Impending Obama Commencement Speech At Notre Dame Fueling Debate Among U.S. Roman Catholics

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
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Article Date: 12 May 2009 - 1:00 PDT

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The controversy surrounding President Obama's invitation to speak at the University of Notre Dame's commencement on May 17 indicates that the typical "discord" among Roman Catholics in the U.S. is "escalating into something closer to civil war," the New York Times reports (Steinfels, New York Times, 5/9). Since Obama accepted the invitation in March, more than 353,000 people have signed an online petition demanding the invitation be rescinded. The Cardinal Newman Society -- an advocacy group for Catholic colleges that started the petition -- says that the invitation violates a 2004 bishops' mandate that Catholic institutions "should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles" (Fouhy, AP/San Jose Mercury News, 5/11). Several Catholic officials have spoken out against the invitation, according to the Times. At a recent antiabortion convention, Bishop Robert Finn of the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese in Missouri condemned Notre Dame's invitation and said that the church is "engaged in a constant warfare with Satan." He added that the most dangerous enemies to the church are "more subtle enemies," including Catholics who "attack the most fundamental tenets of the church's teachings."

However, several Catholic officials and advocates have expressed concern about the language the opposition is using against Notre Dame's invitation. Mark Noll, a member of the faculty at Notre Dame and a historian of U.S. Christianity, said that "temperate objections" to Obama's appearance could evoke discussion about the role of the church in politics and the nature of a Catholic university. Noll added that he is "surprised at the visceral level of the opposition" (New York Times, 5/9). Patrick Whelan, president of the Catholic Democrats, said that the bishop and other conservative leaders opposed to the invitation are driving some Catholics away from the church rather than weakening their support for Obama. Whelan said, "There are unintended consequences to this kind of angry, vituperative language about their opponents. By making themselves pawns of the conservative right, the bishops are playing into a cycle of decline for our church."

Although there has been significant opposition to Obama's invitation, polling and other evidence indicates that Catholic voters are largely supportive of the president. According to the AP/Mercury News, students at Notre Dame overall are enthusiastic about Obama's impending appearance. In addition, Obama won 54% of the Catholic vote in the 2008 general election, and a Quinnipiac University poll released in April showed that white Catholics approve of Obama's job performance by a 57% to 33% margin. The AP/Mercury News reports that Obama's approval rating among Catholic voters is further evidence that U.S. Catholics sometimes break with church hierarchy on issues such as abortion, contraception and political preferences.

J. Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University who has studied Catholic voting trends, said that Catholics who are observers of the faith tend to be more conservative -- and skeptical of Obama -- than those who are not. Wilson said there are many "nominally Catholic" voters who "are not regular churchgoers and not tied in with Catholic life in any meaningful way." He added that many of these Catholics "know nothing about what the bishops are saying about political matters because they're not in the church to hear them" (AP/San Jose Mercury News, 5/11).

Vatican Silent on Notre Dame Invitation, Washington Post Reports

In related news, the Vatican has "remained conspicuously silent" on Notre Dame's invitation despite Obama's support for abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research, the Washington Post reports. According to the Post, L'Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper, has not published anything about the controversy surrounding the invitation, which is consistent with the Vatican's positive treatment of Obama since the November 2008 election. The paper's lack of coverage on the issue provides the "most extensive evidence so far" that the Vatican has chosen a "milder" approach to Obama than the church's U.S. hierarchy, the Post reports (Rocca, Washington Post, 5/9).

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