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PDF versionPresident Obama and the Vatican
by Richard McBrien on Aug. 24, 2009
While most of the attention was focused on President Barack Obama's audience with Pope Benedict XVI on July 10, there was an important bit of news in a column published the day before in Commonweal's on-line edition.
The article, written by Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, a Catholic layman who often addresses issues related to religion and politics, was entitled, "Does Obama have a friend in the Vatican?"
Dionne noted that, when President Obama had his audience with Pope Benedict XVI, just three days after the release of the Pope's new social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate ("Charity in Truth"), there were no right-wing Catholic demonstrators upbraiding the Pope, as they did outside and inside the University of Notre Dame's graduation exercises this past May.
Nor, one might add, was there any single-engine, propeller-driven plane flying overhead with an anti-abortion message and picture.
"The disjunction between Vatican attitudes toward Obama and those of the most conservative forces inside the American Catholic Church has been obvious from the moment Obama won election," Dionne wrote.
"The conservative minority among the bishops [which, however, has grown in recent years] as well as political activists on the Catholic right have insisted on judging the president only on the basis of his support for legal abortion and stem cell research.
"But the Vatican clearly views Obama through a broader prism," Dionne continued. And then some extraordinary bit of news: "Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the papal nuncio in Washington, has privately warned American bishops that harsh attacks on Obama threaten to make the church look partisan."
Not giving readers time to catch their breath, Dionne continued: "The Vatican press has been largely sympathetic to Obama, and in a recent article, Cardinal Georges Cottier, who was the theologian of the papal household under Pope John Paul II, praised Obama's 'humble realism' on abortion and went so far as to compare the president's approach to that of St. Thomas Aquinas."
This is not to say that President Obama and Pope Benedict XVI are in full agreement on all moral issues, such as abortion, contraception, or embryonic stem-cell research.
"But the pope and many of his advisers," Dionne observed, "also see Obama as a potential ally on such questions as development in the Third World, their shared approach to a quest for peace in the Middle East, and the opening of a dialogue with Islam."
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Dionne noted that the Vatican's more benign attitude toward President Obama and the generally positive reaction to his Notre Dame Commencement address have "at least temporarily quelled the vocal opposition to the president among more conservative American bishops."
At the same time, other bishops, representing the majority of the U.S. hierarchy, have been working closely with the new Administration on health care reform, immigration, and climate change legislation.
Dionne suggests -- and I am in full agreement with him -- that the Pope's new encyclical shows that President Obama is in accord with most of Catholic social teaching.
Indeed, Barack Obama is more in accord with that teaching and with the substantial message of Caritas in Veritate than the many politically conservative Catholics who berated the University of Notre Dame and its president, Holy Cross Father John Jenkins, for inviting Obama to deliver this year's graduation address and receive an honorary degree.
And it is why, Dionne concluded, the Pope "is far more inclined to work with the man in the White House" than American conservatives are.
In an earlier piece in the Jesuit weekly America (on-line, 5/25/09), Georgetown church historian John O'Malley, S.J., drew a similar comparison between President Obama and the Second Vatican Council, referring to Obama as "a Vatican II president."
Citing a few of Barack Obama's speeches, but focusing particularly on the address he gave at Notre Dame, O'Malley noted specifically President Obama's call "for civility, for the end of name-calling, and for a willingness to work together to deal with our common problems, including abortion, rather than a stand-off determination to impose one's principles without reckoning what the cost to the common good might be."
Such an approach, O'Malley insisted, is just what Vatican II called for when it changed the way that the Catholic Church does business in its relationships with its own members, with other Christians, with other religions, and with the world community at large.
Although the pope himself seems to be largely open to that style, too many of the bishops and curial officials whom he continues to appoint are not.
Perhaps they need a collective papal audience to help them absorb that new style which Vatican II brought to the Catholic Church more than four decades ago.
© 2009 Richard P. McBrien. All rights reserved. Fr. McBrien is the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.
It has been clear since the
It has been clear since the 2008 campaign that many U.S. Bishops and conservative Catholic layperons have been virtual Republican operatives. Their very narrow (and hence "un-catholic") approach to Obama has clearly been political and partisan.
It seems that the Holy See, by contrast, has chosen to take a broader view of morality in the modern world and the role the Catholic Church can play in informing and shaping that morality.
It would be nice of the hard-right wing in the U.S. hierarchy would take note...but I suspect their blinders remain firmly in place.
And many nominal Catholics
And many nominal Catholics have shown themselves to be operatives of the Democratic Party. And in so doing, they have implicated themselves in the grave moral evil of abortion.
Dear Anonymous Catholic
Dear Anonymous Catholic Theologian
Many Catholics have shown themselves to be operatives of the Republican Party, and even some Bishops, to the Vatican's direct dismay, as they implicate themselves into great crimes against humanity, including war and the death penalty and the denial of health care to millions of poor Americans.
Read Charity in Truth
May I ask "How so?" sir or
May I ask "How so?" sir or madam? I am far more than a "nominal" Catholic and I neither approve of, promote or have ever procured, abetted or encouraged anyone to have an abortion. So just how is it that I am implicated in the "grave moral evil " of abortion?
Excellent!
Excellent!
God Bless the work Pope
God Bless the work Pope Benedict XVI. Let us all pray that President Obama has the courage to defend life in all of it's forms.
Nicely done, Richard. I
Nicely done, Richard. I always look to your columns for reason, balance, and common sense. Thank you.
I echo your sentiments
I echo your sentiments exactly Fr. McBrien. Perhaps by the intervention of the Holy Spirit His Holiness will give way to his some of his rather rigid ways of carrying out his pontificate and understand this more conciliar attitude and call for more opinions and voices to be given ear to in the halls of the Vatican.
I am so glad to see such an
I am so glad to see such an article, and using such authorities as Archbishop Pietro Sambi, and Cardinal Cottier. It is high time the church looked at the broader picture, and acknowledged that there are major social ills to deal with.
I thank you too, for the introduction to the social encyclical of Pope Benedict. it needs a simpler explanation and a wider audience, because it is not easy to digest on its own.
I agree with Phillip Calrk's
I agree with Phillip Calrk's comments. Now we would next like to see the implementation of "Caritas in Veritate" at the Vatican.
may God ever bless and
may God ever bless and preserve the learned and Reverend Father Richard P. McBrien and his unique academic and instructional ministry which has blessed these and so many other pages for so many years. We need him very much. DEO GRATIAS
(and to think I let my Commonweal subsription lapse!)
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)
Unfortunately, we have a
Unfortunately, we have a Vatican II president dealing with a Vatican I, if not downright Tridentine restorationist papacy and curia both at home and in Rome. The Vatican's loss, not the White House.
Actions speak louder than
Actions speak louder than words. Obama's actions reveal a far different agenda than the words of his lofty speeches. One example: within days of inauguration, Obama, by dictate, removed the ban on late-term abortion, and thus a woman can carry an unborn infant to within days of its birth, then decide to legally kill it.
Do you read any of these
Do you read any of these articles, or just cut and paste your response? How about the Holy Father's call for civil discourse? Nuance not bombs.
Wishy washy peoples ideas
Wishy washy peoples ideas toward the true hard to follow doctrines of the Catholic church leave a poor to very bad impression in the minds and harts of the other religions and people of the world; leading them to think that the Cathoilc religion is nothing more than a light breeze blowing in the wind.Rose Hegge 8-24-09:
Cardinal Walter Kasper's
Cardinal Walter Kasper's remarks, at St. John's University (Collegeville), are a very fine and theologically nuanced of how toleration and mutual charity ARE in fact grounded in truth -- the truth of God's love for all, God's desire to serve and save all, and especially God's care and mercy for those whom the religious "insiders" (yes, that is us Catholics!) would deem to be "outside" the boundaries of God's care.
That is not wishy-washy, it is very difficult. The job is not to formulate right doctrine; it is to live and move and have our being in graced, right relationships.
Absolutely, anonymous! The
Absolutely, anonymous!
The job is to
Love your enemy
Do good to those who harm us
Not do to others what we do not want them to do to us
When required our coat give our shirt as well
Heal the sick
Feed the hungry
Give hope to the afflicted
Love our neighbor as ourself, knowing our neighbor is all of humanity
This above all, to follow the Word of Life, and not the false idol of "right doctrine."
Our only doctrine is this:
To love our enemy.
Did Benedict recieve the
Did Benedict recieve the president in his role of Head of Church or Head of State? If the meeting were that of one head of state to another, the protocol of diplomacy would dictate a quite different discussion. I believe that many confuse the diplomatic demeanor of the pope without understanding this role or position.
Thank you. Thank you for
Thank you.
Thank you for touching on the topic of diplomatic protocol and presenting an opportunity for clarification.
The Pope, through his apostolic nuncios, maintains relationships with heads of state and heads of government worldwide. That protocol includes the president of the U.S. central government.
The hononary degree conferred by the catholic university in the States this past summer interferred in that relationship and was quite embarrassing to both the Pope and the U.S. president.
The recent meeting at the Vatican was to intended to move past that unfortunate event and to restore the proper protocol, which by its nature, is cordial and diplomatic.
Of course the Holy Father met
Of course the Holy Father met President Obama in his role as Head of State of the Holy See, in the same way that Pope John Paul II met Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush. President Obama would not meet with the Pope as Head of the Roman Catholic Church, per se, any more than he would meet with Queen Elizabeth II in her role as Head of the Church of England.
Many do confuse the diplomatic role the Holy Father plays with his role as Chief Shepherd of the Church. Some do this out of ignorance, some out of confusion, and others, such as many at NCR and in the left-wing press, Catholic and secular alike, out of a need or desire to ascribe their own political and theological ideology to the Holy Father. Thus, this meeting, which is purely a diplomatic one, to them means that the Holy Father agrees with President Obama.
Please, Mr. Green, elucidate
Please, Mr. Green, elucidate your basis for these statements, which apparently diverge from others I have read. Do you speak here upon your own authority or have you found some actual documentation for this limitation?
Really? You need me to
Really? You need me to explain that the Holy Father holds a unique diplomatic role on the global stage and that he is sovereign of the Holy See (the diplomatic title given the Church, as in "Ambassador to the Holy See", not "Ambassador to Vatican City" or "Ambassador to the Roman Catholic Church")? You do not know that the Holy Father routinely receives foreign heads of state and heads of government? You do not know that, when he speaks to the UN, he does so, not as head of the Church, but rather in his diplomatic role as chief of state of the Holy See? Have you never read a newspaper anytime that a Pope has visited this nation?
Granted, for Catholics, the two positions, diplomatic and religious, are intimately tied and the Holy Father always speaks for us Catholics in his role as chief shepherd of the Church. So, it can be difficult to discern. But, it is from a diplomatic stand point, that he speaks to, and receives, foreign leaders. President Reagan, of happy memory, was very clear about this when he established formal diplomatic ties with the Holy See in 1984, I think it was.
Finally, if the simple fact that President Obama was received by the Pope and had a discussion with him means that the Holy Father approves of, and supports, Obama, then we can also make the case that he approved of, and supported, President Bush, since he met with him. Pope John Paul II, the Great, met and received Yassir Arafat, which means, I suppose, that he supported the PLO.
Come now. Get serious.
These reporters are
These reporters are DISINGENUOUS because they rarely if ever tell the whole truth! The issue is Notre Dame honoring Obama's legal opinions on moral subjects like abortion...NOT here merelt speaking there! Why do they obfiscate the issue by not even defining the objections correctly? Decieved by whom? I dont think the Vatican honored Obama's legal positions on moral issues with the reverence of an Honorary Doctorate did they? Of course not!
This would be a scandal...as is was in Notre Dame issuance of the Doctorate! A scandal! Look up what that means in your Catechism if you care! Encouraging otheres to sin! May we frankly tell the WHOLE truth and not merely the aspects that support our position!
Amen! Also, according to Fr.
Amen! Also, according to Fr. McBrien's "logic", Pope Benedict XVI approved of and supported President Bush: since he met with Mr. Bush, that obviously means that the Holy Father supported and agreed with him.
If this is what passes for logic among members of the Academy, such as Fr. McBrien, is it any wonder that our young people fail to learn.
I am Kenyan and I was not at
I am Kenyan and I was not at all proud of Obama's election as president (inspite of the links between his ancestry and my country), why, because of his support for the greatest evil of our time. I believe that Obama is managing to dupe just about everyone by his being a friend of everyone. Bottom line is that he is the biggest ally in the White House that such evil organisations as Planned Parenthood and other institutions that promote and carry out genocide in the womb have ever had. How can people gloss over the evil of abortion, not just lay men and not just non- religious people, priests? How? I simply do not understand it. It is true that there are so many rights that people have and that justice and social equity have to be pursued, but it all starts with the underpinning right to life. If i don't have the right to life, from conception to natural death, what good is free education, better health care, etc going to do me? It's that simple. Few people advocate one-issue voting or thinking, but honestly, what can be more important than life itself? Before we get to the quality of life, life itself must be defended. I am actually very surprised by the tone of most of the comments. The Holy Father does reiterate the Church's condemnation of abortion in Caritas in Veritate and ofcourse in the gift he gave Obama when they met, the document on the Church's moral teachings. Everyone is glossing over those facts to peddle 'liberal' agendas and make a mockery of the American Episcopates bravery in standing up for the truth. God bless the brave American bishops who are risking being labelled racist and narrow minded for simply standing up for truth. Obama is an astute politician. Anyone noticed how he's got everyone debating whether he told the Pope that he wanted to reduce abortions or the 'need for abortions'? He is smooth with words and very eloquent, that has everyone fooled. Until his words are followed by concrete actions, such as solid conscience clauses, it's all just trying to please everyone by telling them what they want to hear.
This is the most inteligent
This is the most inteligent and truly catholic answer of all. GOd bless you Greg. This is trully Caritas in Veritate.
Dear Anonymous please point
Dear Anonymous
please point out the caritas in that comment.
Please: the Veritate?
I do not even think it is written by a Kenyan, and I cannot find the logic, as not based in empirical truth, and certainly not charitable.
Thank you, Richard, ever so
Thank you, Richard, ever so much!!! I am encouraged by your wisdom, humble sense and fortitude which is a sign of the loving heart and mind of Christ still active in the Church. I am ever grateful that you share and bless us with your presence in our Church and in these articles you've written.
It's news to me that the ban
It's news to me that the ban on late-term abortions was lifted. I cannot find this "fact" in any legitimate news source.
When I was 16, my 15 year old
When I was 16, my 15 year old best friend told me she was pregnant. She told me about 30 minutes before her 20+ year old boyfriend drove her to publicly funded Planned Parenthood for an abortion. My friend, who was adopted, never told her mother. Planned Parenthood never told her mother (or called the police on her adult boyfriend) and I certainly never told anyone either - I felt it was none of my business - it was her "choice". My friend went on to have two more abortions - her loving boyfriend paid for all of them. When she grew up and got married to someone else, she found she could not get pregnant because her abortions created too much scar tissue on her uterus. She eventually left her husband and contemplated suicide. This scenario has now been played out millions of times, so much so that now, more than half the country is pro-life, a steady increase from previous years. I think its because after 30 years of legal abortions, many people like me now know someone who has been personally seriously harmed by abortion either physically, psychologically or both.
Thus, when Universities like Notre Dame belittle the abortion issue and place it behind other issues, I think they are clearly negligent in their duties to address the most important societal ill facing our nation today. It is sad to see that the president and a professor of theology at a Catholic university like Notre Dame do not know or understand this and feel that honoring Obama was a good thing. It was not. I pray for you both and wish Notre Dame a better quality of Catholic leadership.
Dear Nancy, How very
Dear Nancy,
How very traumatic for you, this personal experience with your best friend in your formative teenage years! I feel for you, and ask you please to resolve apparent confusions in your moving statement:
"her 20+ year old boyfriend drove her to publicly funded Planned Parenthood for an abortion. My friend, who was adopted, never told her mother. Planned Parenthood never told her mother (or called the police on her adult boyfriend) and I certainly never told anyone either - I felt it was none of my business - it was her "choice". My friend went on to have two more abortions - her loving boyfriend paid for all of them."
You report Planned Parenthood was publicly funded, and yet you say the boyfriend paid for all three pregnancies. She was adopted, yet "never told her mother;" which mother? Would not Planned Parenthood have informed the police of this situation with the adult boyfriend? Would not Planned Parenthood have advised some form of contraception?
Just wondering
You say "when she grew up and got married to someone else" yet would she not have been eighteen by the end of this series of pregnancies? Why did she go to someone else?
What is the source of your demographic statistics demonstrating "this scenario has now been played out millions of times?" Or was it with this one same person . . .
A "scenario" often has to do with fiction or drama, no?
Specifically how do "Universities like Notre Dame belittle the abortion issue and place it behind other issues?" Notre Dame appears to have brought it a head.
just wondering
As conservatives, we thought
As conservatives, we thought that Papa Ratzinger would like to play good cop for a change.
We all have a friend in the
We all have a friend in the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI, who witnesses to The Truth upon which Catholic Social Teaching depends, the Sacredness and Dignity of every Human Life that is endowed to all Mankind from our Creator to begin with.
and who thus writes the
and who thus writes the social teaching Charity in Truth, which seeks the way to guarantee that dignity and sacredness of every human life from womb to tomb, including condemning the unjust social orders which serve only a very few enormously wealthy while the rest of humanity do without health care, dignified labor, wholesome housing, effective education, and compassionate love, with respect, with justice.
Of course we are morally
Of course we are morally obligated to judge Obama based on abortion above all other policies; it is the moral and social imperative of our age, as was slavery in the past. Would the National Catholic Reporter have condemned the minority who opposed Hitler on the grounds that he was persecuting Jews? Wouldn't it have been better if such people had looked at all of the positive things that Hitler was doing instead of being so narrow and focused only on one issue? That some Catholics are trying to downplay the abortion issue makes me sick. Their silence and apathy on this issue is just wrong. Regardless of the abortion issue, nothing that Obama does or believes in accords with Catholic Church teaching (that is, the Catechism etc). He opposes the Church on most issues.
Isidore writes: "Regardless
Isidore writes:
"Regardless of the abortion issue, nothing that Obama does or believes in accords with Catholic Church teaching (that is, the Catechism etc). He opposes the Church on most issues."
Kindly list these issues you allege. Would you consider universal access to health care one of them? What specifically does "nothing Obama does or believes in accords with Catholic Church teaching (that is, the Catechism etc)" mean to you? Or do you speak upon your own authority?
To John: When our Catholic
To John:
When our Catholic congressmen expect to receive Holy Communion are they coming as Catholics or as Congressmen? Does one supercede the other? If you are asking us to split hairs re Head of Church and Head of State, then I think, the same plays out re the sacraments - public or private citizen.
Also, Craig, I wish you were not right. I dread to think of what is yet to come.
Stay with us, Father. We need your insights.
Sal, I'm glad you brought
Sal, I'm glad you brought this point out. Apparently Benedict can be either head of secular state or head of the Roman Catholic church depending on circumstances, but Catholic politicians are always Catholic politicians whether on the congressional floor or in a pew. No nuanced distinctions for them.
I believe it is incumbent on
I believe it is incumbent on Fr McBrien to come clean as to his personal involvement with the reported episode of "top" Jesuit "scholars" giving the Kennedy clan advice in the mid-1960s' that it would be licit for Catholic politicians to vote for abortion "rights".
Secondly, the Pope meeting with a head of state is NOT the same thing as a Catholic university giving AN HONORARY DEGREE to him. ND did not need to give an honorary degree. They did not need to invite him to commencement. Obama had not requested it - as he did for the diplomatic meeting.... so it was a moral choice of theirs to give an honor to the most pro-abort politician ever.
But let's talk about "all the other" things Democrats supposedly do "for the poor". They sure talk a good game. But let's look at the fruits of their rhetoric in the cities, counties, and states that they've run for decades.
What do we see in those places where liberals have had the time and funding to implement all their 'morally superior' programs, policies, guidelines, and laws? Do we see LESS poor people? Do we see minorities 'empowered' and escaping poverty? Do we see a drop in violent crime? Do we see award winning schools as the norm? Do we see women respected and well paid? Do we see state-of-the-art infrastructure and enviromentally friendly energy production?
No. We see incredible poverty, crumbling infrastructure, failing schools, high crime, extensive government corruption, pollution, an alarming rate of rape, abuse, and disrespect, and even a noticiable disconnect between claiming to 'help' women and the level of pay women receive in their own government, party, or corporations.
So just claiming that you're "for the poor" doesn't grant one moral immunity from scrutiny about the results of your actions.
But we are brow beat by Democrats into thinking only the DNC somehow matches Catholic social teaching... well, for all their problems, the GOP at least doesn't have abortion as a fundamental plank of their political platform. If you have two imperfect political parties, one would think it prudent to choose the least of the imperfect to support. I fail to see how a Catholic who cares about actual results can be a "good" Democrat when in fact, their policies don't actually help the people they supposedly were designed to 'help'. AND they actively support the intentional, private killing of the completely defenseless and innocent to boot.
You can't be "anti-war" and also be ho-hum about abortion.
No more than you cannot be
No more than you cannot be "'anti-war' and also ho-hum about abortion" can you be pro-life and ho-hum about war. If LIFE IS SACRED FROM WOMB TO TOMB (and it should be seen as thus) it can NOT be separated at ANY stage. It must be (as the late Cardinal Bernadin stated so wonderfully) seen as a seamless garment.
And this is what causes the problems, we have long ago decided that there can be "just wars" thus enabling governments the power to take life. Belittling life at any stage of its development (womb-to-tomb)belittles ALL life. And once we have decided that life in its mid-stage or end-stage can be taken, why do we find it horrifying that one can find life at its first stage to be any more valued.
Thanks, Richard, FOR your
Thanks, Richard, FOR your support for civility, and AGAINST name calling. May we then expect that you will never again refer to bishops as "tools of the Republican Party"?
I am trying to sort
I am trying to sort everything out.
Relativism says there are no absolutes but we know that to be false. (Do we?) There are absolutes such as the one written above "Life is sacred from the womb to the tomb". We then add the variables that come from the human condition. At this point we look at the life of Jesus: do we want the letter or the spirit? To make a decision, we have the primacy of conscience. My conscience, my decision, my variables may lead me to an action or a belief different from yours but I am no less Catholic whether I am a bishop/layperson, a politician/citizen, a liberal/conservative, woman/man . . .
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