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A spokesperson for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has struck back against criticism from prominent Catholic prelates who accused the California representative of misrepresenting church teachings about abortion.

“While Catholic teaching is clear that life begins at conception, many Catholics do not ascribe to that view,” said Pelosi spokesperson Brendan Daly.

Pelosi, the nation’s highest-ranking Catholic elected official, said on NBC’s Meet the Press that the question of when life begins has been “an issue of controversy” throughout the history of the church.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been making Christian broadcasters nervous.

Pelosi (D., Calif.) said this summer that she supports resurrecting the Fairness Doctrine, a 1949 Federal Communications Commission policy that required broadcasters that communicated specific opinions to set aside time for opposing views.

Such a move would “really make it impossible to preach the whole counsel of God,” said Rich Bott, the owner of Kansas-based Bott Radio Network, which broadcasts Christian programming across ten states. It would also, he said, likely put him out of business.