Washington D.C., Mar 19, 2010 / 15:29 pm
On the feast of St. Joseph, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi invoked the patron saint of worker's intercession to help pass the current Senate health care bill.
Noting that St. Joseph was especially significant to Italian Americans and to workers, Pelosi said that St. Joseph, the saint Catholics revere for being the foster father of Jesus and the husband of the Virgin Mary, was important in passing the health care reform bill which would help “30 million American workers.”
The showdown over the Senate bill has remained in the national media spotlight lately as Representative Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) continue s to reiterate his opposition to the bill because it provides for taxpayer funding of abortion. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has also insisted that the bill “must be opposed unless and until these serious moral problems are addressed.”
Despite the outcry, Pelosi, a self-profressed Catholic, also used this morning’s press conference to promote the Senate bill by citing a statement from NETWORK, a social justice lobbying group of Catholic sisters. “I’m pleased to say that the School Sisters of Notre Dame and the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, two sisters that taught me in my life, were on the list,” she said. “But every order that you can think of was there.”