Religion & Law

From the Washington Times:

[T]he president passed up the fifth annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, scheduled for the Washington Hilton and expected to have 1,300 participants. Joe Cella, a spokesman for the effort, said the White House never asked for Mr. Obama to attend.

Mr. Bush did ask to come and always made a few brief remarks. But the new president, Mr. Cella said, would not have been allowed to speak because of a 2004 directive from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops saying that public figures who have taken positions opposing Catholic doctrine should not be publicly honored.

"We'd host him graciously, but we'd not give him a platform to speak," Mr. Cella said.

It seems things are spinning a bit out of control here, and I cannot imagine that the Bishops -- at least the majority of them -- would approve of their statement being construed so as to justify this result.  President Obama is not allowed to speak at a Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.?  And President Bush "always" spoke, I assume even after his administration's torture policies were made public?  Is this really the way to engage the culture?