Distinctly Catholic

Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana has proven himself to be that increasingly rare breed in Washington, a Republican willing to stand up for what he believes in. He was one of the few Republicans to support the DREAM Act, repudiating a deal Republican senators struck at the beginning of the Congress to always support their leadership on procedural votes.

Yesterday, Lugar’s long-term expertise in foreign affairs, and on the issues of nuclear weapons and proliferation specifically, provided sufficient intellectual justification (and political cover) for several Republicans to support the START Treaty which was happily ratified.

In the current political climate, these acts of political courage not only required Lugar to stand up to his party’s leadership, it required that he risk angering the Tea Party movement which has shown its ability to knock of veteran Washington lawmakers in favor of extremist candidates in GOP primaries. (Think Delaware, Alaska and Utah.) As mentioned yesterday, the Tea Party has not spoken out much on foreign affairs, but its candidates have been strongly anti-immigrant, making Lugar’s support for the DREAM Act all the more admirable.

At first blush, the census numbers bode ill for the Democrats. Traditionally Republican states like Texas, which picked up four congressional seats, and Arizona, Georgia, Utah and South Carolina, all of which gained a single new seat, showed significant growth, and Democratic leaning states like Massachusetts and Illinois lost a seat and New York lost two.
But, much of the growth in Texas, Nevada, Arizona and Florida comes from Latinos who tend to vote Democratic, a trend that will only increase if the GOP sustains its harsh anti-immigrant stance and nominates anti-immigrant bigots like Sharron Angle. Indeed, according to the Cook Report, of Texas's four new seats, two are expected to go to Democrats and two to Republicans. The biggest, most significant, trend in the next decade will be the "purplization" of Texas. In twenty years it will be blue. Whatever short term gains the GOP might reap will be outweighed in the long-term gains of Democrats unless the GOP comes to reason on immigration. And, that is about as likely as Bishop Olmsted inviting the administrators of St. Joseph's Hospital to his Christmas party.

Bishop Thomas Olmsted has ordered St. Joseph Hospital to cease calling itself Catholic because it failed to abide by a series of ultimatums he issued previously. As well, the hospital chapel will no longer be able to reserve the Blessed Sacrament on premise nor hold Masses there.

I wrote about this mess earlier this week. I am glad to see that at least today the bishop mentioned God and not just canon law.

The decision comes after negotiations between Bishop Olmsted and Catholic Healthcare West, which runs the hospital in question. None of us knows what went on in those negotiations but if the bishop's public statements are any guide, it was less of a discussion than an interrogation.

We know something else about the entire sad episode. It represents a failure on Olmsted's part of the highest order. When discussions like these end up being conducted by press conference and in the pages of the local newspaper, the local bishop has failed to lead.

Giving ultimatums is not leadership. Giving ultimatums is what those who have failed to lead resort to in desperation.

The always wise and balanced Mark Silk has a good post that explains how the military chaplains should show the same sense of balance in a military without DADT as the First Amendment jurisprudence would commend.

Of course, we all have our problems with First Amendment jurisprudence which resembles goulash, but Silk is right to resist the more extreme interpretations of what the repeal of DADT does and does not mean for military chaplains.

As the 111th Congress comes to a close, The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has to ask if their current methods for trying to influence the nation’s political system are working. And if they are honest, they will admit the answer is “no” and begin re-thinking how they can help build up a more just society.

Just this past Saturday, Republican senators, joined by a handful of conservative Democrats, blocked consideration of the DREAM Act. The bishops lobbied for the measure but there was nothing like the effort they expended on behalf of the Stupak Amendment-language on restricting abortion funding last year. In the event, they lost that vote too. Those were the two biggest issues on which the bishops weighed in this year and they lost both.