Of Big and Small Tents: Arlen Specter as a Dem, and the Obama Storm at Notre Dame
I have been thinking about Arlen Specter's switch, President Obama's upcoming speech at Notre Dame, and the size and shape of tents.
Arlen Specter's defection from the Republican party was big news this week. Jack Cafferty wondered if the Republican Party is on the "brink of irrelevance." E.J. Dionne saw Specter's shift as "ratifying a decisive shift in American politics."
For his part, Senator Specter said it was about tents. "Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan big tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. . . I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans."
It is now the Democrats who claim the Big Tent. Such tents will necessarily include people who disagree about this issue or that. But balance makes them stable, and the Democratic tent seems to be fairly well balanced between the moderates and liberals for the moment.
You can't say the same for the Catholic Church these days. The University of Notre Dame appears to be on the verge of excommunication because of its invitation to the President to give the graduation speech and receive an honorary degree. Dozens of bishops and hundreds of thousands of lay catholics have condemned the invitation.
Prominent Catholic Mary Ann Glendon, a former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, announced this week that she would refuse Notre Dame's highest honor, which she was to receive at the same ceremony. She called the President "a prominent and uncompromising opponent of the Church's position on issues involving fundamental principles of justice." She said the invitation was a violation of an edict from the Church instructing Catholic institutions not to provide "honors, awards, or platforms" to "those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles."
In Glendon's view, neither the Church's tent nor the Notre Dame dais is big enough for the President.
That's fair, as far as it goes. Religions need not have tents the size of political parties.
But I gotta say: I am confused by the shape of the Catholic tent, and I don't think I am the only one. And I am not an uninterested party in this: I am a professor at Boston College and married to a Notre Dame grad.
Notre Dame is under attack from the Catholic establishment, personified by Professor Glendon, for honoring a President who speaks openly about economic justice, advocates health care for every American, denounces financial and environmental profligacy, and condemns torture. His mortal sin is that he supports abortion rights. In the words of one Catholic blogger, "Either you are Catholic in your beliefs, or you are not. There can be no middle ground."
Compare this with what happened over the last few years at Boston College, just as Catholic and (depending on who you ask) just as prominent as Notre Dame. Three years ago, BC welcomed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as its graduation speaker, giving her an honorary doctor of laws degree. We knew at the time that she was a key player in the Bush war machine, and we have since learned that she was one of the Bush officials who signed off on the use of torture.
Last Spring, Attorney General Michael Mukasey gave the graduation address at our law school, fresh from his defense of waterboarding before Congress. He had the nerve to use the graduation speech to defend the authors of the torture memos.
Some of us protested Rice and Mukasey because we did not want the invitations to sully our institution's admirable reputation for being committed to law and social justice. A number of Jesuits and lay Catholics on the faculty spoke out against both invitations, at risk to their standing within the university. But neither invitation stirred up much of a fight among Catholics outside the university, and there was no outcry from the Catholic mainstream leadership. There was certainly no bishop boycott.
Now that I see the uproar over Obama, the silence from the Catholic establishment over the appearance of Rice and Mukasey at Boston College is confusing. I would have thought illegal war and torture were also "in defiance of [Catholic] fundamental moral principles." And if there truly is "no middle ground" then we should have seen the Catholic establishment condemn Rice and Mukasey as vehemently as they are now denouncing Obama.
But my guess is that most Church leaders think Obama is a worse invitee than either Rice or Mukasey. If that's true, then their tent is shaped so as to include those who authorize and defend torture, but to exclude those who support abortion rights. That seems like an odd-shaped tent, and it may not be stable.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
good observation. Its a testament to how christians & catholics are uttlerly obsessed with abortion, to the detriment of all other issues. You rightly point out that Obama takes views on a number of issues that would otherwise we supported by the church. But 80% agreement is meaningless when you disagree on their holy grail, abortion. Somedat there will be a center-right party to replace the republican party, which has been hijacked by this narrow range of idealogy.
of course, they support the INNOCENT babies that are murdered in the womb...bec
my hometown is South Bend and I used to work at Notre Dame. Those bishops and protesters are making fools of themselves. They embarrass me.
I feel for the grads...97
So much for the inclusive beliefs and morals of the pre-eminent Christian denomination the planet.
For high-profile representatives of the Catholic Church to spew such rancor is anathema to the teaching of Jesus Christ.
The leadership of the Catholic Church has always been more concerned with authority, privilege and property than righteousness.
They have consistently been allied with the political forces of the right which have sought to build societies structured to favor such considerations.
They have repeatedly sought to publicly compel and humiliate political leaders who they have perceived as favoring egalitarian social structures in order and to assert for themselves and over others the superiority of the authority and power of the leadership of the Catholic Church.
Too bad.
I recommend that everyone take a break and watch Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life."
Every sp * * m is sacred.
To Mr. Greenfield,
Thank you for that articulate write-up. I am a Catholic and went to a Jesuit school from Elementary to college. I grew up in a country that is more than 87% Catholic. One would think that I would hold the same views as the Catholic Church but I don't. In school we were encouraged to voice our opinions even if they seem to be contrary to Catholic doctrine. I feel that the American Catholic Church is very antiquated in its views. Instead of just focusing on one issue they should broaden their scope to include poverty, ignorance, and injustice.
I have a graduate degree from a Jesuit university and the good fathers taught us to think. I would expect that the good fathers at Notre Dame, albeit not Jesuits, would be welcoming to Obama. The church only stopped torture a few centuries ago and I am not at all sure they would want torturers and their enablers speaking to their graduates.
Well said. However, the current Pope, his Holiness Benedict XVI, feels that the Church is too liberal and wants to return it to its fundamentalist roots.
Objectively speaking..
If you are inclined toward fascism ..it is o.k. just as long as you uphold pro life beliefs.
If you are democratic
They will all go down together. Can't pull it off now. It was easier to do the propoganda thingy in the Edward R. Murrow days.
Until the 13th century or so, priests could marry. Then the priests, bishops etc. started to control a lot of land, and the Pope didn't want to compete for their ears with the ones providing the quim. The Church has tortured, lied, cheated, stole, and they didn't do this as "true believers". They did it for purely political purposes (see the obliteration of the Knights Templar as an example of the evil foundations). They are still doing it. The Church set up a committee to consider contraception in the 60's as it became a new issue. By all accounts, the committee was prepared to rule that it was acceptable. Then the conservatives regained the upper hand. The point? They claim these views are inspired by God through their faith. BS! It is ALL politics. The Vatican is the furthest thing from holy on this planet. It is plain and simple, a political entity that has gotten away with bloody murder for far too long. If the Catholics want to demonize those they disagree with, then those who disagree with them should accede to their wishes and apply their standards to THEM. The difference is that in the case of demonizing the Vatican and those Catholic sheeple who blindly follow, the facts justify it. The same cannot be said in the reverse. Seems to me that is a perfectly solid moral foundation for such action.
The difference is the people driving the phony outrage were Republicans, and thus had no problem with Rice or Mukasey.
Their phony outrage is reserved for Democrats.
These people that are vehemently protesting President Obama are the same people that gave President Bush his 20% approval rate athe the end of his term. You can forget about trying to convince these people about their hypocritcal stance because they revel in their mypoic little world.
Having created the Inquisition and made waterboarding popular, if not actually inventing it, the Church has a special place in its heart for those who authorize and justify torture. Of course, they never actually killed anyone, just handed them over to the secular branch with a (nudge nudge, wink wink) plea that mercy be granted. Hmmmmmmmmmmm - maybe they invented "rendition" as well.
This isn't anything new mind you. This is one of the reasons Martin Luther broke away from the church during the Protestant Reformation nearly 500 years ago. They operated like a corrupt corporation that didn't practice what they preached, add and substracted stuff as they saw fit.
Abortion is not in the bible. But caring for the sick, the hungry, the needy, the elderly, the children (you know, this stuff Jesus talked about) is. Nobody really knows nor has it been proven if there a soul actually in the embryo (these same people certainly look the other way when it comes to miscarriages and still-borns). This is the flat-earth
And just as 500 years ago with Luther, this really isn't about abortion/earth at all at its core. This is about power, and the church's use of it over the weak-minded, ignorant, and intolerant. "How can we keep our prestige and people giving their money to us?"
Pfah - that's all Jesus stuff, what's that got to do with Natzinger's mob?
In the Boston Globe the chair of our Theology Department at Boston College, Franciscan theologian Kenneth Himes, astutely observed that the real issue here is indeed that the rich tradition of Catholic moral theology has increasingly been reduced to a single issue, abortion, and that the substantive matters of right relationship, economic and social justice and human rights etc. are trumped by this single litmus test , Kent Greenfield is right that this has created a tent with a single narrow entrance (and it is not the "narrow way" of the gospel).
" There are some well-meaning people who think Notre Dame has given away its Catholic identity, because they have been caught up in the gamesmanship of American higher education, bringing in a star commencement speaker even if that means sacrificing their values, and that accounts for some of this," said the Rev. Kenneth Himes, chairman of theology department at Boston College. "But one also has to say that there is a political game going on here, and part of that is that you demonize the people who disagree with you, you question their integrity, you challenge their character, and you brand these people as moral poison. Some people have simply reduced Catholicism to the abortion issue, and, consequently, they have simply launched a crusade to bar anything from Catholic institutions that smacks of any sort of open conversati
Moral theology is not about abortion alone, as you astutely insist. It is about being a good person and doing what is required. It is about the protection of children and their fostering. It is about life in all its forms. It is about day care for children if mother must work. It is about making sure the worker has a decent wage and a right to protest mistreatment. It is about a doctor treating his patient with respect. These are things the Democratic Party has stood for and the GOP right has not.
The hypocritical position of the Catholic Church is institutionalized within the church. The church and most of their leadership and prominent members are incapable of resolving those issues. They are tied to special interests much in the same way as the US Congress or any large long standing corporation. The need to occasional grandstanding is something that the church is very good at doing. I am sure that the leadership has a rationale for their decisions. Thank God Notre Dame is standing strong. At least they are not being hypocrites. The Vatican needs to look at their "constitution" and see if this is a states right issue or whatever they call it in church speak.
Look, if the church can justify making a nazi soldier its leader, and helping nazis escape punishment, what makes you think (hope?) the church has any sense of morality?
Amen. It seems that only the unborn really have the right to life in the Catholic Church.
Well yes, religion is kind of made up. And they make it up more, as they go along.
So, with this kind of mushy lack of logic in the thinking, it is perfectly likely that they would be enraged by an invitation to someone who supports a woman's right to be free, and OK with inviting someone who supports torture. See, it is religion, it is SUPPOSED to not make sense.
Yet they claim to have the last word on morality. Only their religion of course, is moral.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
