Michael Sean Winters's blog

According to a report at Politico.com, negotiations between the House leadership and Congressman Bart Stupak are still on-going. While it looks increasingly like the Speaker will whip up the necessary votes for the measure, the report says that they want the dozen or so members committed to the Stupak approach to abortion restrictions on board.

I have never doubted that if push comes to shove, Speaker Pelosi would throw her pro-choice allies under the bus if that was what was needed to pass the bill. She did as much in November. But, this raises an interesting specter for pro-health care forces. Will they be willing to jettison their commitment to abortion rights in order to pass the health care bill?

Congressman Dale Kildee, a lifelong pro-life Democrat from Michigan, gave an impassioned defense of his decision to support the final health care bill pending before Congress on a conference call with reporters sponsored by the progressive group Faith in Public Life. “I have always been pro-life,” Kildee said. “I am going to be eighty-one in September and at this stage in my life, I am not going to change my position on abortion and risk my eternal salvation…. I am absolutely convinced that the original intent of the Hyde Amendment is in the Senate bill.”

Kildee supported the Stupak Amendment when it was voted on in the House of Representatives in November. That Amendment failed in the Senate. Kildee noted that the entire health care bill is pro-life insofar as it will help provide coverage to those who currently lack it. “I am a pro-life member of Congress, both the unborn and the born,” Kildee said.

Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg, Florida has put up a blog post that shows the ambivalence many bishops feel about the health care bill. His moderate and thoughtful tone is to be applauded. You can read his post here.

Most days it would never occur to me to give a thought to the group Catholics for Choice (CFC). It is an unpleasant topic. Better to think about Somalia, or the stomach flu, than to occupy one’s mind with a group that seems determined to make a mockery of the moral tragedy which is abortion. They give a bad name to those on the Catholic left who really do struggle with the complexities of the issue, who understand that there is no shame in ambivalence and great honor in wrestling with moral difficulty. CFC is to the Catholic Left what Randall Terry is to the Catholic Right, an embarrassment. Still, in this great, free country of ours, they are entitled to their opinion, even if it is a loathsome opinion.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi needs to go. She has a case of Beltway-itis that is incurable and is now imperiling the passage of health care reform. How else to explain her publicly floating the idea that the House will use a parliamentary maneuver to pass the final health care bill without actually voting on it. “It’s more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know. But I like it because people don’t have to vote on the Senate bill,” Pelosi said yesterday. Hard to know whether this anti-democratic (with a small ‘d’) sentiment is more obnoxious because of its political stupidity or because it is offensive to democratic norms. Voting is what members of Congress do. The Republicans are entirely right in lambasting this calculated attempt to evade responsibility.

So, NOW Deal Hudson decides he likes the USCCB! Just the other day, he was attacking their anti-poverty program, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Now, however, the USCCB is opposing the final health care bill, he is scandalized that some Catholics have reached a different conclusion. He is shocked – shocked! – that the Catholic Health Association, in a statement from CHA head Sr. Carol Keehan, has taken a position that “puts them in direct opposition to the Catholic bishops, who have stated unambiguously that the Senate health-care bill leaves the door open for federal funds to be used for abortions.”

In case you missed it, Rocco Palmo provides brackets to guess who will be the next Archbishop of Los Angeles. It is hilarious!

I want to like Michael Gerson’s writings. His essays are always well written and his overall ideological perspective - center-right, religiously inflected views – are rarely obnoxious even if they are wrong. Then, every once in awhile he writes a column that forces you to ask: Excuse me, but what planet have you been living on for the past few decades, Mr. Gerson?

I confess that I always get a bit nervous when circumstances require that I cross the Potomac into the Commonwealth of Virginia. In part it is the horrendous traffic situation, which can only be fixed by raising taxes, something that is the kiss of political death in the conservative state. In 2008, when the Old Dominion went for Obama, I briefly toyed with the idea of reconsidering my prejudice. After all, there are many beautiful sights from Monticello to Williamsburg and many others. But, just when I was prepared to set aside my prior antipathy, the state goes and does something so stupid, I am confirmed in my Yankee bias.

Yesterday, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia passed a law that would make it illegal to compel any of its citizens to buy health insurance. A mandate to purchase such insurance is at the heart of the current health care reform bill nearing enactment in Congress. According to the Washington Post, 24 other states are considering similar legislation.

Rush Limbaugh said on his radio program yesterday that if the Democratic health care reform bill passes, he will leave the country. (I do not listen to Mr. Limbaugh, but this assertion made the news.) Well, Democrats, if ever there was a two-for-one you should grab, this is it. Universal health care plus no more Rush is as close to heaven as I am ever gonna get!

Limbaugh’s assertion raises an interesting question. Where would he go? Most of the other industrialized nations of the West have universal health care that actually is run by the government, unlike the government regulated, private health care the Obama plan envisions. Does Rush really prefer a single payer system? Now, he tells us!

Our friends at the Catholic Alliance for the Common Good are keeping busy in this final push for universal health care coverage. In a statement issued today, their new President, Morna Murray said, “Isn't it time we agreed it is simply unacceptable for anyone in America to be denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition or arbitrary annual limits of what an insurance company decides is good for its own profits? Is such a system good for Americans? Is it good for vulnerable low-income and working class families and children? It is good for one thing and one thing only -- health insurance industry profits. This does not serve the common good.” The full statement is here.

It is a first principle of Catholic moral theology that the sins of the fathers are not visited upon their sons. Perhaps, it was with an eye to gender specificity that the Archdiocese of Denver decided to boot a pre-schooler – yes, a pre-schooler – out of one of their schools because the child’s parents are lesbians. It is only the sins of the mothers that are visited upon children.

In explaining its decision, the Archdiocese of Denver posted a note on their website that states, in part: “Parents living in open discord with Catholic teaching in areas of faith and morals unfortunately choose by their actions to disqualify their children from enrollment. To allow children in these circumstances to continue in our school would be a cause of confusion for the student in that what they are being taught in school conflicts with what they experience in the home.”

According to a report in Politico.com, the USCCB is willing to help ensure that enough Senators will vote to allow a rules change that would permit the reconciliation process to address the issue of abortion funding in health care reform. The vote would require 60 votes in the now no-longer filibuster-proof Senate. They may not realize it, but the USCCB is calling the Republicans out.

It is increasingly clear that Speaker Nancy Pelosi will need the votes of twelve or so members of the House that insist on the language contained in the Stupak Amendment. That amendment was part of the bill that passed the House last year but it was not passed in the Senate. The House is set to pass the Senate bill but only if certain changes are made which, in turn, would be sent to the Senate under reconciliation rules that only require a simple majority. The GOP opposes the use of the reconciliation process but it is perfectly permissible under Senate rules as the Republicans well know, having used the procedure many times in the past.

The Senate confirmation of Chai Feldblum, an openly gay professor at Georgetown, has been held up, the subject of a "hold" by a conservative Senator. Her confirmation has also been under attack from the American Principles Project (APP), an advocacy group founded by conservative scholar and Princeton professor Robert George.

Regular readers know that I am a huge fan of Cardinal Sean O’Malley, OFM Cap, the Archbishop of Boston. What he has accomplished since he arrived in Boston is nothing short of spectacular: A Church that was in free fall is now back on its feet, donations are up, vocations are up, new ecclesial movements are active and engaged. He was vilified unfairly for his decision to preside at the funeral of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy but he stood his ground and showed a grieving family (and a grieving Commonwealth) why the Church is at her best at a funeral, showing the compassionate and merciful face of Christ to those who mourn.

My colleague and friend Tom Roberts has an important post on the NCR website about the contrasting “hermeneutics” with which people view Vatican II. It goes without saying that there are some people, but I doubt many, who believe that Vatican II was a mistake and wish to roll back the clock. I do not rank Pope Benedict among those few.

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs has issued a report that argues U.S. foreign policy suffers from an ill-informed “uncompromising Western secularism” and argues that religious understanding and training of foreign policy personnel should become mandatory and that religion should become “an integral part of our foreign policy.”

It is about time. The report, the work of a task force headed by R. Scott Appleby of Notre Dame and Richard Cizik of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, pin points a phenomenon that I am sure most readers have encountered. I call this the “Easter bunny with real estate” syndrome. You meet someone who is ostensibly smart and well educated but they can’t get their head around the idea that religious people have an intellectually justifiable worldview, that religion is not merely a private peccadillo but an on-going intellectual and spiritual tradition that is rich in ways the dominant secular worldview is not. They think of religion as the Easter bunny with real estate.

NCR has learned that the USCCB Sub-Committee on the Church in Latin America is establishing a special advisory committee to assess the on-going relief work in Haiti. As part of the effort, a delegation of bishops will be traveling to the island next week. The USCCB will be announcing the new committee and the visit soon.

Archbishop Jose Gomez, who chairs the subcommittee, will also head the advisory panel. It will also include Cardinal Sean O’Malley, OFM Cap, the Archbishop of Boston, who first served as a bishop in the Caribbean in the 1980s and has extensive contacts there. Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando and Auxiliary Bishop of Brooklyn Guy Sansaricq, the only Haitian-America in the USSCB will also serve on the advisory committee. Some members of the group will head to the island next Monday to assess the work being done and what additional efforts can be achieved.

The Washington Post ran both a news column and an op-ed the other day on the subject of the GOP’s efforts to win back Hispanic voters. Between 1988 and 2008, the number of Hispanic voters grew from 16.1 million to 19.5 million, an increase of 21 percent and there is no sign that such growth will abate anytime soon. “If you don't go out and bring more Hispanics to our party, the math isn't there to win, no matter what the other side does,” Henry Bonilla, a former Republican congressman from Texas told the paper.

DC’s Opportunity Scholarship Program, which provided tuition money to poor students that seek a shot at a better education by going to Catholic schools, is dying a slow death in Congress. The President of the University of Notre Dame, Father John Jenkins, as well as the President Emeritus, Father Ted Hesburgh, and the priest who runs the program in Education Initiatives at Notre Dame, Father Timothy Scully, have written a joint letter to Senator Richard Durbin and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, calling for the program to be extended, not killed.

Three articles today speak about American politics at a deeper level than the day-to-day partisan bickering and that warrant a careful reading.

The first two both focus on populism. George Will writes about the electoral limits of populism, noting that the last successful presidential campaign run on purely populist grounds was that of Andrew Jackson. Further, Will recognizes that populism can serve as a check on the ambitions of more mainstream politicians, but it can almost never convert itself to a governing philosophy.

Leon Wieseltier points out that the populism of former Governor Sarah Palin is fake at its core, that it is merely a new entry in the anti-elitism of some elites against that of others. After all, someone who has a best selling book, was elected to the governorship of her state, and mounted a campaign for national office is not exactly a political outsider no matter how often she repeats the word “rogue.”

Augustine is a treasure trove of insights, into the nature of our faith as well as into human nature. But, one of his most significant contributions to Catholic theology was his insight that evil is an absence. This was how he resolved the age old question of how an all-powerful and benevolent God could permit evil. But, Augustine’s insight also tells us something about Lent. This is why we deprive ourselves of things.

For me, the greatest deprivation of Lent is the absence of the “Alleluia” at Mass. That one word is, in its way, the central proclamation of our faith. It encapsulates the central proposition of Easter, bearing witness to the empty tomb, without which our faith is truly in vain. Its absence from our culture would leave us without so many great hymns, without Mozart’s great “Exsultate,” without Tavener’s “In Paradisum.” Its absence from the liturgy leaves a gaping hole.

Over at Vox-Nova.org, they have been making hay about an interview on EWTN with Bush administration official Marc Thiessen. During the interview, Thiessen criticized the Obama administration for failing to employ “enhanced interrogation techniques” against Christmas Day would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Vox-Nova correctly expresses shock that a Catholic news outfit would indulge someone who is arguing for torture.

This is not the first time. Last spring, Father Robert Sirico spent an evening with Raymond Arroyo winking at torture. Of course, apart from the fact that torture is illegal, it is also an intrinsic evil. Usually, rightwing Catholic groups argue that intrinsic evils should simply be legislated against, when in fact, finding a way to legislate such matters is often more complicated. In the case of torture, that difficult work has already been done. If you treat terror suspects under the civil code as criminals, they are immune from torture under U.S. law. If you treat them as enemy combatants, they are immune from torture under international treaty obligations.

The news of Indiana Senator Evan Bayh’s decision not to seek re-election confirms something that has been going on for a long time: Congress is being taken over by extremes in both parties leaving little room for centrists. This has the very unhappy consequence that very little will ever get done given the Senate’s rules requiring 60 votes to move on any non-budget related matter.

My friend and colleague Austen Ivereigh has a must-read post up at America today dealing with the challenge of articulating theology, even good theology, in a controversial atmosphere. The particular issue at hand – condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS – could scarcely be more controversial and more of a challenge for the hierarchy.

Ivereigh notes that the use of a condom to prevent the spread of a deadly disease is not only pro-life, it is in no meaningful sense of the term prophylactic. The moral intent is not to stifle life but to preserve it. But, he reports, citing reporting by the Tablet’s Rome reporter Robert Mickens, that a Vatican official said it was impossible to recognize this moral fact without sowing greater confusion.

Readers of my blogs here and at America magazine will know that I am an ardent Zionist, and that I am horrified to find an increasing number of liberals dabbling not only in unjust criticism of the actions taken by Israel for her defense, but the way those same liberals dabble in the tropes of classic anti-Semitism.

Christians have a special obligation to learn about anti-Semitism and be alert to even a hint of its reappearance. There was anti-Semitism before Hitler, as there is anti-Semitism after Hitler. Pograms in Poland and Russia happened long before Arab countries expelled Jews. Dreyfuss was sent to Devil’s Island because of the anti-Semitic manipulations of French Catholics. Edgardo Mortara was kidnapped from his parents by the Pope’s police. For every “righteous Gentile” honored for their efforts to save Jewish lives during the Shoah, there were hundreds of Christians who went about their business, even if their business entailed participation in the mass extermination of people who had been their neighbors the day before. If you look at the history of Christian treatment of Jews and do not feel a profound sense of shame, you are not really looking.

Two members of Congress joined faith leaders on a conference call today in Washington to announce new efforts to build support for comprehensive immigration reform. Congressman Mike Honda of California joined Congresswoman Yvette Clark both addressed the political difficulties of moving the legislation while the country suffers from an unemployment rate that hovers around 10 percent. “It’s possible,” Clark told the journalists assembled on the call, noting that as in previous years, the difficulties are likely to arise in the Senate.

The DC blizzard has resulted in, among other things, getting your Sunday paper on Monday afternoon. The Post’s “Outlook” section gave top billing to an article by Gerard Alexander entitled “Why are liberals so condescending?” which examined the ways that liberals dismiss conservative ideas rather than engaging them.

Alexander is on to something. There is a sense of intellectual and moral superiority among some on the left, and it truly does impede political decision-making. That said, chastising politicians for considering politics is hardly a uniquely liberal or conservative monopoly and, besides, if you spent five minutes with a member of Congress, you would prefer they stick to politics and not dabble in, say, theology.

One of the few nice things about losing power around noon on Saturday during the blizzard, and not getting it back until 1 a.m. the next morning, was that I did not have to decide whether or not to watch the Tea Party Convention on C-Span. I was especially torn about watching Sarah Palin’s address to the assembled Tea Partiers. The reason for this ambivalence is essentially hereditary: My father is a bit of an ambulance chaser. He likes to see what is going on and can’t seem to tear his eyes away from a car wreck. If you are stuck in traffic because of rubber-necking as people watch the remains of an accident on the other side of the road, one of those rubber-neckers is my dad. Watching Palin address the Tea Party crowd promised to have all the high drama and the bloody mess of a car crash.

Blogger extraordinaire Rocco Palmo has a link up to some photos taken of the bishops of England and Wales during their ad limina visit this past week. In addition to their meetings with the Holy Father and other Vatican officials, they celebrated Mass together in the Chapel of the Three Kings, which is located in the building that houses the offices of the Propaganda Fide. It was there that John Henry Newman was ordained a Catholic priest and the Mass served as one of the many ways the Church will in Britain will be focusing on Newman’s life in anticipation of his beatification this autumn.