Since the President’s election, significant dialogue has been carried out between the administration and the Catholic Church.
The Notre Dame controversy has been the most noted dialogue recently. And to say that the President’s attempt to remove conscience protection laws is a set back for Catholic doctors is an understatement. Catholics have spoken out forcefully and in numbers against the President’s pro-abortion moves.
But those two more public dialogues are not the only shaky encounters between President Obama and the Catholic Church.
As President Barack Obama continues to focus on his political base and push through policies that are anathema to the pro-life movement, he is having difficulty finding a suitable candidate to represent his administration at the Vatican.
According to Massimo Franco, author of “Parallel Empires,” a recently published book on U.S.-Vatican relations, the Obama administration has put forward three candidates for consideration but each of them have been deemed insufficiently pro-life by the Vatican.
One of the few conditions the Vatican places on diplomats accredited to the Holy See is that they hold pro-life views in line with Church teaching.
And there is no chance the Vatican will back down on that simple requirement. It really is a shame that the President has not found a Vatican ambassador.
The post of U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See has been vacant since Jan. 19, when Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon left the position. Commentators say that unless an appointment is made by mid-April, the Obama administration could face the embarrassing possibility of having no ambassador in place when the president visits Italy in July for the G8 summit. That would make any encounter between Pope Benedict XVI and President Obama not impossible but unlikely.
The lack of an encounter between the President and the Pope would be a disappointment all the way around. And the lack of a Vatican Ambassador would be an unprecedented misstep for the administration.
Catholics are taking note of the President’s actions as they effect Catholics, and those actions are confusing.
Several Catholics are included among President Barack Obama’s announced appointments to his advisory council on faith-based partnerships.
Anthony R. Picarello Jr., General Counsel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), was announced as an appointee on April 6. A former head counsel and executive director of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Picarello has litigated several major religious freedom cases. He is a 1991 graduate of Harvard University and received his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1995.
Picarello joins Fr. Larry Snyder, President of Catholic Charities USA, who was appointed to the advisory board in February.
President Barack Obama has named to the federal government’s faith-based initiative a gay-rights activist who, last month, described Pope Benedict XVI and certain Catholic bishops as “discredited leaders” because of their opposition to same-sex marriage.
In addition to his remarks about the Pope, Knox also criticized the Catholic Knights of Columbus as being “foot soldiers of a discredited army of oppression” because of the Knights’ support of Proposition 8. The latter was a ballot initiative that amended California’s state constitution to define marriage as being between a man and a woman, and passed in November 2008.
Knox told CNSNews.com that he “absolutely” stands by his criticism of the pope.
For those who are unaware, the Pope recently visited Africa and in his visit he spoke of his concern for the AIDS epidemic in Africa, his compassion for their suffering, and his desire to alleviate this suffering. Notably he mentioned that condom use is aiding the spread of this disease, not alleviating. This statement brought much criticism from heavy op-ed and political voices. But it also brought much support from African, American, and other international AIDS experts who acknowledged that evidence supports the Pope’s statements on condom use.
So back to President Obama’s administration and the Catholic Church:
Between February and March of this year, Obama’s disapproval rating among all Americans rose from 17 to 26 percent. But, among Catholics, the figure shot up from 14% to 28% and from 20% to 41% among white Catholics.
With Catholics making up nearly a fourth of the population in United States, the President’s radical attempts to isolate Catholic beliefs from the public square could be detrimental. They will not go down without exercising their voice.