We now know that the reaction of right-wing Catholics to Notre Dame’s invitation to President Obama falls into the category of “more Catholic than the pope.”
To the dismay of many conservatives, the Vatican’s own newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, has offered what one antiabortion Catholic blog called “a surprisingly positive assessment of the new president’s approach to life issues” — so positive, in fact, that a spokesman for the National Right to Life Committee was moved to criticize Pope Benedict XVI’s daily.
The Vatican newspaper offered its analysis as Catholic liberals and conservatives are battling fiercely over Notre Dame’s decision to invite the president as this year’s commencement speaker and to grant him an honorary degree….
Reading the text of the short section on Obama from the Vatican, I see no cause for this exultation from the liberal media, but of course this is an opportunity to present, to a public who will never read a Vatican statement, a slant that many will be happy to consider true.
I would agree that the Vatican statement is not “helpful”, but it is accurate. The President has not done as much as we feared — yet. I saw nothing about Notre Dame or anything to contradict that the invitation to speak does indeed contravene Vatican and US Bishops’ guidelines.
Very childish article from the Post, in all.
A Catholic who holds to the Church’s teaching on abortion is a “right-wing Catholic?”
[blockquote]We now know that the reaction of right-wing Catholics to Notre Dame’s invitation to President Obama falls into the category of “more Catholic than the pope.”[/blockquote]
Since when is mainstream Catholicism considered “right wing”?
This is remarkably irresponsible reporting. L’Osservatore Romano is not “the Vatican’s own newspaper,” and this editorial should not in any sense be taken as a “Vatican statement.” Nor does anything in the article contradict the opinion of many Catholics, including dozens of bishops: that the President’s support for abortion, which the Church views as “instrinsically evil” and a profound breach of natural law, disqualifies him to receive an honorary degree in Law from a Catholic University.
Mr. Dionne is another of the cultural Catholics who would like the Church to sign off on the full agenda of the Democratic Party’s left wing. Pieces like this are part of a longer-term strategy to undermine the teaching authority of the Church, which gets in the way of mobilizing an important voting base.
#3 – you think that “mainstream Catholicism” is upset about the Notre Dame issue? The parish I attend is pro-life and has many pro-life activities. Very few people that I know are upset about it. Why? Well, because most people recognize that being pro-life doesn’t always mean fighting to make abortion illegal. It means fighting to reduce and (ultimately) end abortion. Those two things have very little in common.
No, of course not. Most of “mainstream Catholicism” probably voted for Obama and wouldn’t mind if Molech himself was the speaker at Notre Dame’s graduation.
Thank God somebody cares.
As a Roman Catholic, Dionne is, first and foremost, an orthodox Democrat; a partisan.
In any event, if you want a better perspective on the Vatican and Obama, read this:
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1338321?eng=y
Thanks to W P Sulik. And here is another “official word” from the Vatican: http://www.cardinalnewmansociety.org/CardinalNewmanSociety/tabid/36/ctl/Details/mid/435/ItemID/550/Default.aspx