Describing herself as “a devout Catholic” and invoking the prayer of St. Francis, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced on Thursday that she is going to not seek a Democratic leadership post in the subsequent Congress.
“I stand before you as Speaker of the House, as a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a devout Catholic, a proud Democrat and a patriotic American, a citizen of the best republic within the history of the world,” Ms. Pelosi said. But with the incoming Republican majority readying to elect a recent speaker, Ms. Pelosi said Democrats “must move boldly into the longer term, grounded by the principles which have propelled us this far and open to fresh possibilities for the longer term.”
Ms. Pelosi, who has served in Democratic House leadership since 2002, including serving as speaker from 2007 to 2011, and again since 2019, said she plans to retain her congressional seat representing San Francisco.
Describing herself as “a devout Catholic,” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced on Thursday that she is going to not seek a Democratic leadership post in the subsequent Congress.
During her 20 years on the national political scene, Ms. Pelosi incessantly invoked her Catholic faith, drawing praise from progressives who saw in her an example of championing the church’s social justice values and condemnation from conservatives who cited her liberal political beliefs as evidence that she did take her faith seriously.
At times, Ms. Pelosi, 82, has clashed with bishops over her support for abortion rights and same-sex marriage, including earlier this yr, when San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone took the weird step of publicly barring Ms. Pelosi from Communion. The archbishop said he banned Ms. Pelosi from Communion following several meetings through the years wherein he said he tried to “help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she is causing, and the danger to her own soul she is risking.”
While Ms. Pelosi did indirectly address the Communion ban, she said shortly after that she comes from “a largely pro-life, Italian-American Catholic family, so I respect people’s views about that, but I don’t respect us foisting it onto others.”
Then in June, just after Archbishop Cordileone announced his decision, Ms. Pelosi met with Pope Francis in Rome, her second audience in as a few years, and received Communion during a Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica. Last yr, America named Ms. Pelosi one among the “Top 5 U.S. Catholic Newsmakers of 2021,” citing her meeting with Pope Francis, the clash together with her archbishop and her political efforts “to strengthen the center class.”
At times, Ms. Pelosi, 82, has clashed with bishops over her support for abortion rights and same-sex marriage.
Ms. Pelosi’s support for abortion rights and her relationship to her church has long been a flash point. In a 2015 interview with The Latest York Times, as Pope Francis visited the US, Ms. Pelosi said that despite differences on abortion, “I actually agree with the pope on more issues than many Catholics who agree with him on one issue.” During her visit to the Vatican in 2021, Mrs. Pelosi and Pope Francis discussed the environment, migration and poverty.
And on other issues, namely health care and immigration, the speaker has found allies within the Catholic Church, particularly amongst women religious.
One in all Ms. Pelosi’s most ambitious legislative accomplishments as speaker got here with the passage of the Inexpensive Care Act in 2010. Reflecting on that law in a 2017 interview with The Washington Post, Ms. Pelosi praised Catholic sisters for his or her role in helping to shepherd the laws.
“Look, we worked with the nuns. The nuns helped us pass the Inexpensive Care Act. The nuns. The Catholic nuns—thank God for the Catholic nuns,” Ms. Pelosi said.
“Look, we worked with the nuns. The nuns helped us pass the Inexpensive Care Act. The nuns. The Catholic nuns—thank God for the Catholic nuns,” Ms. Pelosi said, adding that she was grateful for his or her efforts to oppose Republican attempts on the time to overturn the law.
Immediately following the passage of the Inexpensive Care Act, Ms. Pelosi told an audience in 2010 at her alma mater, Trinity College, that she heard incessantly from Catholic leaders that immigration reform must be next—a long-elusive goal that has evaded Ms. Pelosi and fellow Democrats.
“The cardinals, the archbishops, the bishops that come to me…say, ‘We wish you to pass immigration reform,” she said in 2010. “And I said, I need you to talk about it from the pulpit. Some [who] oppose immigration reform are sitting in those pews, and you might have to inform them that this can be a manifestation of our living the Gospels.”
During her profession in Congress, Ms. Pelosi met no less than three popes. She greeted Pope John Paul II during his 1987 visit to San Francisco and later was received by Pope Benedict XVI. She told a reporter in 2015 that she had read Benedict’s papal encyclicals closely, pointing to his 2005 “Deus Caritas Est” as particularly “beautiful.” In 2013, Ms. Pelosi was present in Rome, together with then-Vice President Joe Biden, who would consult with her as “my Catholic sister,” to represent the US on the installation of Pope Francis.
“I don’t hate anybody,” Ms. Pelosi said when asked if she hated Donald Trump. “I used to be raised in a Catholic house. We don’t hate anybody, not anybody on the planet. Don’t accuse me of hate.”
During her address to lawmakers on Thursday, Ms. Pelosi highlighted accomplishments reached under three presidents—George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden—notably omitting any mention of former President Donald Trump, with whom she shared a very acrimonious relationship. In 2019, when asked by a reporter if Democrats “hated” Mr. Trump, Ms. Pelosi cited her faith.
“I don’t hate anybody,” she said. “I used to be raised in a Catholic house. We don’t hate anybody, not anybody on the planet. Don’t accuse me of hate.”
“As a Catholic, I resent your using the word ‘hate’ in a sentence that addresses me,” she continued. “I don’t hate anyone.”
Earlier this yr, Fox Business reported that Ms. Pelosi has her eye on serving because the U.S. ambassador to Italy, a post that continues to be vacant two years into the Biden presidency. Earlier this week, one among her aides said on Twitter that Ms. Pelosi has “little interest in becoming the U.S. Ambassador to Italy. She intends to proceed serving in Congress no matter her decision about House Democratic leadership.”
As for her prayer life, in 2010, Ms. Pelosi talked to The Latest York Times Magazine about childhood lessons that inform what she asks of God.
“My mother at all times said: ‘We don’t pray to win elections. We pray for people’s health, we pray that God’s can be done, we pray that we do our greatest. But we don’t pray to win elections,’” Ms. Pelosi recalled. As a substitute, she said, “I only pray that I do my absolute best.”
