Posted on 11/19/2011 2:28:43 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o
Michael Gerson thinks Obama's "Catholic strategy" is in shambles. I think he's wrong.
In fact, I think that from the perspective of President Obama and his most ardent supporters (that is, those who will vote for him no matter how bad the economy is), this administration's "Catholic strategy" has been quite successful.
Gerson, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, writes the following in a November 16th column for The Washington Post:
| In 2009, Notre Dame University set off months of intra-Catholic controversy by inviting a champion of abortion rights to deliver its commencement address. When the day arrived, President Obama skillfully deflated the tension. He extended a “presumption of good faith” to his anti-abortion opponents. Then he promised Catholics that their anti-abortion convictions would be respected by his administration.
Catholics, eager for reassurance from a leader whom 54 percent had supported, were duly reassured. But Obama's statement had the awkward subordinate clauses of a contentious speechwriting process. Qualifications and code words produced a pledge that pledged little.
Now the conscience protections of Catholics are under assault, particularly by the Department of Health and Human Services. And Obama's Catholic strategy is in shambles. |
Gerson assumes, rather understandably, that a first-term President who received the majority of the "Catholic" vote should be interested in maintaining that support in order to be re-elected. Which is why Gerson, after recounting some of the recent conflicts between the HHS and the USCCB over conscience clauses and related matters, concludes:
| It is also politically incomprehensible. Obama's Catholic outreach is being revealed as a transparent ploy a year before he faces re-election. A portion of the Democratic coalition, including civil libertarians and abortion-rights activists, has decided to attack and marginalize Catholic leaders and institutions. And HHS is actively siding against Catholic organizations.
How will the White House respond? More specifically, how will the Catholic chief of staff and America's first Catholic vice president respond? They gave up their own adherence to Catholic teaching on abortion long ago. But are they really prepared to betray their coreligionists who still hold these beliefs?
Sebelius is becoming a political embarrassment at an inconvenient time. It will be significantly harder for Obama to repeat his appeal to Catholic voters while a part of his administration is at war with Catholic leaders and Catholic belief |
Some on the left, such as TIME's Amy Sullivan (whose loathing of Catholicism is not a secret), have downplayed Gerson's concerns, saying that the Obama administration has simply been the victim of various officials "bungling policy decisions and basic communications strategy". But I think that bungling and bias (or bigotry, as the case might be) are not only compatible, they are often smitten lovers skipping through the insular meadows of political hubris.
Arrogance has a way of blinding us to our weaknesses and faults, as well as causing us to disdain the positions of others and to be dismissive of their positions without taking them seriously. Need I point out that the Obama administration has earned a reputation for arrogance and hubris that is impressive, even at a time when such faults are common to the point of being taken for granted within the realm of politics?
Over against Gerson's puzzlement, here is what I think has happened and is happening:
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In other words, the actual, long-term "Catholic strategy" of this administration is to undermine and dismantle the witness and work of the Catholic Church, which works on the behalf of protecting life from the moment of conception to the grave. Pres. Obama has proven time and time agaoin that he is committed to a pro-abortion agenda that will not and cannot pay respects to those who believe life begins at conception, that it is sacred, and that abortion is a "moral evil" and a "criminal practice" (CCC, 2271-4).
There is no middle ground. Unfortunately, the disciples of death have always understood this, even while many of those who are disciples of life have been slow to admit this stark truth.
Finally, Gerson, like so many others, mistakenly talks about the "Catholic vote" as if it were some sort of monolithic, cohesive entity. It is not. The majority of Catholics are not guided by Church teaching, at least not in a consistent and demonstrable manner; they vote, in general and at best, like liberal Protestants. Many of them vote just like their pseudo-sophisticated, neo-pagan neighbors. Gerson wonders how it is that Vice-President Biden and other Catholics in the Obama administration might actually "betray their coreligionists" by siding against the USCCB on these issues of conscience clauses and so forth.
The naivity of the question is, well, embarrassing. Let's be blunt: if a man is willing to sell the lives of the unborn for political gain, why would he hesitate to sell out the "coreligionists" whose beliefs he obviously rejects? Or, in more eschatological terms: if a man is willing to sell his soul for earthly power, why would he give a damn about the judgment of heaven? The Catholic strategy of the current administration, I submit, is not in shambles, but is simply out in the open. It is politically comprehensible exactly because it has, so far, been politically successful.
Both Gingrich and Santorum are Catholics.
It's folly. It's madness. And in this country, it's at least 75% voluntary on the part of the Church: the orderly administration of injustice. Pre-emptive surrender.
But things will turn. Things will turn because we will pray to God, and then we will stand up and turn them.
The Catholic Church, which has served as a stalwart bellwether for 2,000 years was stricken by a very serious disease from which it could have died. Imagine, Christ’s Church on earth so ill it could have perished!
That catastrophic illness foisted upon it was called Vatican II where modernists decided that the Church needed to brought into the 20th century. They aggressively changed the Church into a new religion. They threw the baby and the bathwater through the stained glass windows!
New ‘churches’ were built that looked like airplane hangers. The tabernacle was relegated to a place off to the side somewhere or even off into a room. Confessionals became ‘Reconciliation Rooms.’ The priest offering what passed as a ‘mass’ became the president of the assembly and a picnic table was installed facing the congregation.
The sacred Host was placed in the congregant’s hand and was served to only those who stood to receive Jesus Christ.
Other Protestant churchmen and even Rabbis watched the Church for eons for signs and, yes, even guidance. No longer the church is mired in modernism and heresy.
ping!
We faithful Catholics understood this all along, and it was frustrating trying to get that point across to our Catholic friends who are more enamored of the 'social justice' Church.
Church going Catholics had it within their power to have prevented some 60 million abortions, they did not because they do not care.
We would be living in a different world if Church going Catholics had ALL voted Republican over the last 45 years or so.
Other groups including black Churches held the same power but did not care either.
They spit on Christ when they vote Democrat
I agree. As a conservative, pro-life Catholic, it stuns me how some vote. Many of them are simply CINOs or cafeteria Catholics.
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