1735267104/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=sacred+betrayals&qid=1632601124&s=books&sr=1-1
Very sad to see an old person, not long for this earth, clinging to their evil ways despite knowing they will have to answer to God very soon. I would be terrified rethink the errors of my life (as I did when I had Covid this year) instead of arrogant and defiant.
sorry but covid went a long time ago. these so called “covid tests” cant even tell the difference between covid and the flu. now it’s all just fear mongering scare tactics by the governemnt. Hitler did it with gas chambers and now the government is doing it with masks. the masks are useless and are causing more suffering and deaths. the government knows this yet does nothing but making history repeat itself from the Spanish flu to the SARS epidemic. they knew then that masks did nothing but make more people suffer and die and unfortunately people are following like blind sheep to a cliff.
🙏
I beelieve it is obvious. The natural inclination would to be worried about your soul at this late a stage. Apparently we do not have a Catholic here we either are dealing with angent of the evil one or she incorrectly beleives in predestination. She is not Catholic. Neither is the group of “Catholics” supporting her position.
Né a. Pelosi, you are NOT a Catholicin case you think otherwise!
Won’t she be surprised when she has her immediate judgement before Jesus! Will she give Him the same response as the Archbishop? Time for the Church to take a DEFINITIVE stand deny Holy Communion to her and all the phony catholic pro-aborts. But that won’t happen since the USCCB is so divided amongst itself.
Excellent comment, Monsignor, excellent comment! What is the USCCB for if not to support and defend the doctrines of the Church? The USCCB is a worthless organization for the defense of Church doctrine. Worthless!
…sorry. IMHO whether the USCCB is divided or not is immaterial. It is bought and paid for by the DNC and has been reduced to performing as the Ministry of Social Justice for the same.
This individual is chaos and lies. Simply demonic. She makes herself a sacrilege.
Why does the Church continue to allow those professing to be Catholic, who clearly defy the moral teachings of the Church, to remain in good standing with the Church? This continues to send a message to the world that we really don’t believe what we teach because we fail to defend it, and that the Church is whatever you want it to be.
Agree with you, Todd, about the Church’s duty to deal properly with quisling Catholics like Pelosi. Unfortunately we have the opposite tact taken by Pope Francis, who says that abortion is murder but at the same time offers effusive praise to politicians who actively promote it, like the President of Ireland.
Pelosi is truly flirting with the area of the afterlife where an ice cream cone won’t keep.
Ma Pelosi will have a Special boat waiting for her at the River Styx. Charon and his 1st Mate Blackmun on the tiller.Will smilingly pipe her aboard for the trip across.
When I read Pelosi’s comments of this sort, I wonder what she will say standing before God on Judgement Day. It’s not Pro-Choice she advocates but Pro-Death. We Pro-Lifers should start calling it what it is! Pro-Choice is having the child and raising it, or having it and giving it up for adoption. But that’s too “inconvenient” for people like Pelosi. How did a very straightforward concept get so convoluted? How did we, as a society come to be where we are on this issue? It seems so clear to me the right thing for a women and man to do in such a situation. The right thing when one is talking “life”. Holy Mother, pray for us.
God wills all of us to choose the good; however, He does not force us to do so. Nancy Pelosi is correct. God has given all of us free will to choose the good or the evil. What she is missing is that the choice for evil has dire consequences in eternity. Abortion is the worst evil this country has ever legalized. In writing that sentence, I started to think about our laws, which all, with one exception, protect life. Liberty and the pursuit of happiness should never come at the expense of the life of another. Pelosi jeopardizes her eternal life in supporting the murders of the unborn.
This pathetic woman needs our prayers.
Ours is not to judge her – that will be soon enough.
Ours is not to judge her – (sic)
Our is to judge her behavior, just as Christ exhorted.
“And why even of yourselves, do you not judge that which is just?” Jesus Christ, Luke 12:57
I repeat – Ours is not to judge her – that will be soon enough. She needs our prayers.
Just now the US House passed its bill to enshrine the right to abortion in law. The Senate must pass the bill; Joe Manchin is said to be a pro-life Catholic….
All this does not bode well for this nation in the sight of God. No longer is it a majority of justices on the Supreme Court. Now the majority party in Congress has perfectly soiled their souls and stained our nation’s ground with the blood of holy innocents.
If it’s ‘none of our business’ in regard to others then the truth of life is merely a subjective construct and not an objective truth even in the Catholic Church. Is it not applicable to everyone and not just Catholics?
To construct, fund, and promote abortion is ‘making it your business’.
There is no ‘constitutional’ right to abortion but only, once again, judicial fiat and Pelosi knows it. To hide behind the vicious euphemism of ‘reproductive healthcare’ and claim ‘reason’ is the height of pride in the service of infernal, willful ignorance.
And the final straw is to pretend her ‘differences’ with Cordileone has to do with ‘family size’ and not the deliberate destruction of a human life.
Will that arrogance serve her standing before God?
Will it, Archbishop Cordileone?
@SpeakerPelosi is now an elderly woman. I hope she realises that power and notoriety will not save her soul. Pray she starts to do the right thing. We are all running out of time.
Yes he gave you free will and you chose to violate it by saying it is OK to kill a human being. Would love to be there when you explain to God when you die and justify your stand. Good Luck
Speaker Pelosi is of that breed that is perhaps best characterized as “autonomous.” The autonomous spirit does not need to consult anyone else or any institution in order to arrive at how the truth of things stands.
For this person the Church, Christ’s Body, is not in any sense an extension of Christ. It is merely an entity, which sometimes seems an obstacle, that nevertheless can be dismissed or ignored out of hand. The autonomous spirit is always free and is always right.
The corollary is that anyone who disagrees with this person is invariably wrong. This includes priests, bishops, archbishops, the Pope, as well as other lay Catholics who try humbly first to know and then to follow, that is, practice, what Holy Mother Church in Her wisdom teaches. That very idea would likely be novel to Speaker Pelosi, and if she even considered it seriously for three seconds would probably find it both silly and objectionable.
Is Speaker Pelosi beyond help or hope? Is hers a case of “invincible ignorance? I cannot say one way or the other. But we all can say, “Pray for us sinners, now and at the our of our death.” In that regard, she is one of us.
Speaker Pelosi is NOT beyond help or hope. She is nearing that point when she will answer for the damage she has done in her life, and she needs our prayers so that she will be granted the grace of contrition BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.
Pelosi’s five children were a blessing, and it is commendable that she views her cooperation in creation as such. Yet, to paraphrase Obama, “She did not build that.” Neither does any woman have a right by natural law and Divine Authority to misuse her body to co create life outside of Holy Matrimony. Shame on Pelosi and those in worldly power to distort what should be a joyous privilege to gift back one’s body and welcome God in procreation.
As for free will–it comes with a cost when abused and squandered for evil. Pelosi’s intellect is warped; her conscience in darkness; and her exercise of will ruled by passion and unbridled temporal power. She has made herself a god.
Glad for the day of fasting and prayer and will be hoping for illumination of souls!
“…It is none of our business how other people choose the size & timing of their families.”
Hmh.
So then, by that logic, why is everyone so upset over the death of Gabby Petito? It’s none of our business if a man wants to limit the size of his family.
Steve K. above – I agree that, unfortunately, for every one who hears Abp. Cordileone, ten, twenty or a hundred will hear Speaker Pelosi. The MSM certainly won’t hear Cordileone except as the spokesman for the supposedly unenlightened, conservative American bishops. Nevertheless, I have hope that Cordileone’s thoughtful, clear and patient teaching will resonate with some of his readers, Catholic or not.
Day of wrath, that dreadful day, shall heaven and earth in ashes lay, as David and the Sybil say.
What horror must invade the mind when the approaching Judge shall find and sift the deeds of all mankind!
The mighty trumpet’s wondrous tone shall rend each tomb’s sepulchral stone and summon all before the Throne.
Now death and nature with surprise behold the trembling sinners rise to meet the Judge’s searching eyes.
Then shall with universal dread the Book of Consciences be read to judge the lives of all the dead.
For now before the Judge severe all hidden things must plain appear; no crime can pass unpunished here.
Oh, what shall I, so guilty, plead? And who for me will intercede when even Saints shall comfort need?
The judgment of those who vote in favor of abortion, most particularly the Catholics, will be horrible beyond anything we can imagine this side of eternity. Pray, pray for them. Blindness beyond comprehension.
Where Nancy Pelosi refers to reproductive healthcare, she is close to getting to the point, although she misses the mark. Georgetown University’s Institute for Reproductive Health, in cooperation with Cycle Technologies, has provided the research and tools for naturally preventing pregnancy. Thus, there is neither need, nor justification, for an abortion. It is, rather, a problem of educating clerics and politicians concerning these effective choices. There is the TwoDay Method of birth control, and the Standard Days Method — CycleBeads approach. These are featured at the Cycle Technology section on Youtube. Rather than debate ethics — which won’t change a politician’s mind — I suggest that Catholics focus on learning about these natural birth control methods, and then teaching as many people as possible regarding how to use them. These are effective, and totally destroy any woman’s justification for carelessly getting pregnant and feeling the need for an abortion. We are not here to condemn. We are here to bring to people the light of the Gospel, and to save endangered souls from a deep state of purgatory.
David,
You are very correct. Many of these cases are a metter of temperance on the part of both men and women. They are a matter of peer pressure, a matter of mistaken imporession of the needs to pleae, of the crime of eithanasia of the imperfect.
The problem here evidently is the messengers. Opponenets of choice loudly proclaimed control of a womans body, right to choose and now the Speaker of the House is proclaiming family size. It sounds like they are gewtting desperaate and are reaching for thin excuses.
Pelosi is a Catholic in name only. But then, so is the Pope. So she has his full support. That is where we are. I know 10 theologians who will tell you this is impossible. But they are wrong. It is delusional to believe otherwise.
Nancy Pelosi and company somehow manage to link the killing of late-term fetuses with “love-making.” I don’t see it that way. So, what is “right” Nancy?
Talk talk talk!! That is all one hears from the archdiocese of San Francisco. When is this man going to grow a spine and excommunicate the Speaker?
Ragging on pathetic Pelosi is an utter waste of time. Accusing our bishops of negligence is not much better. They know if they speak out forcefully and actually ACT for once, they will be slapped down by Pope Francis. She knows it as well. Bad news but true.
There is NO way that this woman can be so ignorant that she actually believes what she is saying on this subject – it has been pointed out to her innumerable times.
Why hasn’t this ghoul been ex-communicated?
An indisputable fact: abortion has been with womankind since antiquity, and probably also since prehistoric times of hominids, Neantherthals, and Cro-Magnons. The Latin Church has never managed, most likely never will be able, to end the female practice of aborting, for it is, above all, an act subject not only to economic factors but also to those of the unique experience, that of any pregnant woman, her wants, needs, culture, and intimate personal understanding, her sense of morality tested, and her cordial state of being in counterpoint with her existential crisis, in brief, her personal life at a momentous decision. If a woman decides to abort, condemning her decision, attempting to prohibit her from aborting, marshalling the law to do so would be on her an imposition, particularly in our post-Christian, secular age, and in a country such as the US where there is no religious consensus, therefore no enforceable law on any matter of religion beyond allowing citizens to practice their faith so long as it does not interfere with the rights of others. One thing for sure, Roman Catholicism, coming down with doctrinal taboos misses the point and probably ends up being more impersonal, more distant, more irrelevant, more alien, indeed, more an intrusive, domineering hateful entity than it already is to many a woman, whatever her confessional persuasion, or lack thereof, pondering abortion or having in one incurred.
All possible compassionate succor and material aid to any woman who considers abortion, or aborts, the Church and State should offer and leave it at that, hands off, respecting the individual’s base freedom to live her life as she discovers or wills it to be, so long as she respects the rights of others. If any pope, prelate, priest, monk, nun, or politician be willing and able to die in the place of any woman who aborts, then maybe said individual -pope, prelate, priest, monk, nun, or politician- may have the right to dictate her life, indeed, to live It. Otherwise, when abortion is at play as a concrete possibility for a woman, it is not the time to marshall Christian ideological rhetoric and butt in, seeking to moderate behaviour, and poach the woman’s soul in distress.
MOIRAO, the point you are missing is, a life, a HUMAN life is being taken by another person for their comfort. If it truly was a “woman’s own body” then no one would be debating the issue.
Speaker Pelosi is the type of Catholic who interprets God’s laws to suit her way of believing, wanting others to follow her. For her, not to take the foolish chance of losing her soul, she should go to confession and speak to the priest who represents Jesus Christ to be assured her sins are not mortal. All Catholics should do the same when in doubt about following God’s commandments.