ROME — Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday told U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Roman Catholic who supports abortion rights, that Catholic politicians must protect “human life at all stages of its development.”
Pelosi is the highest-ranking Democrat to meet with the pope since the election of President Barack Obama, whose administration’s support of abortion rights worries many in the Vatican.
In a statement, the Vatican said Benedict “briefly greeted” Pelosi and her entourage after his weekly public audience and “took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death.”
The pope added that all Catholics, “especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society,” should “work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.”
As a high-ranking politician and a practicing Catholic who regularly attends Mass and receives communion, Pelosi has been at the center of several contentious debates between the Catholic Church and the American political establishment.
In a statement issued by her office on Wednesday, Pelosi said it was “with great joy” that she and her husband, Paul, had met Benedict.
She said she had praised “the church’s leadership in fighting poverty, hunger and global warming, as well as the Holy Father’s dedication to religious freedom and his upcoming trip and message to Israel.”
Pelosi’s statement did not mention the pope’s comments on abortion.
The New York Times
