Posted on 04/25/2009 3:51:26 PM PDT by greyfoxx39
THE LATEST flare-up on the Obama Watch (we have trouble keeping up with all of them) was sparked by Georgetown University's covering up its Christian symbols, or trying to, when the president visited the campus to deliver a speech.
The cover-up didn't entirely work. The university's (and the Jesuits') abbreviation for Jesus' name-IHS-was still visible elsewhere in the hall. Along with the cross above the university's seal. Was it sloppy planning or divine will? And why not both? He works in mysterious ways.
We vote for this scandalette's having been the product of just another bad idea from some lower-down on the White House staff, whose idea of presidential decorum may be what the late Richard John Neuhaus, priest and public intellectual, called the Naked Public Square. That is, one devoid of any reference to religion.
Father Neuhaus deplored that whole, mistaken idea. And with good reason. Just to begin with, any attempt to whiteout religion from America's public life would seem a highly unrealistic venture in a country brimming over with all kinds of it.
It's quite possible-it's done all the time-to recognize our religious roots, of all kinds, without falling into the trap of imposing our kind of faith-or lack of it-on others. For there is a difference in tone between an act of reverence, of witness, of respect, and bashing a captive audience over the head. Just as there was a difference between the way Martin Luther King Jr. and Jerry Falwell approached the blend of politics and religion that is unavoidable in America.
Letting the public see that the president of the United States was speaking at a Catholic university would seem only a simple, natural recognition of reality, both physical and spiritual.
What's wrong, what's tasteless, what's impudent, is to request that a religious institution hide its religion. That strikes us as unnatural, artificial, and in the end an act of intolerance, for it requires others to sacrifice their integrity to please our absolute devotion to our own, uncompromising creed-in this case, a blank, official, established secularism.
To separate our deepest beliefs from the public square impoverishes it. And ignores how rich and varied our culture is. Why slice our public life into separate boxes and declare that nothing should cross the arbitrary line we've drawn between them? How barbaric to turn aside from such a rich heritage. And illmannered. A gracious guest, and Mr. Obama was the guest in this instance, does not begin his visit by redecorating his host's house. The sight of the university's seal as he spoke should not have offended, for it is the university's own, not a government establishment of religion.
It's hard to believe this cover-up was the president's idea, since he didn't hesitate to bring up the Sermon on the Mount in his speech/sermon: "There is a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells a story of two men. . . . 'the rain descended and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house . . . it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.' . . . We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock."
Somehow we never thought the Teacher from Nazareth was discussing government economic policy when he referred to that Rock, but what do we know? Biblical commentary has never been our forte. It was the president's speech, and he has every right to choose his own words, including a scriptural reference. Just as Georgetown need not have hidden away its religious symbols at his behest.
IT WAS a strange episode all in all, especially because this president has never shied away from religious symbols before. Didn't he just hold a Passover seder at the White House? Surely he didn't cover the symbols on the seder plate as all the rites were observed in full. Any more than he would have his staff mask some verse from the Koran in beautiful Arabic calligraphy if he were speaking at a mosque. And how many black churches do you suppose he's preached in over the course of his long public career? Surely he didn't insist that they be cross-free before he took his place on the pulpit.
No, Mr. Obama has never been a man to shun religion, at least not in his public remarks. It was at a private campaign fund-raiser, when he didn't realize he was being recorded, that he made his unfortunate comment about those hillbillies who take refuge in their God and guns in hard times. And surely he has repented saying it since, Christian gentleman that he is.
We suspect covering up the cross at Georgetown was some officious advance man's bright idea, not the president's. Unfortunately, the administrators at Georgetown who acceded to the request have no such excuse.
Victoria, I gotta think it was Obie's idea from the start. He still has to give final approval, don't you think?!
So now it's someone else's fault.
Reading this article I got this image of the devil and how he can't stand seeing images of Jesus or anything sacred because he goes crazy.
Just a thought. ; )
Would have made a great episode of Kolchak: the Night Stalker.
Vampire president comes to Georgetown to give a speech on global socialism
and his Renfield handlers ask them to remove the cross because the master gets
a little nervous and anxious around blessed Catholic sacramentals and holy objects.
"The Strange & Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Georgetown Cross"
LOL! I agree.
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