Pelosi to Christian Conference: Hope Is 'Sitting Right There Between Faith and Charity'

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told a Christian conference that areas of agreement on a final border security package will include funding for immigrants’ humanitarian needs, more judges to adjudicate the immigration backlog, and help for Central American nations “alleviate some of the conditions that have exacerbated the situation there.”

“From time to time, people say to me, where is hope? I said hope is where it always has been, sitting right there between faith and charity. Faith, hope, and charity,” Pelosi told the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities’ Presidents Conference today. “Because people have faith, they believe and they believe in God, they believe in themselves, and they believe in the goodness of others, the charity of others, it gives them hope.”

“So faith is the strength, has always been the strength of our country. And it is also a country full of love. I believe America’s heart is full of love that the American people care about each other and believe, as many of us do, certainly all of us in this room, that we’re all God’s children,” she continued. “There is a spark of divinity that exists inside of each of us, immigrants at the border, each of us and including ourselves and we have an obligation to treat speak people with respect, but we have a responsibility with that spark of our own to act upon it.”

Pelosi added that she “heard a bishop say to minister to the needs of God’s creation is an act of worship” and “to ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us,” then argued for “strong initiatives for comprehensive immigration reform respecting the dignity and worth of every person” and noted “the refugee resettlement program of the United States is the crown jewel of America’s humanitarianism.”

Talking about congressional negotiations to arrive at a bipartisan deal on homeland security funding, Pelosi stressed that “we both care, all of us on either side of the wall question, we all care about treating the people who come,” so the final agreement is expected to include “sizable funding for food, clothing, medical care for immigrants coming across the border so we don’t have people dying in our custody, children.”

Pelosi lauded “the respect and dignity that the evangelical community has always attributed to newcomers to our country.”

“This administration, it is really a departure from the bipartisanship that is always existed, the recognition of who we are by and large a nation of immigrants unless we are blessed to be born to have been born into a Native American family, which is a blessing as well,” she added.

“Whatever your beliefs in life after death or whatever, you know, eternity and the rest, if you don’t share the view that many of us have about eternity, then at least recognize the word was made, Christ — and Christ is our Savior, and his example is such a blessing to the world,” Pelosi said. “So thank you for being people of faith, recognizing personally what it means to you, but what it means to the strength of our country.”