Distinctly Catholic

This morning, protesters will gather at the foot of a statue to Christopher Columbus outside Washington D.C.'s Union Station. Some years they throw blood on the statue. They charge Columbus with bringing cruelty and slavery to the New World, and you can read, at Huffington Post this morning, a synopsis of the crimes the Columbus-haters accuse him of perpetrating.

But, Columbus also brought the Gospel with him to the New World. Yes, the good news of Jesus Christ was carried by men who shared all the prejudices, the violence, and the cruelty of late-fifteenth century Europeans. Columbus did not only bring Christ, he brought Christians, and those Christians often did unspeakably horrible things. Yet, despite this legacy of cruelty, there is another legacy, a legacy of those, especially Catholic priests, who defended the native peoples from the militaristic adventurers who made up most of Columbus's - and subsequent - crews.

Politico is reporting that Gen. James Jones is resigning as National Security Advisor and that he will be replaced by his current deputy, Tom Donilon.

Donilon is a 1977 graduate of the Catholic University of America and has served in a variety of government positions before coming to the NSC. His brother Michael is a Counselor to Vice President Joseph Biden and his wife, Cathy Russell, is chief-of-staff to Dr. Jill Biden. Tom's brother Terry is the communications director for the Archdiocese of Boston.

In 1981, when I was a freshman, Tom taught a class at CUA on presidential election politics. It was a great class and it really taught us the nuts and bolts of how campaigns are waged and won (or lost). I still remember the trepidation I felt when writing my term paper on NCPAC, the National Conservative Political Action Committee, and its increasing influence. Professor Donilon was so smart, I really did not want to have him read my paper and think it was dumb. If memory serves, however, I got an "A."

Huff Post has a great article that explains how pollsters use different models to distinguish "likely voters." The models are key - all polls show that among regisitered voters, the Dems are running about even, but that given GOP enthusiasm, when you consider only those who are "likely" to vote, the GOP opens a wide lead. This article helps explain how pollsters draw up their models which are key to understand their findings.

Archbishop John Nienstedt is not my favorite bishop. In 2006, he wrote an article in the diocesan newspaper in New Ulm where he was the bishop at the time about the movie “Brokeback Mountain,” which he described thusly: “The story is about two lonely cowboys herding sheep up on a mountain range. One night after a drinking binge, one man makes a pass at the other and within seconds the latter mounts the former in an act of wanton anal sex.” Funny, I never expected to find the words “wanton anal sex” in my diocesan newspaper. And, when he retires, Nienstedt should not try his hand at penning movie reviews.

The folks at the Family Research Council aren't stupid, just borderline evil. They have a new ad out against Cong. Tom Perriello, a progressive Democrats from Virginia. (Shameless plug: I have an article about Perriello's race coming out in the new print edition of NCR.) The FRC ad is clever, but what the hell does any of it have to do with "the family"? The FRC is one of the groups that gained a lot of traction when the Moral Majority closed its doors in the late 1980s - the Christian Coalition was the other. Indeed, Falwell said he thought FRC founder Dr. James Dobson would be his most likely successor as the face of the religious right. Falwell would always make a moral argument to defend his positions - you could agree or disagree, but he understood he was not an expert on government or arms control but a pastor.