Madame Speaker: Anticipating how Pelosi will run the House
George Wesolek, director of the Office of Public Policy and Social Concerns for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, has worked with Pelosi and her staff for 21 years. Pelosi’s congressional district encompasses most of the city of San Francisco.
“She’s been very, very helpful on many issues and we disagree strongly on others,” Wesolek said. “And I talk with her very frankly about those.”
... Wesolek said Pelosi was also among those who opposed the first Gulf War in 1991. He recalled marching with her down Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco, “arm in arm, leading 5,000 people.”
... “I don’t think she’s a knee-jerk-reaction person,” said Wesolek. “I think she’s very thoughtful.”
He said he gets the sense that Pelosi understands and agrees with the church’s teaching on many fundamental policy issues, but that doesn’t go far enough.
“I think she gets half of Catholic social teaching,” Wesolek said. “The half she gets she does well.”
So if she was, say, reliably pro-life but in favor of the Iraq War and the death penalty would Wesolek similarly laud her “half-Catholic” policy positions? Or is it because she’s reliably liberal on certain policy issues important to the social justice crowd and her “isn’t-it-too-bad” pro-abortion stance is merely an embarrassment? Funny, too, that the half of Church social teaching she is lauded for being in line with is all prudential issues, apparently, while the half she gets wrong is doctrinal and dogmatic.
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