So much for honey

Nancy Pelosi met with Pope Benedict XVI yesterday with her husband in the Vatican.

Pelosi identifies as “an ardent, practicing Catholic”, so I can only imagine that this encounter was quite meaningful to her. She shared a photograph with the Pope of her family’s Papal visit from the 1950s and used her press statement following the visit to demonstrate the areas in church doctrine where Pelosi and the Democratic Party shared positions, rather than disagreed (poverty, hunger, and global warming).

I found this to be gracious and very much the states woman. And it seemed like Pelosi wanted to use the encounter to look for areas of common ground to work together with the Catholic Church.

The Vatican, on the other hand, took the opportunity to publicly snub her in his effort to push the strict Papal agenda on social issues, in particular abortion. His statement:

His Holiness 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 which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to 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.

Pelosi isn’t afraid to speak her mind on abortion. She ruffled the Vatican’s feathers pretty good back in August on Meet the Press by talking about both her support for abortion and contraception. Apparently, the Pope hasn’t gotten over it, and certainly didn’t view the encounter with Pelosi as an opportunity to change her mind. Maybe this has something to do with the tendency of women to be so prone to pride (according to an article in the Vatican official newspaper). I mean, really – what’s the point in even trying to talk with these powerful women? They just can’t be reasoned with.