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PDF versionEditorial: Partisanship and the pulpit
May. 11, 2009
Jesuit Fr. John Langan (see story) is an exceptionally clear thinker. He makes the necessary distinctions seem obvious.
“The bishops are certainly right to condemn the moral evil of abortion and to warn us against the individualism, selfishness and greed which have had such a devastating effect on American culture and family life as well as on our financial institutions,” Langan, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin professor of Catholic social thought at Georgetown University, told a Capitol Hill symposium last month. “But if they think they make their witness more credible and more effective by developing a quasi-excommunication of the Democratic Party [emphasis added] and by aligning themselves with politicians who think that combining pro-life slogans with American chauvinism and exercising American military power without regard to international criticism constitutes an adequate response to evil in the world, they are sadly mistaken.”
Langan hits the nail squarely.
The proximate cause of the latest anti-Obama tirade among the Catholic conservative cognoscenti, including many U.S. bishops, is the University of Notre Dame’s invitation to the president to deliver the May 17 commencement address. Most Americans, and most Catholics for that matter, have paid the brouhaha little attention -- they have other things on their minds.
A story with legs
But among the professional Catholic crowd -- those like the editors of this newspaper and activists left, right and center who make their livings tracking and commentating on the vicissitudes of American Catholic life -- this is, as they say in the news business, a story with legs.
Say the conservatives: How dare America’s premier Catholic university provide a prestigious platform and an honorary degree to the leader of a political party that embraces the “culture of death.” Obama, we are told repeatedly, “is the most pro-choice president in history.”
Say the liberals: Kudos to Notre Dame for engaging the president and his administration, which stands with us on so many issues and appears poised to make abortion reduction a genuine commitment even as it rejects steps to criminalize the practice.
We side, perhaps not surprisingly, with those who welcome the president to Notre Dame. The Catholic community should engage the president and his administration, laud it where appropriate, challenge it when it falls short. That’s not only good church practice, it’s our obligation as citizens.
NCR: February 3-16, 2012
Subscribe to NCR to get all the news and special features that aren't always available online. In this issue:
- US News: Bishops Host Conference on Immigration
Conference fields advocates' questions on law, policy
- Special Section: Deacons. Serving as parish administrator; roles of wives; and more
- Study: Black Catholics are more engaged
New study by Notre Dame researcher about parish involvement in America
Yes, there will be protests and the like in South Bend, Ind. (as there are when any president visits a college campus). One extremist Catholic group, the misnamed “Cardinal Newman Society,” claims hundreds of thousands of signatures on a petition protesting Obama’s appearance. (There’s money in outrage, apparently: Witness the society’s recent fundraising efforts tied to the petition. That e-mail appeal notes, “If necessary, the Cardinal Newman Society will go broke to help stop the Notre Dame scandal” -- fat chance that -- even as it urges recipients to “send ... even a small (tax-deductible) contribution.”)
Nevertheless, we anticipate that the president will be warmly received at Notre Dame (particularly by the graduating seniors) and will use the opportunity to speak directly to the nation’s Catholic community.
The larger question, however, remains: How have we gotten to the point where an influential and vocal number of Catholics use the occasion of a presidential address on a college campus to vilify not only the invitee but also those who invited him?
The answer to that is provided by Langan. The Obama Notre Dame speech is simply the latest occasion (and the effort dates back more than a decade) for partisan conservative Catholics to issue a “quasi-excommunication of the Democratic Party.” In other words, it is mostly about politics.
Some quick history: In September 2003 high-ranking members of the administrative committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops met with some leading conservative Catholics, including the then head of “Catholic Outreach” at the Republican National Committee. By July 2004, by which time pro-choice Catholic John Kerry had secured the Democratic presidential nomination, the full body of bishops approved a statement in which they said they would not countenance providing a “platform” or “honor” to pro-choice politicians and activists, or to those otherwise at odds with church teaching on issues such as gay marriage, at Catholic venues.
The bishops’ ban, to say the least, lacked nuance, making no distinction between politicians and others who would use a church-affiliated venue to promote policies condemned by the bishops, and those invited to speak on unrelated public policy issues. Further, the policy failed to take into account that the bishops have little practical say over the administration of most Catholic universities, which are typically overseen by boards of directors made up largely of laypeople.
Who gets a pass
The policy, moreover, was largely impossible to enforce. When Vice President Dick Cheney spoke at The Catholic University of America in Washington in 2005 to address the question of Social Security reform, few took note that he was opposed to a church-supported constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, to say nothing of his advocacy of the “intrinsic evil” of torture. He got a pass.
Likewise, when President George W. Bush spoke at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., at its commencement, few if any objections were raised to the president’s position on embryonic stem cell research (his administration was at odds with the bishops in this area), or the president’s support for exceptions to a total ban on abortion, or his failure to call for a repeal of Roe v. Wade. (There were some protestors, students and professors mostly, who objected to the Bush record on war and torture.)
Still, the ban on honors and platforms provided support to bishops and others who would use it to make partisan attacks and arguments.
“We know ... that adherents of one political party would place us squarely on the road to suicide as a people,” wrote Rockford, Ill., Bishop Thomas Doran in 2006. Said Doran: “No doubt, we shall soon outstrip the Nazis in doing human beings to death.”
Wrote papal biographer and influential conservative pundit George Weigel: “The Republican Party is a more secure platform from which Catholics can work on the great issues of the day than a party in thrall to abortion ‘rights,’ gay activism, and a utilitarian approach to the biotech future that is disturbingly reminiscent of Brave New World.”
Just last month, Robert W. Finn, bishop of the Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., diocese, declared before an audience of Missouri and Kansas antiabortion advocates, “We are at war!” The combatants in this struggle “may be atheists or agnostics, or of any religion, including Christian or Catholic” who oppose the church’s efforts to make abortion illegal. (Finn heads a diocese where a favored parish recently offered a Mass for which the intention was the “conversion of Barack Obama.”)
In his speech, Finn noted that “those who vied for the leadership of our country last November offered Americans a clear choice in this regard,” which might come as news to those who thought John McCain’s priorities, whatever his political posturing, did not include overturning Roe v. Wade. In fact, McCain famously waffled on the issue during his many years in the Senate and, according to testimony from his pro-life congressional colleagues, frequently stood in the way of legislative efforts to restrict abortion.
Litmus tests
Earlier this month, Scranton, Pa., Bishop Robert Martino continued his strange crusade against his state’s junior senator, Democrat Robert Casey. Casey, with a largely pro-life voting record, is slated to give the commencement address at King’s College in Wilkes Barre.
Martino’s litmus test this time was Casey’s vote in favor of the nomination of Kathleen Sebelius to head the Department of Health and Human Services. “I do not believe [Casey] has the moral stature to stand before the graduates of a Catholic college to address them about their futures and the challenges they will face when on the most important issue of the day -- the sanctity of human life -- he cannot muster the courage to oppose the pro-abortion agenda which is currently being promoted in Washington,” said Martino.
It did not seem to matter to Martino that the country might need a HHS chief in the midst of a pandemic flu outbreak or that, whatever Sebelius’ merits, the pro-choice Obama administration would have a pro-choice HHS department head.
Meanwhile, New Orleans Bishop Alfred Hughes says he will boycott commencement at that city’s Xavier University because the featured speaker is Donna Brazile. Brazile, a New Orleans native who has worked tirelessly to help the city rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, is most certainly pro-choice, but is also known for urging Democrats to be less doctrinaire on the issue.
In Catholic Democratic Party circles it is frequently said that only a small number, a handful really, of conservative bishops are banging the drum for the Republican Party. And yet, more than 60 U.S. bishops have expressed opposition to the Notre Dame Obama speech. Why is it assumed by progressives that most of those who remain silent do so because they support a more liberal line?
No, the goalposts have shifted in the U.S. episcopacy in the past decade -- and they have swerved in a decidedly rightward tilt on both the ecclesial and political spectrums.
Is NCR's point that Notre
Is NCR's point that Notre Dame is right and everybody who disagrees with the action of the University Administration is correct? Why bother with all the charts? Who was the great American whit that said: "There are lies, awful lies and statistics.."? In the sixties, the University Administration was presumed to be the problem, however they represented the majority. Papers like NCR rose up to counter, now NCR represents the University Administration.
Ironic isn't it? Christ is risen! Alleluia! Alleluia!
That was Mark Twain, and the
That was Mark Twain, and the word is "wit."
Snowdrop When you say
Snowdrop
When you say "University Administration was presumed to be the problem..." Are you talking about a specific University?
Movements for change were
Movements for change were wide spread throughout the world in the 60's and 70's. Then the University Admins changed. It was a lively time. The people working for change eventually got their way, became the University Admins themselves, then liked their "comfortable pews" and became even more resistant to other forms of change than their predecessors. When the 80's, 90's and subsequent cohorts arrived at the Universities, the Admin knew just what to do-i.e. permit more and more license (esp. sexual license), in a sense buying off subsequent generations through tacit advocacy of a post-modern ethic (i.e. anything goes- I'm alright Jack, Church is OK for you, not for me, so what if we are a Catholic University, I think you get the point). Thants why current Admins have been so dominant and long lasting for nearly 30 years; and still employing the rhetoric of 60's & 70's subculture. Consequently the 80. 90's etc. generations are paying the psychic cost. Its a general observation. Peace and Understanding in Christ!
What is all of that suppposed
What is all of that suppposed to mean?
"partisan conservative
"partisan conservative Catholics to issue a “quasi-excommunication of the Democratic Party.”
Meanwhile, partisan liberal Catholics clamor for the acceptance of sin, a re-writing of morals and church that blows with the prevailing winds, no matter the direction.
Catholics in America aren't becoming more "right" or "conservative;" we're becoming more Catholic!
"Catholics in America aren't
"Catholics in America aren't becoming more "right" or "conservative;" we're becoming more Catholic!" How ironic this statement is. Educated Catholics in America are joining the fastest growing religious group in America, ONCE CATHOLIC, and it is because of the fundamentalist cult that now controls the Episcopacy. These people actually believe that they are more Catholic because they are part of a cult of personality that wishes it could always be right. Now with America becoming more like Europe with fewer and fewer cradle Catholics actively supporting the Institution, we see the fruits of the cult. They have forgotten the call of a Universal Church with a big tent. They wish to point to the sins in the other and kick them out and refuse to see their own sinfulness. The only difference in numbers in Europe and the US is that European immigrants are moslems and Us Immigrants are Latin American Catholics and Protestants. When they rise to become more educated, the fait of US Catholicism is predictable and numbers will continue to fall until we get an Episcopate with integrity and allow the cultish minds to either enter a conversion or do as they will.
George, I'm sure you are
George, I'm sure you are commenting from your own observations, as am I. And what I've seen is just the opposite. Those Catholics who leave the Church are not educated in their faith, but steeped in secularism; they seek out a place to worship that will cater to them, not hold them accountable.
More and more cradle Catholics are realizing the emptiness of secular gratification and are returning to their Catholic roots with a fire ablaze; converts, too, who are fed up with decaying and adaptive morals, are coming to the Church.
I see hope - much hope - in the Catholic Church because of the return to being truly Catholic!
Chris - Your Utopia of a
Chris -
Your Utopia of a growing vibrant "truly Catholic" Church in America is only betrayed by one thing...facts. The fastest growing "in name" Catholic group in America are immigrant Latin Americans, whose brand of Catholicism doesn't reflect yours.
The poster prior to yours is correct in that the fastest growing group in America are, the "no longer Catholics." Those converts and "on fire" returnees are in large part coming to the Church because it is a place with rules and regulations that make them feel like all they have to do is read the manual, deplore other faiths and keep women off of the altar to punch their ticket to heaven. And they are not even remotely keeping pace with heading for the exit signs.
To the one posting under
To the one posting under "Padre Pio,"
To equate being Catholic with numbers is far from being Catholic. The intolerance in your post speaks volumes:
- "rules and regulations...read the manual, deplore other faiths..."
- "keep women off the altar"
- "punch their ticket to heaven"
In your words, then, to be "Catholic" one must support the ordination of women; remove all rules, laws and regulations in the Church; and accept a pan-theistic approach to salvation. To be Catholic otherwise is to be labeled by you and yours as legalistic and narrow-minded.
It would seem that those who are leaving because they cannot find yor definition of "Catholic" are right to leave. Those who remain and those who convert are stay because they - we - want to be Catholic.
Younger Catholics are leaving
Younger Catholics are leaving the Catholic Church because of the EVIL, the FILTH AND the SINFULNESS among the ALL MALE CLERGY, which is ignored and even hidden by the Bishops, Archbishops and Cardinals like Cardinal Law:
The Buffalo News
11/01/08 06:39 AM
Diocese bars priest named in suit
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.buffalonews.com/nationalworld/state/story/480629.html
NEW YORK — A Catholic priest accused of seducing a distraught New York divorcee has been dropped as a hospital chaplain and barred from serving as a priest in the city.
The Rev. Elvis Elano is named in a $25 million lawsuit that details his relationship with Judith Rodrigues-Lytwyn, whom he met when she came to him for confession at a Queens church.
He left two months ago to work as a chaplain at Benedictine Hospital in Kingston, living in the rectory of nearby St. Joseph’s Church.
“Father Elano has been suspended from his duties at Benedictine Hospital, where he provided pastoral care to our patients since August,” hospital spokesman Sean Casey told the Daily News.
Church officials in New York City said Elano — ordained in the Philippines in 1992 — also had been barred from serving as a priest here. But the Rev. Kieran Harrington, a church spokesman, said Elano’s departure from Our Lady of the Snows Church in Queens had nothing to do with the sex scandal.
In the lawsuit, filed in Brooklyn state Supreme Court, the 50-year-old woman said her affair with the 44-year-old priest began in March, after she told him about her divorce during confession at Our Lady of the Snows Church in Queens.
She said he began “encouraging her to engage in a sexual liaison with him to assist her in overcoming her pain associated with her husband and because it was ‘ordained by God,’ ” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also names the Diocese of Brooklyn, which includes Queens, and the Our Lady of the Snows Church as defendants, charging them with negligence for failing to properly supervise the priest.
On Thursday, the Vatican issued a new document saying that candidates for priesthood should take tests to screen out heterosexuals who cannot control their sexual urges and those with strong homosexual tendencies.
Priesthood “requires certain abilities as well as moral and theological virtues, which are supported by a human and psychic — and particularly affective — equilibrium, so as to allow the subject to be adequately predisposed for giving of himself in the celibate life,” said the document from the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education.
Conservative Catholics had a
Conservative Catholics had a choice of voting for Pat Buchanan as their Republican candidate. He was the only honest candidate when it came to abortion. The choice of the Conservative Catholics was not Pat. It was that other Republican candidate who's name I do not write. But he could win. Pat couldn't. The letters to my local catholic paper were all for their sweetheart (the fuzzy anti-abortion candidate). They never mentioned Pat. The Bishops and the conservatives played politics just as they are doing now. They were dishonest then and they are dishonest now. To wrap this in some "Catholic" cloth and say that one is "more Catholic" is a clear indication of how caught in political culture and not in faith some have become.
"To wrap this in some
"To wrap this in some "Catholic" cloth and say that one is "more Catholic" is a clear indication of how caught in political culture and not in faith some have become."
I couldn't agree more. Those who rail against Church teachings, promote the dissolution of the "sin" label and clamor for a re-writing of morals, all the while wrapping their agenda in "some 'Catholic' cloth" and saying they are "more Catholic" are both caught in the political culture, being dishonest, and are "not in faith."
But my point has little to do with politics, and everything to do with faith. And I see Catholics becoming more Catholic and shrugging off the label "conservative." It's not conservatve - it's just being Catholic.
BTW, Alan Keyes is the one...
Your definition of Catholic
Your definition of Catholic is much narrower then mine. Mine may not be the right one, nor may yours.
Alan Keyes could win? You
Alan Keyes could win? You are referring to the Alan Keyes whose never even won a Primary in his own party?
Definitely a winner
To Your First Point: The core
To Your First Point: The core of Catholics, including the so-called liberals, do not clamor for the acceptance of sin. Rather, they see the pet sins of the right wing American Catholics, abortion and homosexuality, as picked and chosen from the cauldron of ALL sins for political purposes. We Roman Catholics find it hard to push to the back burner the many sins Our Lord preached directly against. If one is to prioritize sins, shouldn't our Lord's list come first? The fringe right-wing American Catholics constantly want to bring forward sins that Jesus Christ never directly mentioned.
To Your Second Point: Some of us were blessed to be brought up as Roman Catholics. Members of the universal Church founded by Jesus Christ. I never thought of myself as an "American Catholic". Just yesterday there was a letter to the editor in my local paper critical of the Pope for not backing the American Bishops. HELLO!!! Something has gone very wrong with the American episcopacy. The outrageous right wing American Catholics have left the Roman Catholics wondering … just what happened?
The Greatest of These is Charity [Love].
Could you provide a list of
Could you provide a list of sins to which our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, referred?
I can think of two, for sure:
Mt 18:1-6 "And he that shall receive one such little child in my name, receiveth me. But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck..."
Certainly abortion would fall into this category, unless one believes that killing a child in the womb is not actually killing a child or schandalous.
Mt 19:1-12 Mt 19:1-12
Christ certainly speaks out against divorce here. Also note, Christ makes no mention of homosexual unions/marriage...
When we see and hear the
When we see and hear the words spoken by Our Lord, abortion and homosexuality are not among them.
A.) It is farfetched to use Mt 18:1-6 as relating to abortion. This is a time when Jesus could say: “You are taking my words out of context.”
Christ was using the children that his followers could physically see at that moment as his actual examples for having faith in Him. We must have faith in Him as those innocent children did when looking into the eyes of Our Lord God. Jesus knows child-like faith is nearly impossible for adults because we have seen so much evil and become so distrustful of others. As adults we already have been scandalized by false prophets, seen evil done to others, heard hatred preached as love of God and have had some friends we know and trust turn against us. Therefore we find it hard to accept God when He speaks to us in human form.
I feel sure the sin spoken of by Christ here is robbing children of their innocents by things such as involving them in crime, using them in perversions, forcing them to see evil before they can understand and teaching them to hate.
It is fair to say our lord spoke against, among other sins: scandalous self-righteousness, persecuting others on the name of righteous, adultery, failure not to love others, speaking falsely against others and not being merciful. The Lord's Prayer and the Beatitudes seem to capture the greatest messages of Jesus.
B.) Homosexually might be best left to another letter in another section but suffice it to say for now, that gay sex may fall into the general sin we call adultery and to singly out one group of sexual acts which we consider to be mortal sins from others sexual sins probably falls under the prohibition against self-righteous persecution.
The Greatest of these is Charity. ...
I consider myself a
I consider myself a progressive Catholic and I believe that the policies of President Obama are more closely aligned with Church teaching than those of his predecessor. But I also believe that the President's stated position on the right to life is wrong. His policies may well lead to a reduction in abortions in this country and that would be a very good thing. But it would have been wiser for Notre Dame to withhold its invitation until, let's say 2011.
Why should every bishop be
Why should every bishop be expected to "speak out" giving his individual interpretation of a document such as "Faithful Citizenship" which was drawn up by the conference as a whole? It sounds like the Karl Keating effect whereby everything needs to be "clarified" because the bishops, as a whole, cannot be trusted and are thought to be too liberal, perhaps even a Democrat or two lurks among them! From what I can tell, "speaking out" has become synonomous with pointing the faithful precisely to the Republican party as opposed to studying the issues and relying on their consciences to decide who to vote for. Apparently the assumption is that everyone is either under-catachized or their consciences have been improperly formed, leading them to think that in a democracy they are entitled to vote for whomever they choose.
The bishops are acting like
The bishops are acting like cafeteria Catholics choosing what they will condemn and what they won't. In wake of the clergy sexual abuse scandal not a one lost his job! Look at Cardinal Law. He kept his job, healthcare, pension, and his salary. I'd like to see one of these bishops loose his job and hear him say, "You want fries with your burger?" No, the clerical culture protects their own. The bishops speaking out against President Obama going to Notre Dame are acting like the "RC" bishops, that's the "Republican Catholic" bishops! The bishops think the Republicans will give them a reversal of Roe vs. Wade. It hasn't happened in over 30 years and the bishops are too stupid too realize that they are being played for fools.
I think that a lot of hate is
I think that a lot of hate is fueling the opposition to President Obama's speech at ND's graduation. The bishops who are getting energized by this are adding fuel to the fire of this hatred. Is evangelization condemning those with whom we have substantial disagreement? I don't think so. Evangelization includes listening closely for the purpose of discerning areas of agreement upon which to base reconciliation of other conflicts. Are our bishops prepared to reflect on the way that racial hatred is fueling this opposition to Barack Obama? Are they prepared to recognize that they are being manipulated into enlarging that hatred and putting a "moral" patina on it? Are they prepared to be the lipstick on the pig?
You referred to the Cardinal
You referred to the Cardinal Newman Society as "extremist." I plead my ignorance: what are the critera for extremism in this particular situation?
Also, there is a reference to the "excommunication of the Democratic party." To my knowledge, only one Democratic politician in the current administration, Kathleen Sebelius, has been denied Holy Communion, which is the tangible penalty of excommunication. Am I missing something?
Dear Curious, In a number of
Dear Curious,
In a number of dioceses, the bishops told the people (either in printed letters in the diocesan newspapers or in letters that were read to the people) that if they vote for Pro-Choice candidates (Democratic candidates), that they should not present themselves for communion. This is a violation of Canon Law---those excommunicated are to be mentioned by name---not through a blanket ecclessial censure. Likewise a number of pastors in parishes also informed their parishioners that if they voted for the Pro-Choice candidates---that they were committing mortal sin.
In Scranton, PA, Bishop Joseph Martino issued letters to all the Eucharistic Ministers in his diocese. He told them that if Vice President Biden should come home to Scranton, come to Liturgy and present himself for Communion---they are to deny him the Eucharist (according to Canon Law---he MAY direct lay people to do that---but he did not care about that). And lest I forget, Archbishop Burke just delivered another ad hominem attack on President Obama and on Fr. Jenkins
Poor Cardinal Newman is probably rolling over and over in his grave---the society named in "his honor" is indeed extreme! Too much to put into this blog. But past information (last couple of months) of their escapades are in NCR, Commonweal, and America----and that's just the American websites for starters. Canadian, British and Australian websites have also recorded what the leadership and members of this society have carried out.
New Orleans Bishop Alfred
New Orleans Bishop Alfred Hughes qualifies for the Pieter Bruegel Award.
A hand painted copy of the Painting:
http://www.artbible.info/art/large/556.html
"The Blind leading the Blind" (Mathew 15:14) will be awarded at a special function with five other "SINGLE ISSUE" BISHOPS (eligibility is restricted to Bishops from states of the former Confederacy in the "BIBLE BELT" that are still holding out against abolishing Capital Punishment)
Jesus had told his disciples that it was not necessary to wash hands before eating. Scribes and Pharisees who heard about this were infuriated, as it was a clear breach of Jewish law. When the disciples informed Jesus about that, he replied that the Pharisees were blind leading the blind, and that all would end up falling into the ditch. The disciples should pay no attention to them.
Pieter Bruegel here depicts the subject literally. The painting is also a study of the different stages of falling, a technical challenge that Bruegel seemed to be fascinated by toward the end of his life.
The expressions on the faces range from trust to surprise and shock.
The church in the background emphasizes Bruegel's message: do not blindly follow leaders that lead you away from the Church, or you will end up in trouble.
Bruegel usually painted details with great care, after studying the subject extensively. Ophthalmologists (eye doctors) are said to be able to recognize five different eye diseases in this painting.
"Considerable Opposition from
"Considerable Opposition from the Whites"
The New Orleans Bishop ought to read the life story of St.Katharine Drexel:
http://www.saintjoe.edu/news/?id=745
In 1891 she founded her own religious order named Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People. The thrust was to serve the needs of the poorest of the poor, principally through education supported by the income from the estate left by her father. Her most prominent foundation was Xavier University in New Orleans, which she built for African Americans in 1925. This school flourishes to this day. It was also a project that met considerable opposition from the whites, an opposition that she met so often wherever she opened schools for Indians or African Americans.
The Bishop of New Orleans
The Bishop of New Orleans appears to be taking his orders from a "bunch of losers" - the USCCB is more like the "mostly white" Republican Party, which is a whole lot better than being "ALL WHITE"!!:
Only 36 of the 2,380 delegates seated on the convention floor are black
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/03/AR200809...
In a More Diverse America, A Mostly White Convention
By Eli Saslow and Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 4, 2008; A01
ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 3 -- Organizers conceived of this convention as a means to inspire, but some African American Republicans have found the Xcel Energy Center depressing this week. Everywhere they look, they see evidence of what they consider one of their party's biggest shortcomings.
As the country rapidly diversifies, Republicans are presenting a convention that is almost entirely white.
Only 36 of the 2,380 delegates seated on the convention floor are black, the lowest number since the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies began tracking diversity at political conventions 40 years ago. Each night, the overwhelmingly white audience watches a series of white politicians step to the lectern -- a visual reminder that no black Republican has served as a governor, U.S. senator or U.S. House member in the past six years.
"It's hard to look around and not get frustrated," said Michael S. Steele, a black Republican and former lieutenant governor of Maryland. "You almost have to think, 'Wait. How did it come to this?' "
One week after Democrats nominated the nation's first black presidential candidate on the eve of the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, Republicans have only one African American -- Steele -- scheduled to speak during prime time at their convention. The united, diverse coalition that Republicans once envisioned instead looks uniform.
The look in the convention hall is similar to that of a typical McCain event. This summer, for instance, 67 people showed up for one of his town hall meetings in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. One of them was black.
The lack of diversity is out of sync with the demographic changes in the United States. The Census Bureau reported last month that racial and ethnic minorities will make up a majority of the country's population by 2042 -- almost a decade earlier than what the bureau predicted just four years ago. Two-thirds of Americans are non-Hispanic whites, 12.4 percent are black and 14.8 percent are Hispanic, according to 2006 census numbers.
Steele saw the problem firsthand from the stage Wednesday night. The Joint Center reported that the number of black Republican delegates declined from a record 167 in 2004 to this year's 36. According to the think tank, 24 state delegations at the Xcel Energy Center have no black members.
The New Orleans Bishop must
The New Orleans Bishop must be taking his marching orders from Rev. Gerhard Maria Wagner, 54, who had resigned after being chosen as auxiliary bishop in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria province.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/austria/4424735/Pope-pr...
Wagner caused a stir in 2005 when he was quoted as saying he was convinced that the death and destruction of Hurricane Katrina was "divine retribution" for tolerance of homosexuals and laid-back sexual attitudes in New Orleans. In 2005, a Catholic news agency in Austria released excerpts of comments Wagner made in a parish newsletter in Linz about Katrina.
It quoted Wagner as saying that Katrina destroyed not only nightclubs and brothels in New Orleans, but also abortion clinics.
"The conditions of immorality in this city are indescribable," Wagner was quoted as saying.
Bishop Hughes ought to learn
Bishop Hughes ought to learn from his colleagues like Archbishop Dolan and post his homilies ONLINE, as in:
Bishops Audio Homilies
http://www.archmil.org/bishops/Audio_Bishops.asp
Bishop Hughes ought to learn from his colleagues like Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., and promote the STUDY of SCRIPTURE in his diocese;
Preaching should change lives, inspire, US bishop tells Synod
By Cindy Wooden- Catholic News Service.
Tuesday, 14 October 2008
http://thecatholicspirit.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6...
After the current church year dedicated to St. Paul, the Catholic Church should dedicate a year to the art of preaching, Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., told the world Synod of Bishops on the Bible.
"Unfortunately, preaching in our day can lose its savor, become formulaic and uninspired, leaving the hearer empty," Bishop Kicanas, vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told synod members meeting to discuss "The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church."
Bishop Kicanas and Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago, USCCB president, were among the 23 synod members to address the assembly Oct. 7.
Each member submitted a summary of his talk, which was released to the press, and a synod briefing officer provided further details to reporters.
Pointing to an account in Chapter 20 of the Acts of the Apostles, Bishop Kicanas told the synod members that even St. Paul "on occasion was known to talk on and on."
"We are told that Paul was preaching in Troas on the first day of the week and one of his listeners -- the young lad Eutychus -- was sitting on the windowsill listening. He became drowsier and drowsier and finally fell asleep," the bishop said.
"He fell from the third-story window to his death," he said. "God, through Paul, brought the young boy back to life."
The bishop said that while people still tend to nod off during a boring homily no one usually dies.
But the liturgy is supposed to build people up, he said. Preaching is supposed to comfort, heal, bring hope, inspire, challenge, teach and confront.
"Through grace, it changes lives," he said.
Bishop Kicanas said preaching in the Catholic Church must improve, and he asked what would happen if the church dedicated a year to improve preaching.
Bishops and priests, working together, should study what makes a homily effective in "this distracted world," he said. They should ask laypeople what matters to them and what they would suggest to improve homilies.
With a global, concerted effort to improve preaching, "the new springtime for Christianity, about which the Holy Father speaks, could burst forth and bloom throughout our church," Bishop Kicanas said.
The one good reason I know of
The one good reason I know of to excommunicate politicians who vote for policies that extend "abortion rights", is precisely to counter arguments like the above. There is no equivalence between the status of on the one hand a Catholic who votes contrary to the teaching of the Bishops on health care, the wars, immigration, capital punishment, etc., and the other hand a Catholic who votes against the teachings of the Church on Abortion. Even regarding torture, we are after all debating there whether certain practices, water boarding or photographing prisoners while they're naked, are torture at all, not whether torture per se is acceptable. The other issues easily fall within the prudential judgement of individual Catholics, abortion does not.
Excommunication may be the only resort the Bishops have left to point out this distinction that editorials such as this deliberately try to obscure.
As to Notre Dame there is another more basic issue. Rightly or worngly the Bishops forbade the invitation of pro-choice speakers. The Holy Cross Fathers were under vow of holy obedience to comply.
Tom Barone, The Holy Cross
Tom Barone,
The Holy Cross Fathers, unlike diocesan priests, do not make their vows to any Bishop. Members of religious orders make their vows to their superior generals. This has been the practice for centuries and centuries---so that religious orders (female and male) can be voices or prophets to the entire Church (including the hierarchy) of the eschatological dimensions of the Gospel. They were NEVER, NEVER to be under the heel of any one bishop or even a nation of bishops.
Dear Tom, What your comments
Dear Tom,
What your comments say to me is that a group of very weak Bishops are using excommunication as a weapon to try to control the People of God. I don't agree with the idea that the Bishops are blind, I believe another poster also a physician said it better, "They are megalomaniacs that refuse to listen to the teachings of their own theologians, philosophers and scientists."
The bigger issue with
The bigger issue with excommunication now is that those who are threatened with it don't care. Pope Benedict made sure of it by signaling that it is meaningless when he welcomed back the SSPX without expecting a single concession from them. They are the identical ex-communicable order that they were when JP II found them to be ex-communicable - so it doesn't mean anything.
Even the Women Priests just laugh it off as a joke. People see it as posing no speed-bump on their road to the Kingdom because the Hierarchy has made a mockery of it.
NCR is right to support
NCR is right to support President Obama when he stands with the poor and marginalized. Despite his many good public policies, however, his willingness (and yours) to tolerate millions of abortions shows he lacks the moral courage shown by the abolitionists in their steadfast opposition to slavery.
Why does it always come down
Why does it always come down to making abortion illegal? Passing a law against abortion won't end abortion. Why don't we spend our time and energy on trying to change peoples' hearts rather than passing a law?
By that logic, we should
By that logic, we should remove laws against murder, rape, etc... and try to change hearts, as those laws do not prevent those crimes.
Alabama became the last state
Alabama became the last state to repeal its law against mixed-race marriage, when it did so ONLY in the YEAR 2000.
Chris of Alabama,
Did you know that:
On May 6th, 2008 the NY Times published a piece on the death of an obscure black lady named Mildred Loving. She (a black woman) and her husband (a white man) had been sentenced On January 6, 1959 by the trial Judge in Virginia, Leon Bazile, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia) stating:
“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”
On June 12, 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the convictions in a unanimous decision, dismissing the Commonwealth of Virginia's argument. The Supreme Court concluded that anti-miscegenation laws were racist and had been enacted to perpetuate white supremacy. Despite this Supreme Court ruling, such laws remained on the books, although unenforced, in several states until 2000, when Alabama became the last state to repeal its law against mixed-race marriage.
Let's face it,
this "PSEUDO PROLIFE" enthusiasm is nothing but a CONVENIENT COVER for "RACISM" used by the very same Bishops who were sleeping at the wheel (like Cardinal Law) while they let our ALTAR BOYS AND GIRLS be "seduced, raped and silenced" by their Pastors (under the supervision of these negligent Bishops), even as they "preached the Word of God".
When was the last time that you saw a person of COLOR appear on any of the Television programs aired from Alabama on EWTN?
Mother Angelica and her troops are MOSTLY WHITE, just like the MOSTLY WHITE BISHOPS now boycotting the Notre Dame invitation to the First African American President Obama.
By your logic, Chris, are we
By your logic, Chris, are we to assume that the reason you do not murder, rape, etc. (if indeed you don't) is because it is illegal?
At times it is difficult to
At times it is difficult to distinguish the editorial opinion of the NCR from that of secular leftist publications like “The Nation” because underlying any political discussion is an unadulterated infatuation with President Obama and an advocacy of Democratic Party policies. Usually the NCR article will log in some “non-partisan” flying time with statements like “The Catholic community should engage the president and his administration laud it where appropriate, challenge it when it falls short.” This ensures the appearance of objectivity.
The NCR and other abortion enabling Catholics have made a Faustian bargain with President Obama. One of the primary reasons that you make excuses for his radical pro-abortion agenda is because you agree with his redistributionist economic policies. After all you imply, what’s the difference with a million or so abortions on an annual basis when the rest of us can get government subsidized health care? It will be interesting to see how you try to sell him in a couple of years when his anachronistic Keynesian policies and stifling central planning methods fail to lead us to the economic promised land of egalitarian milk and honey.
THANK GOD FOR NCR! It's one
THANK GOD FOR NCR! It's one of the few places we can get information about the Catholic Church without feeling like we accidentally stumbled into a John Birch Society meeting. Reading the opinions and comboxes here restores my faith that I'm not the only Catholic out here in the wilderness who is very concerned about the choke-hold that the anti-abortion fringe and their cadre of bishop supporters seem to have on the Church these days. The NCR, along with Commonweal and America are just about the only publications that speak for THE SILENT MAJORITY. Keep up the good work!
Dear Cynical Observer:
Dear Cynical Observer: Thanks for your response to my posting, but my heavens! The John Birch Society? This comment can perhaps be considered as unintelligible hubris on your part. Let’s take a closer look.
The Nation is a “progressive” publication that generally espouses positions that are to the left of most Americans. The magazine advocates economic collectivism and centralized wealth redistribution. Their editorial view on social issues strongly tends toward an individualist egalitarian morality that is counter to many of the traditional cultural practices that have long been held by Western society. It is certainly not Catholic in outlook. Yet, in the NCR article above, if one tweaks a few statements and eliminates some of the obligatory Catholic references, then one has an editorial that will nestle comfortably within the pages of The Nation. This is (thankfully) not mainstream Catholic thinking.
The John Birch Society has long been considered out of the mainstream and is generally a moribund organization. Although often considered politically Right because it was vehemently anti-communist, its economic and social positions were an undeveloped mixture of odd hodgepodges. (I have no idea what their views are on abortion.) It was banished to the fringes of polite political society several decades ago in large part by the efforts of William F. Buckley Jr. and the National Review. So in the year 2009, to somehow associate contemporary pro-life Roman Catholics with a group of conspiratorially infatuated Cold War anti-communists who had an ill defined social agenda and whose heyday was in the 1950’s, is nonsensical at best.
But what the pro-abortion side is trying to do, I believe, is to present the radical abortion views of President Obama as being within mainstream thought. To borrow an expression from Abraham Lincoln, you wish to “blow the moral lights outs” when it comes to abortion by presenting this horrific practice as a normal and acceptable activity. Alexander Bickel once wrote, “If men are told complacently enough that this is how things are, they will become accustomed to it and accept it. And in the end this is how things will be.” Hence you make outlandish accusations about the anti-abortion side and call our views as being “fringe”. You want us to accept the abortion status quo and acquiesce when over one million innocent and defenseless unborn babies per year are killed.
In 1973 when the Roe v Wade decision was announced, the New York Times confidently proclaimed that the abortion issue was now decided and we can all move on. It is fortunate that large sectors of the American population have not had their “moral lights” blown out and we stand actively opposed to this genocide of unborn children. The New York Times was wrong. The issue has not been decided.
Since when does 'engaging'
Since when does 'engaging' mean granting 'honorary degree to'?
LACKED NUANCE!? You have
LACKED NUANCE!? You have gotta be kidding... Our Lord meant it to be a good thing in calling Nathaneal, “An Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile (Jn 1:47).” And our Lord himself said he was “lowly of heart” (Mt 11:29). No where else but in the world of academia where post-modern fads like deconstructionism are the way to go don’t you know would such double-think – so as to be “nuanced” – stand as virtue. We are not to “suppose that a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, will receive anything from the Lord” (Jas 1:7,8). Such relativism which admires one’s “intellectual flexibility” is a contradiction in itself as it presupposes the definitive meanings and boundaries of distinct ideas to in order to be able to flip them on their head or contrast them so as to arrive at the conclusion that one idea is not really better than the other or that one can rationally espouse conflicting views at the same time as they don’t really have definitive boundaries, anyway. It’s a bunch of nonsense – both according to moral virtue and to logic – that it’s somehow preferable to accord intellectual or moral “maturity” with being “nuanced” in one’s way of thinking. To then use such nonsense in order to attempt to keep the lines blurred in determining the morality of abortion is just plain evil.
It seems like certain
It seems like certain Right-wing Catholics only focus on abortion where there are countless number of social justice, environmental, educational, health and economical issues that are well aligned with Obama's views and Catholic Teachings.
Criminalizing abortion will not end abortions. In countries where they are illegal, they are being performed, very sad but true. Most woman who take this choice do so against their will, and they oftentimes suffer traumas from this unneccesary experience. The best way to minimize abortion is to expand help such as social services programs like welfare, food stamps, low income housing. Another reason for having universal health care for all.
Tell your legislature to pass laws that will expand help for pregnant woman, as well as housing assistance for those in need. That will significantly shrink the numbers of abortions.
Obama is striving for social justice, expanding health care to all those who can not afford coverage, improvements in education that our future generation will need and dealing with energy dependance. More importantly, he is diligently dealing with the failing economy as well as terminating the evil war in Iraq where millions of innocent people have ruthlessly died. Obama is alot more sympathetic than his evil predecessor George Bush, who used God's name in vein in which I personally feel offended.
Criminalizing doesn't solve the problem, attacking the root of the problem does. This is the point of view of a Political Science student from California.
Why aren't there more Jesuits
Why aren't there more Jesuits protesting against abortion?
There are many. The Jesuits
There are many. The Jesuits are a spirit filled Religious Order. With any group, don't expect all to agree. However, one wonders when the "tipping point" will be reach. But that's up to Jesus-God come in the flesh. For the Jesuits are His Order. Happy Easter! Alleluia! Alleluia!
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