Never thought you’d see that headline, huh? Well, that seems to be the upshot of this Politico report that National Right-to-Life is making robocalls in Indiana asking Democrats to vote against Obama. I guess, as Tim Roemer surmises, they think Clinton would be easier to beat in the general election.

Via Casting Stones.

Wheaton College and divorce.

Sometime back, someone asked about McCain’s Catholic Committee, here’s a list:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/05/mccains-catholic-committe_n_100277.html

A Friday night ritual where I live is to catch Mark Shields and David Brooks on the Lehrer “News Hour.” The segment is always entertaining, sometimes enlightening, and, on occasion, David even manages to get a word or two in. In recompense, David writes a column for the New York Times.

Today he compares the styles of Hillary and Barack as, respectively, “Combat and Composure.” Here’s his summing up:

They are imperfect messengers for their creeds. Clinton rails against “Wall Street money-grubbers,” but her policies are often drawn from the Wall Street wing of the party. Obama talks about postpartisan compromise in the abstract, but rarely in the particular.

Still, amid the storms of the presidency, their basic worldviews would shape their presidencies. Obama is instinctively a conversationalist and community-mobilizer. Clinton, as she says, will fight and fight. If elected, she’ll have the power to take the Hobbesian struggle she perceives, and turn it into remorseless reality.

Grant, do you take that as an endorsement?

Today’s Washington Post has an article about a recent survey of what grade-school and high-school students are reading. Not having any children and being of a certain age, I am not familiar with most of the books mentioned. I was amused by the comment of the man who was reassured that some of the classics he read as a child are still being read. It could seem that “classic” here means “what I read as a child.” It reminds me of the couple who, asked what kind of music they might want for their wedding, replied: “Oh, one of the classics, like ‘On Eagle’s Wings.’” The texts for high-school seemed rather thin to me. Does anyone read Dickens any more?

Just read this in John Allen’s post… an interview with Mary Ann Glendon: U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.

Melinda Henneberger in Slate and the Boston Globe in South Bend offer two good overviews and explanations, though Melinda–a Commonweal contributor–takes aim at the race issue that generates much heat. Her analysis is strong, however. “Hillary for Mother Superior?” We’ll see again tomorrow.

An argument for Obama from a pro-life Catholic; he wrote earlier on Slate supporting Obama; here he further explains his reasoning. Worth a read:

http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=27820

Here’s his original endorsement in Slate:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/convictions/archive/2008/03/23/endorsing-obama.aspx

Frank Rich points towards a double standard in the media’s treatment of Wright:

None of this is to say that two wacky white preachers make a Wright right. It is entirely fair for any voter to weigh Mr. Obama’s long relationship with his pastor in assessing his fitness for office. It is also fair to weigh Mr. Obama’s judgment in handling this personal and political crisis as it has repeatedly boiled over. But whatever that verdict, it is disingenuous to pretend that there isn’t a double standard operating here. If we’re to judge black candidates on their most controversial associates — and how quickly, sternly and completely they disown them — we must judge white politicians by the same yardstick.

I think this is about right. I actually think McCain’s search for the Hagee endorsement is worse than Obama staying in his church despite the views of his pastor. A person remains in a congregation for a number of reasons, the pastor being just one of them. Churches are, after all (or, at least, for most of us), communities of faith, and not just Sunday entertainment provided by the pastor. Someone might stay in a church because of its commitment to service, its connections to a particular neighborhood or ethnic group, bonds with fellow parishioners, etc.  Indeed, those who casually say that Obama should have left his church reveal to me a fairly shallow approach towards life in a church. Perhaps I say this because I’m Catholic. By necessity, we have a uniquely non-pastor-centered approach to Church. But I’d imagine the same is true to varying degrees even for more congregational protestants. (As an aside, it’s at least ironic that so much of the Wright story is being flogged by Catholic journalists O’Reilly and Hannity. Stephen Colbert — who is a weekly mass Catholic — had the right take on this facet of the story.  Continuing to attend mass, he suggested, does not signal agreement with how the Church has handled, say, the abuse scandal.)

In any event, seeking out a pastor’s endorsement is a different sort of calculation than deciding whether to leave a church because of occasionally controversial (even outrageous) comments made by its pastor.  So I’m much more troubled by McCain’s flirtation with Hagee than by Obama’s decision to continue attending his church.

In yesterday’s Washington Post, David Broder had an interesting column. He asked a friend who works in Hillary Clinton’s national campaign, whether her camp sees any realistic way she can deny the Democratic nomination to Obama “without blowing up the party,” that is, “If the superdelegates should decide to take the risk and cast their lot with Clinton, how would she be able to heal the wounds of a fight to the finish with Obama?”

The Clinton camp’s answer comes in two parts. First, they say that the institutional party — the unions, the environmental groups, the abortion rights groups and others that are desperate for victory after losing twice to George Bush and that recognize the potential appeal of John McCain — would exert heavy pressure on the losing side not to sulk or erupt.

And second, the Clinton camp hopes that, if he is counted out, Obama, just 46, would think about his long-term future and secure his own status as heir apparent by reconciling his followers to a bitter but temporary defeat and by throwing all his energies behind Clinton.

In effect, my friend was saying that it may well be beyond Clinton’s power to win the nomination without severely damaging the party. Only Obama can make her winning seem right.

At the Democratic National Convention in 1956, John F. Kennedy made a late run against Estes Kefauver to obtain the vice-presidential nomination alongside Adlai Stevenson. Kennedy lost, but it was widely believed that his effort had won him valuable publicity for a run for the presidential nomination four years later. Is this what the Clinton camp is offering Obama?

So asks Time magazine – quoting Commonweal to help make its point.

In his “Connections” column in today’s New York Times, Edward Rothstein remembers Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD.

Rothstein reflects on romanticism’s love/hate relationship with technology, and concludes:

It is through technology, not despite it, that LSD visions were realized. [Timothy] Leary called the personal computer “the LSD of the 1990s.” And in a 2006 report in Wired magazine, many early computer pioneers are said to have been users of LSD. Steve Jobs, Apple’s presiding genius, described his own LSD experience as “one of the two or three most important things” he has done in his life. So here it is — a world in which we all do more than just inhale. It is through the iPod that, in Leary’s once contentious words, we turn on, tune in and drop out.

Mere chance led me to tune into NPR at noon only to find myself caught up for a riveting fifty-three minutes. The program, “Speaking of Faith,” in conjunction with the Pope’s visit asked Catholics to submit essays on their own Catholic experience. A number were selected and asked to read their essays for the program. The result is a wonderful range of articulate, joyful, searching, doubtful Catholics.

Each segment is a small gem, and I encourage listening to the 53 minutes here — much more food for the soul than 60 Minutes (and no commercials!).

One of my favorite lines is from the last speaker, a “fallen away” Catholic, who still attends Mass, because being Catholic “is profound and it never goes away.”

And she always finds herself weeping at the “Agnus Dei.” (And, no, it’s not the singing.)

Haven’t kept up with the campaign? Afraid to start now? Not sure about all those reviews you’ve been reading? Here’s a nifty summary–like one of those movie trailers that gives it all away–for those of you who may not trust everything you read on this blog. Au contraire (as John Kerry would say). This here is the whole truth. Really.

Bill Donohue may not be tired of the culture wars–or internecine Catholic wars. The head of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights is often over the top in denunciations of anti-Catholicism, real or perceived, and of other Catholics who Donohue sees as not toeing the proper Catholic line. But even Donohue may have outdone himself, and done in his own organization, if his latest press release prompts an IRS investigation.

The May 2 release is “Catholic Dissidents Advise Obama,” and it draws down on Obama’s Catholic National Advisory Committee, which includes several Commonwealers, such as Cathleen Kaveny and Grant Gallicho. It also includes Catholics in public and religious life, ranging from Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania to the Sister of St. Joseph, Sr. Catherine Pinkerton. Also included are more than a few writers and theologians whose work I have long admired. Point of disclosure: I have also known Bill Donohue for years, and while I think he is completely wrongheaded many times, and inimical to the church’s well-being other times, he can also be a good guy to have a beer with, as well as someone who does not run from an argument, and an advocate who can point out indisputable cases of anti-Catholicism that still persist.

That said, this latest blast is way outta line. Donohue not only labels these Obama-advising Catholics as “dissidents” but he says “Practicing Catholics have every right to be insulted by Obama’s advisory group”–setting up Catholics who back Obama as bad Catholics and opponents of Obama, by implication, as good Catholics. Donohue employs his favorite trick of the invidious–and distorting–comparison, saying he wouldn’t have gay advisors who “don’t reflect the sentiment of the gay community”–as if these Obama-backers don’t reflect Catholic opinion. (In fact, they largely do. Not that this should be about public opinion, no?)

In his closing, Donohue takes a real potshot, saying that “If these are the best ‘committed Catholic leaders, scholars and advocates’ Obama can find, then it is evident that he has a ‘Wright’ problem when it comes to picking Catholic advisors.” As if these Catholics–check out the list–are the equivalent of Jeremiah Wright…!

But let me dissect this a bit more analytically. I see four chief problems.

One is that Donohue bases his criticism of these dozens of advisors principally on the “scores” that the abortion rights group NARAL gives some of the political figures on the committee (conveniently not mentioning the presence of Democrats Bob Casey and Tim Roemer, also on Obama’s committee, who have taken stands against abortion rights in many cases). Donohue also states that Obama’s pol pals do not agree with the church’s “three major public policy issues: abortion, embryonic stem cell research and school vouchers.” That is a rather selective list, in that the bishops’ own statement on political participation, titled “Faithful Citizenship,” lists seven principal policy areas, and they include “Option for the Poor and Vulnerable,” “Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers,” and “Caring for God’s Creation.” Not to mention the church’s opposition to the Iraq War, which John McCain wants to continue.

Indeed, while Donohue has criticized McCain’s alliance with the rock-ribbed televangelist and preacher of standard anti-Catholic rhetoric, John Hagee, he has not brought similar scrutiny to McCain’s own Catholic advisory board.

And that raises the second problem, which was noted by the liberal group, Catholics United, namely that Donohue’s apparent partisanship could jeopardize the League’s 501c3 non-profit status. Catholics United also cites passages from “Onward Christian Solders,” a new book by Deal Hudson–a longtime GOP advisor–that show how Donohue has been active in helping the Bush White House and the Republican Party woo the Catholic vote.

This adds up to a big potential problem for Donohue. Yet it also adds up to a big payday for him. As the League’s publicly-available financial forms show, Donohue takes in a whopping $343,000 a year in salary and compensation. He can rightly claim that he has turned the League from a penny-ante mom-and-pop shop into the $20-million-dollar a year culture war machine that it is. But while few would disagree with fighting anti-Catholicism, I wonder how many will see Donohue as getting rich off anti-Catholicism.

A final point: Pope Benedict XVI, who Donohue spares no effort to defend, even when the pontiff is not under attack, made an explicit call during last month’s visit for Catholics to seek unity, not division. I’m not sure how Donohue’s internecine and potentially partisan sniping achieves that end, or even how attacking other Catholics connects with fighting anti-Catholicism.

Crosspost with Beliefnet’s “Casting Stones“

Lots of people are, it seems- including some Evangelicals.

In the very personal letter he wrote to the bishops to accompany his Motu Proprio, “Summorum Pontificum,” Benedict XVI expressed the hope that “the two Forms of the usage of the Roman Rite can be mutually enriching.” He also said that “it behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.”

I have already called attention to the fact that the Pope has been celebrating Mass, both in Saint Peter’s and during the course of his journey in the United States, with a crucifix placed on the altar, between him and the assembly, thereby creating a spiritual “ad orientem” posture of prayer.

Some, on various blogs, have even suggested that the Holy Father, at his Masses, has taken to pray sotto voce during the Offertory, the prayers of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. If this be the case, it may be one concrete way of furthering the “mutual enrichment” he seeks.

The two times I have participated in the Eucharist in the Extraordinary Form, I have regretted that the Eucharistic Prayer was not prayed audibly. Though I know others do not agree, I find it makes more sense that all should hear what the priest is praying in our name. Perhaps, at some point, the practice of the Ordinary Form may, in this regard, enrich the traditional Latin Mass.

On the other hand, I find the Offertory Prayers of the Extraordinary Form much richer than the pared-down versions of the Ordinary Form.

So I have taken to pray silently, after the “Lavabo,” the lovely prayer which in the Extraordinary Form is prayed before the invitation to the assembly “Orate Fratres.” It begins, “Suscipe, Sancta Trinitas,” and it more explicitly extends, beyond the assembled congregation, the communion of those united in prayer and worship:

Receive, O Holy Trinity, this offering which we offer you in memory of the passion, resurrection, and ascension of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, and in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of Saint John the Baptist, of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and of all the Saints. May it bring honor to them and salvation to us. And may they intercede in heaven for us who keep their memory on earth. We pray this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Related:

Amy Welborn has a most interesting post occasioned by her finding a 1960 book by the American pioneer of the liturgical renewal, H.A. Reinhold, “Bringing the Mass to the People.” The little book indicates what liturgically-minded pastors were anticipating by way of liturgical reform prior to the Council. Among the insightful comments following Amy’s May 1st post are two by people well-known to dotCom: Peter Nixon and Fred Bauerschmidt.

It’s very hard to figure out what she’s trying to say here, but it seems like she’s saying that rich people like her and O’Reilly have a special obligation to contribute to the common good.  Nothing wrong with that.  But why is her campaign denying that she said “God bless us”?  According to Wolfson, she said “God B-L-E-S-S-E-D us.”  But that just doesn’t seem right.  Watch the video and tell me if you agree.  The funny thing is, given that there’s nothing really wrong with what she said, lying about her words is just going to create controversy where there shouldn’t be any.

In his weekly column in The Catholic Standard, Archbishop Donald Wuerl again addresses the question of the eucharist and Catholic politicians who have supported pro-abortion legislation. My guess is that this is in response to criticisms such as that of neophyte Robert Novak, who accused Archbishop Wuerl and Cardinal Egan of disobeying the Pope.

And now in Chiesa Sandro Magister summarizes the debate, noting how this question would not be likely to arise in Europe.  He does not mention Abp. Wuerl’s column.