Amy Welborn on Archbishop Wuerl

I was pleased to learn yesterday from my brethren in Communion and Liberation that Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington was an active participant in our national Diakonia in San Diego the weekend before last. All the more reason for me to wish I could have been there. I would have found a way—indirectly and discreetly, of course—to make him aware of what many faithful Catholics think of his handling of the Nancy Pelosi and her ilk. I've made myself clear on that here, as Christopher Blosser notes in his roundup, as well as here. But, as she so often does, Amy Welborn of Open Book says it best:

I think what Archbishop Wuerl and others fail to understand is the impact of things like this on the lay Catholic who is struggling to be a faithful disciple in the world. The message that is sent by silence is strong, in terms of the lay apostolate in the world, in terms of the unity of faith and life.

Nancy Pelosi is not "struggling" with the Church's teaching on abortion, trying to work for the protection of unborn human beings within the constraints of the current U.S. law. As we noted before, she is unapologetically, strongly supportive of abortion-rights and unborn children don't even enter into her radar (publicly, at least) as human beings. . . .

But resting on Archbishop Wuerl's statements alone, which do not indicate that there's anything problematic about Nancy Pelosi's way of living a Catholic life, and which, I admit, simply might be an expression of a reticent style that only answers the questions posed, I'll just say this again.

If this woman, engaged in a public role, very publicly works against the teachings of the Church to which she professes a very public tie isn't publicly challenged by even one of the primary teachers of the Church - the bishops - the rest of us - lay Catholics, living and working in the world, every day facing decisions on how to be faithful disciples of Jesus in the midst of the complexities of our professions, some of us who really suffer because of the things they refuse to do because of their fidelity to Christ - we get a message.

And the message we get is that - it doesn't matter. Do whatever you want.