“I do my religion on Sundays.”
That was House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s answer to a press conference question on the Catholic Church’s stance on contraception, according to The Washington Examiner. Pelosi has consistently backed the Obama administration’s call to force employers to offer abortion, sterilization and birth control as part of employee health care, despite many organizations’ ethical, moral and religious objections (Acton’s PowerBlog offers more here on this topic.)
Pelosi’s answer is telling: Her faith should not affect (or infect) her work life, or even her daily life; it’s reserved for one day of the week only. Is that what Christians are called to? It hardly seems so. One of Acton’s initiatives, On Call In Culture, speaks directly to this: You can put in your hours, do the things you like to do on your own schedule, but what opportunities are you missing by not putting yourself in the hands of God? The fact is, Christians believe certain immutable truths and those truths don’t disappear when the clock strikes midnight on Sunday, when one walks out the church doors or when one sits down at the computer on Monday morning.
Recently, Cardinal Peter Turkson wrote to business leaders on just this topic, to people who ‘ … daily strive to witness to your faith in Christ and his charity at work in the world… ‘, reflecting, as the Cardinal says ‘ …on what it means to be authentically human in history, society and culture… ‘ The Cardinal – of the Church that Ms. Pelosi believes should be part of her life only 1/7 of the time – affirms that faith should infuse the social order daily in order to create a society where all people’s beliefs are safeguarded, and a government does not dictate behavior.
Ms. Pelosi can choose to believe whatever she wishes, but being a “Sunday only” Catholic isn’t truly an option for her. One either believes – day in and day out – and acts accordingly, or one does not. There is no “religion on Sunday” for Christians.
