Religion & Law

The claim that Pope Benedict XVI is a "liberal" was, I thought, implausible.  Now Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is upping the ante.  She contends, here, that "Barack Obama represents American Catholics better than the pope does."  "Notre Dame awarded the president an honorary degree," she concludes, "because it saw the need to highlight the best of Catholic teaching as applied to politics: the ability to open the eyes of those who would prefer to keep them closed, and to open the hearts of those who would prefer not to know the pain that their actions cause. The pope has a lot to learn about Catholic politics in America. Barack Obama can teach him." 

Wow!  (To be sure, there are those who would "prefer to keep [their eyes] closed" -- e.g., those who breezily brush aside questions about America's abortion-rights regime with quips about their "pay grade", or those who imagine that Pres. Obama is something other than a committed supporter of that regime.)

Townsend's mention of the Notre Dame honorary degree reminded me that one of the things I think was most regrettable about the decision, and the way it was defended and spun, was that the University allowed itself to be used to advance the President's (quite understandable, politically speaking) strategy of (subtly) separating American Catholics from their (not particularly popular at the moment) bishops and their authority.  Maybe Townsend's piece is a preview of the next move?  Having told American Catholics what the "right way" is to be Catholic (i.e., "don't be like that close-minded fuddy-duddy, Bishop D'arcy"), the President is now positioning himself as a model for what American Catholics should want in the (or, "their") Vicar of Christ.  Thanks, Ms. Townsend, but I think I'll stick with the one the Holy Spirit picked.