Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has outraged the faithful around the world by using the sacred Holy Thursday foot-washing ceremony as a political stunt to promote immigration reform.

According to SFGate.com, Pelosi assisted Bishop Marc Andrus at Saint John the Evanglist Episcopal Church in San Francisco in washing the feet of immigrants. She claimed to be doing so in order to “honor the dignity and work of immigrants” and promote passage of an immigration reform bill known as HR15.

Her actions coincided with those of Pope Francis and millions of priests around the world who wash the feet of the faithful in re-enactment of the actions of Jesus at the Last Supper.

Pelosi immediately tweeted a photo of herself washing feet while kneeling beside the bishop, but the response was less than enthusiastic.

Some mocked her by calling her “Pope Pelosi” while others asked if the reason she was in an Episcopal church was because the Catholic Church wouldn’t grant her a similar “photo op”. The overwhelming response seems to be that it was a cheap political stunt that left few people impressed.

“I am a Catholic and I am offended at Minority Leader Pelosi’s continued abuses of the Catholic Church’s teachings and traditions,” said conservative leader L. Brent Bozell III. “As a Catholic who has watched Ms. Pelosi champion one anti-Catholic cause after another, I believe this to be sacrilegious.

“Christ taught the washing of the feet as an act of utter humility, while she turned a sacred religious tradition into a grandstanding political publicity stunt. Ms. Pelosi’s politicizing of Holy Week is sickening and shameful.”

We can only thank God that the public refused to indulge her crass and insulting behavior.

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