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As I recall President Obama went to Rome to hobnob with the Pope in order to shore up the Catholic vote for Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections. No sooner had the White House gotten the prized photo op of the Prez and Pope than the story disappeared.
The next thing we heard is that Obama came back and gave the gift he received from the Pope, a Rosary blessed by the Pope, to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a self-acclaimed Catholic who disagrees with about all the teachings of the Catholic church just like her Catholic side kick Vice President Joe Biden.
Now let me get this straight. Obama receives a very rare gift from Pope Francis then turns around and gives it to a political crony who is in hot water with the Bishops of America for all but abandoning her faith by backing abortion and forcing the church facilities to give out contraceptives against the church teaching.
Where I come from such a gesture might be interpreted as an insult to the person who gave it to him. Now I understand Obama, who has demonstrated his progressive agenda by drifting farther and farther from church attendance ever since his fire and brimstone preacher Jeremiah Wright said, well, let ABC News tell you.
ABC News, 2008
"Sen. Barack Obama's pastor says blacks should not sing "God Bless America" but "God damn America."
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for the last 20 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's south side, has a long history of what even Obama's campaign aides concede is "inflammatory rhetoric," including the assertion that the United States brought on the 9/11 attacks with its own "terrorism."
Anyway in the interest of political expediency Obama promptly dumped his lifelong preacher and friend in order to get elected and pretty much quit going to church so it is not surprising he didn't know what to do with a Rosary and maybe one blessed by a Pope was a little out of place in the White House hip hop memorabilia.
That little story is hardly what I expected out of the Main Street media as the sum of the results of the Obama and Pope Francis meeting. So I searched the Internet and finally came across a story from The Boston Globe that actually gave an in depth report of what transpired. Fancy that, real journalism.
In the interest of informing my readers of the truth I am crediting and running the excellent story. Funny that it took a paper from the home of our revolution and one much more aware of the Catholic power and policy to tell us what we deserved to know. What happened to the guardians of freedom and defenders of the truth, The New York Times and Washington Post?
The Boston Globe
Obama, Pope Francis both win in summit meeting
Philadelphia lobbies for 2015
papal visit; Bishops lead border protest on immigration
MARCH 29, 2014
When Barack Obama met Pope Francis on Thursday, it
was the 28th encounter between a US president and a pope since
Benedict XV received Woodrow Wilson in 1919. By now, the post-game analysis in America has become almost as predictable as the
protocol in the Vatican.
What American pundits inevitably want to know is,
“Who won?” That is to say, who got the biggest political bump out of the
meeting?
That sort of quick take can be fun and
provocative, but, honestly, it is probably not the best way to look at it. For
one thing, you’d like to believe that presidents, and certainly popes, are
capable of a loftier perspective. For another, the full range of Catholic
social teaching isn’t really a good fit for either major political party in America, so
these encounters are always a mixed bag capable of being read in different ways
by different constituencies.
That said, the scorecard on Thursday’s first
meeting between Obama and Francis has to be that each man got something
important out of it, which is often what happens when two shrewd political
operators intersect.
Obama, of course, is struggling at the moment to
maintain Democratic control of the Senate in the midterm elections, which looks
like an uphill battle. Both his own political troubles and those of his party
are related in part to antipathy among religious voters, including a fairly big
chunk of the Catholic vote.
To take just one example, prominent American
Catholic writer George Weigel opined this week that Obama’s policies,
especially the controversial contraception mandates imposed as part of health
care reform, have put the church “on a collision course with the government
unparalleled in US Catholic history.”
In that context, smiling shots of Obama and
Francis together may help reframe impressions. It’s harder to style the
president as an enemy of the faith in light of pictures of him and the pontiff
yucking it up, which could help among Catholic moderates. Perhaps even more
importantly, the images complicate efforts by Obama’s Catholic foes to whip up
opposition.
The meeting probably also delivered a boost to
Catholic Democrats, who have come under increasing pressure to explain how they
can stay loyal to a party perceived by some as hostile to the church. When
L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, ran a picture of Obama and Francis
on Friday under the headline “Shared Commitment,” it gave those Catholic
Democrats something to work with in arguing that their party can, after all,
“do God.”
Francis had less to gain on Thursday, largely
because he entered the meeting in a much stronger position; he is, at the
moment, just about the most popular public figure on earth. Yet he did have
something to lose, both among the Catholic bishops of the United States
and the church’s wide antiabortion constituency.
With regard to American bishops, they’ve made the
defense of religious freedom their new signature issue, symbolized by the
stand-off with the administration over the contraception mandates. If the
take-away from the Obama summit had been that they didn’t have the support of
the pope, it would weaken their position, and might have soured a few of them
on the new boss.
As for abortion opponents, many were already wary
about Francis because of his repeated calls to dial down the rhetoric in the
wars of culture. If they got the sense that he had given Obama a free pass on
the life issues, their wariness might begin to turn into overt estrangement.
Francis deftly avoided those outcomes, signaling
the American bishops that he has their backs while reassuring abortion
opponents that a softer tone doesn’t imply softer substance.
He did that in two ways, first by handing Obama a
copy of his recent apostolic exhortation Evangelium Gaudium. The president said
he’d read it in the Oval Office when he’s “deeply frustrated,” in the hope that
“it will give me strength and calm me down.”
One wonders, however, how much calm he’ll draw
from this sentence: “It is not ‘progressive’ to try to resolve problems by
eliminating a human life.” The pope bluntly says that on abortion, “the church
cannot be expected to change her position.”
(As a footnote, using documents to make statements
vis-à-vis Obama is becoming a fine Vatican art.
When Obama called on Benedict XVI in 2009, the pontiff handed him a copy of
Dignitas Personae, a document on bioethics. Then as now, the pope didn’t have
to say anything more because the gift spoke for itself.)
The Vatican also flashed support for
the American bishops in its statement after the meeting, citing “the exercise
of the rights to religious freedom, life, and conscientious objection” as
matters of “particular relevance” in the conversation. To be sure, they were
listed along with other matters where Obama and Francis are more in sync, such
as immigration reform, but nobody could accuse the pope of going quiet on the
life issues.
At the end of the day, Francis could hardly be
said to have taken Obama to the woodshed, but abortion opponents couldn’t have
asked for much more by way of raising the flag.
Summing up, Obama got a picture with a smiling
pope splashed across the front page of every American paper, while Francis
avoided some needless internal heartburn. The meeting may not have changed the
world, but it was still fun to watch two savvy tacticians operate, both aware
of the other’s agenda and both purposeful in pursuing their own.
Big push for Francis to visit Philadelphia in 2015
If Pope Francis doesn’t come to Philadelphia
in September 2015 for a Vatican-sponsored World Meeting of Families, it won’t
be for lack of trying on the part of either church or state in Pennsylvania.
This week a remarkable delegation visited the Vatican to meet with officials about the 2015
event, led by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, a Republican, and Philadelphia
Mayor Michael Nutter, a Democrat, along with Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia. (Both
Corbett and Nutter are Catholic, and on Wednesday Nutter gave Francis a jersey
from the Jesuit high school the mayor attended.)
The obvious agenda was to pitch Francis on coming
to Philadelphia, and while the Vatican won’t
ever confirm a trip this far away, the signals look encouraging.
God knows the church in Philly could use the shot
in the arm.
Chaput, who arrived in Philadelphia from Denver in
2011, has been struggling to right the ship in the wake of two separate grand
jury investigations related to clerical sexual abuse, the first-ever indictment
of a senior church official for failure to protect children, and massive
deficits that have forced the closure of parishes and schools and even the
sell-off of the archbishop’s residence.
Locals are pulling out all the stops to persuade
Francis to make the trip, including a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #PopeInPhilly.
There’s much at stake, because the presence or absence of the pope is the
difference between an insider Catholic event that might draw a few thousand
folks, and a major national happening that might bring out 1 or 2 million.
At the moment, the leading theory is that if
Francis comes to Philadelphia in September 2015,
the trip would likely be bundled with a stop in New York to address the General Assembly of
the United Nations. The pontiff probably couldn’t avoid also making a stop in Washington, especially
after House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to him to address a joint session
of Congress.
On the Vatican
end, the top official responsible for the 2015 event is Italian Archbishop
Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family. He met
with Corbett, Nutter, Chaput and the rest of the Philadelphia delegation this week, and
afterwards he spoke to the Globe.
Q&A with Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia
Globe: How likely is it that Pope Francis will be in Philadelphia?
Paglia: If you look at how welcoming he was to the
delegation today, it certainly makes one think he’d like to come. Both the
governor and the mayor had a long time to talk with him. Given that human
warmth, along with the importance of the theme of the family and how focused
the Catholic church now is on it, I think it’s reasonable to imagine the
presence of the pope in Philadelphia.
That said, these trips are never confirmed more than four or five months in
advance, and I don’t want to speak for the pope. We have to leave him the
freedom to make the decision himself.
Globe: If he does come, it would be the first time in his life
that Francis has visited the United
States. Do you think that might be an extra
reason he’d be inclined to do it?
Paglia: Certainly that’s an additional reason to
do it, though I believe the fundamental point is how important the theme of the
family is to Pope Francis and to the church. I think all these reasons
contribute to an environment in which it’s okay to hope for a positive
decision.
Globe: You also know that the pope has been invited to address a
joint session of the American Congress. Does that also make the trip more
likely?
Paglia: It adds to the weight of the moment. I can
tell you the pope is well aware of the attention being given to the possibility
of his coming, not just in the archdiocese but throughout American society.
Globe: When talk turns to the family in American politics, people
often assume it’s all about the press for gay marriage. Are you at all
concerned that this event could be misunderstood as a huge anti-gay-marriage
rally?
Paglia: I want to do everything possible to avoid
falling into that trap, because this isn’t an ideological exercise. I hope what
we can do is to lift up the hopes and the anguish, the joys and the fears, of
real concrete families. There are millions and millions of elderly persons,
young adults, children, babies, immigrants, and so on, all around the world,
who depend on their families. The family is not an abstract idea. It’s
something that everyone experiences, and our greatest effort must be to lift up
the world’s most beautiful and most important source of human solidarity.
This is not a political rally. The World Meeting
of Families never has been, and it isn’t now, a demonstration against someone
or something. It’s a meeting of thousands of men and women who want to testify
to the beauty and the possibilities of the family. It’s also a chance to enter
into dialogue with all Christian traditions and all religious traditions who
share our interest. I hope we can have a frank dialogue with the American media
so they see this clearly.
Globe: What do you hope will be the most important result from the
event?
Paglia: Obviously, what we’re trying to promote is
a sort of springtime for the family, a renewal of the family across the entire
world. When families are strong, they give life in a very concrete way to the
all of society. We’d also like to raise the cultural profile of the issues
facing the family. Ideally, we can help promote the same centrality that Pope
Francis has given to the family in the Catholic church in other institutions,
such as politics, the economy, cultural institutions, and the legal system.
Globe: During his comments at the Vatican press conference on
Tuesday, Archbishop Charles Chaput said the event is especially important for Philadelphia because of
the way it’s been affected by the sexual abuse scandals. Are you aware of how
much impact those scandals have had in Philadelphia
and other parts of the United
States?
Paglia: We’ve certainly spoken about it. The World
Meeting of Families actually can be very sensitive to it, because in a way the
scandals have caused a weakening of the sense of family within the Christian
community. It’s important that we foster co-responsibility, mutual support,
reciprocal respect, and honesty as part of a family spirit in the church, which
I hope in some way can help heal the wounds of the past.
Globe: If Pope Francis does come to the United States next year, do you
believe he understands that he’d have to address the sexual abuse scandals?
Paglia: I believe so, and I think the sensitivity
of the pope on this issue is very clear. The recent creation of a new
Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors is already a sign of that
concern. If he comes to America,
I’m sure the pope wouldn’t fail to take account of how important all this is.
Bishops on the Border to push immigration reform
American Catholic bishops often complain about
media bias in styling them as “partisan”, which in their case usually means
pro-Republican. The bishops insist that if one looks at all the issues they
care about, from immigration reform and overseas development to abortion and
gay marriage, it’s clear they’re not in anybody’s pocket.
Here’s the usual reply from media types: As soon
as we see you guys putting the same energy into those other issues as you do
the antiabortion agenda, we’ll reconsider.
This week a group of nine Catholic bishops are
aiming to do just that, by staging a series of dramatic made-for-TV events on both
sides of the US/Mexico border to show their support for immigration reform.
It’s a matter of both humanitarian and practical concern for the bishops, given
that fully one-third of the 70 million Catholics in America today are Hispanic, many of
them recent immigrants.
The prelates say the purpose of the outing is “to
bring attention to the human consequences of a broken immigration system and
call upon the US Congress to act to fix the system.”
Led by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, whose
own pastoral roots lie in work with Latino immigrants and refugees in
Washington’s Centro Católico Hispano in the 1970s, the bishops are gathering in
an area on the border between Arizona and Mexico where scores of migrants have
died trying to make the crossing. (The US Border Patrol pegs the death count at
6,000 over the last 15 years, though many observers believe the real number is
much higher.)
The trip will culminate on Tuesday morning with a
Mass in the desert near Nogales,
Arizona, and the laying of a
wreath to commemorate the dead. The bishops have invited media organizations to
tag along, and will hold a press conference after the Tuesday Mass.
The bishops are consciously imitating Pope
Francis, who traveled on July 8 to the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa
to show his solidarity with immigrants. The island is a major point of arrival
for impoverished migrants from Africa and the Middle East seeking to reach Europe, and some 20,000 are believed to have died over
the last two decades trying to make the crossing.
During that trip, his first outside Rome as pope, Francis
laid a wreath in the sea for the dead and also delivered a speech blasting what
he called the “globalization of indifference” to immigrants.
“The US-Mexico border is our Lampedusa,” said
Auxiliary Bishop Eusebio L. Elizondo of Seattle, a Mexican-born prelate who
serves as chair of the US bishops’ Committee on Migration. “Migrants in this
hemisphere try to reach it, but often die in the attempt.”
In addition to O’Malley and Elizondo, the bishops
taking part are:
►Bishop Gerald
Kicanas, Tucson, Arizona
►Bishop John
Wester, Salt Lake City, Utah
►Bishop Mark Seitz, El Paso,
Texas
►Bishop Cirilo Flores, San Diego,
Calfornia
►Bishop Oscar Cantú, Las Cruces,
New Mexico
►Bishop Ricardo Ramirez, Las
Cruces, New Mexico (retired)
►Auxiliary Bishop
Luis Rafael Zarama Pasqualetto, Atlanta,
Georgia
Francis is a pope of the social gospel, of special
concern for the poor, and there’s been an undercurrent of speculation for a
while now about how much enthusiasm American bishops might feel about those
priorities. This week’s outing would suggest that these nine prelates, at any
rate, have gotten the memo.
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