It was wonderful to hear that Pope Benedict XVI told Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who claims to be a devout Catholic, that Catholic elected officials have a special duty to protect human life "at all stages of its development." After the House passed the stimulus bill, the Speaker and a number of other Democrat officials flew to Rome and Paris. The Pope granted her and her husband a private 15 minute meeting in a small room off the Vatican auditorium after his weekly public audience.

The Speaker, in a press release, spun the meeting as one of all harmony and "great joy." However, the Vatican, which did not issue a photograph of the meeting so as to not allow her to use such a photo in public relation opportunities -- said that the Pope spoke of the church's teaching "on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death."

In today's "The Washington Times," it was reported that Pope Benedict XVI said that all Catholics -- especially legislators, judges and political leaders -- should work to create "a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development."

Obviously, Pelosi and her fellow Catholics in Congress have not heeded the Pope's warnings as he expressed them to her yesterday. The Vatican, in its statement about the meeting, said: "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 ...." The statement goes on to say that Catholic legislators and jurists especially are "enjoin[ed] 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 ignores such papal warnings as she works to pass one of the most gruesome pieces of legislation in American history: the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) which would even overturn federal and state laws prohibiting gruesome partial-birth abortion procedures all around America. Hopefully, the Pope's exhortations to her yesterday will cause Pelosi to reconsider the serious consequences of the legislation which she supports.