Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi recently spoke on faith and justice at Georgetown University. She talked about her Catholic upbringing and how she was raised to see that everyone has the spark of the Divine within. This was just days after Judge Kyle Duncan listened to Stanford Law students heckle him because, among other concerns, they disagreed with his Catholic beliefs.

If Pelosi is serious about everyone having the spark of the Divine, perhaps we could have a national intervention — starting with those law students. The problem is, I’m not sure the former speaker is serious. Not in such a way that we could honestly try to hash out what it means to live out Catholic social teachings in the world today. If she were, she would not dismiss her bishop’s concerns about her support for legal abortion and even its expansion.