Pelosi has situational religious ethics

SAN DIEGO -- At the intersection of religion and immigration, you'll find the bogus sanctimony of St. Nancy of San Francisco.

Recently, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was outraged when James Rosen of Sinclair Broadcasting did something that members of the media typically don't do with Democrats: He challenged her. In questioning her motives for pursuing the impeachment of President Trump, Rosen dropped the "H-bomb." He asked Pelosi if she hates Trump.

Pelosi took the question as a personal attack. She insisted that she didn't hate Trump. In fact, she said, "I don't hate anybody."

But Pelosi also didn't hold back in sharing her opinion of Trump.

"I think this president is a coward when it comes to helping our kids who are afraid of gun violence," she said. "I think that he is cruel when he doesn't deal with helping our Dreamers, of whom we are very proud of."

For dramatic effect, Pelosi even played the Catholic card. Trampling our nation's tradition of separation of church and state -- a principle that liberals are quick to defend against any sign of encroachment by the religious right -- the Speaker gave Rosen a sermon.

"As a Catholic, I resent your using the word 'hate' in a sentence that addresses me," she said. "I don't hate anyone. I pray for the president all the time. So don't mess with me when it comes to words like that."

Later, at a CNN Town Hall, Pelosi again brought up religion.

"We were raised in the Catholic faith and the word 'hate a person' was just -- that just didn't happen," she said. "The word 'hate' is a terrible word. ... So for him to say that was really disgusting to me."

It's not my place to say if Pelosi is a bad person, or a bad Catholic.

I'm of the "cafeteria" variety myself; I pick and choose which admonitions to follow. Besides, I haven't been to mass very often over the last several years -- ever since priests started turning up in perp walks.

But as someone who watches both political parties, doesn't play favorites, and holds them both accountable when they betray constituents, what I can tell you is that Pelosi is bad on immigration. She always has been.

On this issue, she is -- like most liberals -- one of those fair-weather friends you really don't want with you in a foxhole. She doesn't care about immigrants nearly as much as she pretends to, and the worth of the issue is mostly derived from what she can milk from it.

Pelosi is nowhere to be found when things get ugly. As they did in her home state of California in 1994 when Republicans pushed through Prop. 187 -- an awful ballot initiative that intended to run off the illegal immigrants who kept the state's economy afloat.

I was hosting a radio show in Los Angeles at the time, and I kept track of where many California politicians were on the issue. Most Democrats, including Pelosi, were in hiding.

She usually doesn't speak up, or stick her neck out, on the immigration issue for fear of alienating white voters whose support she needs at reelection time.

There's your coward. Who is she to question someone else's courage?

When discussing immigrants, Scripture doesn't mince words. Look at Exodus 23:9: "Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt." Or Matthew 25:25-36: "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat ... I was a stranger and you invited me in. ..."

Was Pelosi being faithful to her Catholic teachings when she kept immigration reform and the Dream Act completely off the congressional agenda during her first stint as House Speaker from 2007 to 2011? At the time, her top deputy, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., called immigration the "third rail of American politics" and tangled with the members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who wanted Democrats to legalize the undocumented.

Was Pelosi being a good Catholic when she stayed silent from 2009 to 2016, as a president from her party -- Barack Obama -- deported 3 million people, divided hundreds of thousands of families, and put immigrant kids in cages? Or when she failed to lend support to Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., when he got arrested outside the Obama White House or toured immigrant communities in opposition to Obama's immigration policies?

I may be a cafeteria Catholic, but Nancy Pelosi is a convenient one.

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Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com. His daily podcast, "Navarrette Nation," is available through every podcast app.