Editor's note: There were dozens of responses to the 2019 Newsmaker of the Year that could not be published as the letter writers did not follow the rules. First and foremost, a name, first and last, must be used on each letter. We also publish city and state of the letter writer. Without those details, letters are automatically tossed. The full rules can be found here.
In case you missed it, NCR picked Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as its 2019 Newsmaker of the Year. Pelosi was chosen for her "steady and thoughtful service to the nation at a time of extraordinary challenge and for exemplifying, in all its complexity, a public and, in this case, political role in which her Catholicism acts as a kind of moral bedrock." Letters responding to this choice are below and have been edited for length and clarity.
NCR has finally lost the last remnants of sanity. Check out how she used her position to become fantastically rich by using insider information, justifying it by saying "everybody does it." Check out her smile while collecting votes for impeachment, a self-proclaimed "sad and solemn" occasion. Is she giving huge amounts of her cash to poor immigrants, or is she just collecting it from the rest of us by taxation?
She talks a good game, but talk is cheap. If you think she is worthy because of what she says, I have a bridge you can buy cheap.
GAYLE WITTMANN
Harmony, Pennsylvania
***
This article about Nancy Pelosi thrills me. As a lobbyist with Network, a Catholic social justice lobby for seven years on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., I can validate these words.
Pelosi is authentic, humble and courageous in the midst of tyranny by the president. God sent her as a truth teller for the sake of our democracy.
(Sr.) MARY ELIZABETH CLARK, SSJ
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
***
I am appalled at NCR naming Nancy Pelosi as "Newsmaker of the Year." You started in the opening paragraph that her Catholicism acts as a moral bedrock. Are you referring to the same Pelosi that I know?
How is it possible that NCR names someone who supports abortion as its newsmaker of the year? And then has the audacity to state that her Catholicism acts as her moral bedrock. Hello? This is a woman who does not live her Catholic faith. I am going to cancel my subscription to NCR.
There are many other Catholics well deserving of this honor. It is unbelievable that you have chosen to honor a politician that supports and advocates for abortion.
I hope you will retract this article and name someone who really deserves the honor and whose Catholicism really acts as their moral bedrock.
(Deacon) CHRIS M. AMANTEA
Manhattan Beach, California
***
Congratulations on your choice of Nancy Pelosi as Newsmaker of the Year! Her declaration of her faith as the basis for her decision to support impeachment of President Donald Trump seems to come out of a strong commitment to the social gospel of Jesus.
She makes me proud to be a Catholic, proud to be in my 70s, proud to be a mother and proud to be a woman!
KATHY ZINN
Pittsoro, North Carolina
***
I'm sorry, in my thoughts and belief as a Roman Catholic, Nancy Pelosi is not obedient to church teaching in regards to same-sex marriage, abortion, LGBT and gender issues. How can this magazine claiming to be Catholic supporting her?
Also, she does not defend her faith, claiming she is a Catholic and living according to her own commandments. She is a scandal to the faith.
Praised be Jesus Christ! May he have mercy on Nancy and on you.
(Sr.) MARGARET SHORE, OCDS
Oakville, California
***
Thank you for a good big print of the famous cabinet room meeting. Most TV images and printed material didn't "feature" a clear image of the pointing index finger.
Previously, the image seemed to look like pleading. Now I understand this image of a thousand words.
(Fr.) FERNANDO CORTEZ
El Cerrito, California
***
Reading your editorial comments tells me there are no practicing Catholics within your organization. You should shut down, change your logos and philosophies to the Unitarians, who also subscribe to such hogwash.
Nancy Pelosi is the epitome of the Pharisees whom Jesus earned us about. She has no substance. No principles, nor a soul.
MIKE DEAC
Mill Creek, Washington
***
NCR, kudos to you for singling out Nancy Pelosi as the Newsmaker of the Year. I will always "hear," in my 85-year-old mind, Pelosi's speech to the prejudging reporter as she returned to the podium telling him not to mess with her: "I was raised Catholic and taught to love not hate. I don't hate the president. I pray for him every day."
A statement of faith, profound and memorable. Congrats to a Catholic publication's note of it!
MARIE Q. MARSHALL
Apalachicola, Florida
***
Your selection of Nancy Pelosi as Catholic Newsmaker of the Year delivered an undeserved punch to many of us "deplorables" who do not share your outrageous, political bias as evidenced much too frequently in Michael Sean Winters' otherwise excellent, opinion pieces.
Pelosi's choice to wrap herself in a Catholicity cloak at that acrimonious, news conference was just as cringingly appalling as your depiction last year of Cardinal Raymond Burke dragging a 12-foot medieval train in Eucharistic processions. Maybe this is why so many of us now hyphenate ourselves as Catholic- Christians in order to distance ourselves as much as possible from these relics of the past.
Those of us who are victim/survivors of every sort of deceit and cover-up within our church are quick to detect it in the political sphere and become extremely zealous in our pursuit of truth wherever it resides. Pelosi's courage may be admirable to some, but her dedication to ridding the government of an outlier began long before the whistleblower came on the scene.
President Donald Trump's six-page letter to Pelosi, delivered just prior to house impeachment, spells it out clearly. As a political Independent, I value its contents just as much as I value most of the essays that I find in NCR. As Winston Churchill once said, "Truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but there it is."
With all due respect, for a few of your reasons for selecting Pelosi as someone to be admired, let us end the year on a high note by simply agreeing to disagree.
NANCY McGUNAGLE
Kalispell, Montana
***
I applaud your naming Nancy Pelosi as Catholic Newsmaker of the Year. She embodies many of the qualities most reminiscent of a woman for others, as her many Ignatian admirers would count her.
Among her many legislative achievements, she was a singular voice in Congress for the Ryan White Care Act, the sentinel piece of AIDS legislation during the height of the epidemic, and as San Francisco's congresswoman, she was a brave voice for the beleaguered San Franciscans and others fighting the epidemic.
At the funeral of our mutual friend David Smith Fox, the widower of NCR reporter Bill Kenkelen, at St. Ignatius College Church in San Francisco, she slipped in the side entrance, virtually unnoticed, with a head scarf, no make-up, a nondescript rain coat covering her. I glimpsed her from the corner of my eye as I eulogized David. As I left the altar and walked over to her, she rose and hugged me, eyes filling with tears at the loss of this good man. Many others have stories going back three decades to tell of her humanity.
Congratulations to both Pelosi and to NCR for your courageous choice.
WILLIAM D. GLENN
Santa Rosa, California
***
Now I am certain that the NCR editorial staff has totally lost their minds. Please send me a list of all that Nancy Pelosi has accomplished since President Donald Trump has taken office. Has she created any jobs? Has she made Americans feel more secure?
Pelosi is a socialist and an abortionist. How has she given anyone more dignity and self-worth? She has harbored and promoted a group of fanatics that want to overthrow the Constitution and lower the standard of living for all, which is exactly what socialism does. She has not done one thing to promote a growing economy and it is a known fact that a growing economy floats all boats.
If you think socialism is a good system, then take your staff to a country that practices that sort of a freeloading economy and see what it has done to your precious brand of Catholicism. Jesus brought the kingdom which promotes our inherent freedom in the presence and allows us to be all we can to each other. He did not preach giving your wealth to the members of the politburo, but about my free relationship and obligation to my neighbor. Is this a reflection of what the Holy Roman Apostolic Catholic Church is teaching today? If so, I am glad that I am only a Catholic.
RICHARD WALTERS
Phoenix, Arizona
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