Who Said That?
Sunday, April 20, 2008 at 09:12PM 
A noted pro-choice Catholic had this to say: "I think the church can only do what it believes and I respect that. [But] I can't do anything other than what I believe. . . . I always take Communion when I go to church, and I go to church regularly. . . . God gave us all a free will and a responsibility to be accountable and to live up to our responsibilities, and that's how I see it. . . . The church sees it another way."
Who said that? No google searches or cheating. Leave your guess in the comments section below.
Kim Riddlebarger
Madame Speaker Pelosi offered this response when conservative Catholics questioned her about taking communion despite her openly pro choice views. Pelosi did admit to kissing the Pope's ring when both attended the White House. Click here: Modern Reformation - Religious News
Reader Comments (17)
She kissed the pope's ring last week. Guess that doesn't mean what it used to.
(I'd say it's Kerry.)
I'll guess Nancy P. as I've heard less lately from Kerry and nothing from Teddy.
You're too theologically curious to remain a Baptist!!!!
Why are people always trying to change the traditional, confessional, well-structured institutions to fit their own whims? Why can't they just leave them and go someplace else? Another example of this has to do with worship styles. Maybe it's because someone married into a church with traditional worship, I don't know, but the next thing you know they're trying to railroad in charismatic stuff. It's not like there's any lack of those kinds of churches - all they have to do is join the Pentecostal down the street. But, no, they've got bring everyone else down to their same level. I don't get it.
Maybe because they aren't quite the same kind of consumeristic as most Protestants? As troublesome as it may be, Cafeteria Catholics seem another breed from consumeristic Prot's. I think it is a bit more complicated than that.
I guess the Roman view (and thus scriptural one) on abortion is this: "Agree with the Church's politics as it speaks out of turn on matters not in her jurisdiction as you go about your duties as either a private citizen or public servant or be erroneously punished."
Telling members of the Church what they may/not do with their own bodies is one thing, telling them how to vote or go about statecraft is another. Put yet another mark in the Geneva's column and another strike in for Rome.
Yes, I agree that it's much more complicated than "cafeteria" Catholics being just another variation of Protestant "consumerists." There's a defiance there that seems to go beyond blindly following Rome as did their ancestors. I recall getting involved in a discussion about what the scriptures had to say about a particular issue with a young lady in our office about 15 years ago. When I had backed her into a sort of theological corner, she simply dismissed the entire matter by denouncing the scriptures as just a collection of unverifiable writings garnered together by disparate groups who were after their own interests.
Well...when you have that kind of view of the scriptures I guess that anything goes. I marvel, for example, how areas of the Northeastern U.S., particularly states like Massachusetts, can be so heavily Catholic and yet so liberal at the same time. The pope certainly does have his work cut out for him if it is his ambition to corral these people back into traditional, confessional Catholicism (if it ever existed in the first place).