Racism has raised its ugly head in the presidential campaign. More exactly, talk about racism has raised its ugly head. Given that it’s a Democratic year — or, at least, should be a Democratic year — the difficult question has presented itself: Why isn’t Sen. Barack Obama way ahead of Sen. John McCain in the … Read more
Nearly two decades have passed since El Salvador’s civil war ended, but the 1980 assassination of a Roman Catholic archbishop may prove highly influential when voters elect a new president next spring. For many Salvadorans over 30, the disappearance of loved ones and the chatter of machine guns remain far more real than the 1992 … Read more
The statements made by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Joseph Biden on Meet the Press have provided a wonderful, even providential, opportunity to present the Church’s teaching on abortion and explain its foundational importance to Catholic moral and political teaching in general. Already many bishops have issued clear and courageous statements correcting … Read more
A few days ago I was asked to speak to a men’s group in Atlanta about Catholics in politics. As part of my presentation, I talked about the possibility of greater Catholic and Evangelical cooperation. To illustrate my point, I told the story about the reconciliation earlier this year between Pastor John Hagee and Catholic … Read more
It is an old fact of Christian theology that concupiscence “darkens the intellect” — or, as I prefer to put it in more colloquial terms, “Sin Makes You Stupid.” The visceral reaction to Sarah Palin by the Enemies of the Normal in the Obama camp is a picture-perfect illustration of this. From the instantaneous embrace … Read more
By adding Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain made his presidential ticket a whole lot more attractive. (See my own endorsement: “Me Vote Pretty This Time.”) Of course, Palin’s presence is no guarantee that McCain will keep his word and appoint solid choices to the U.S. Supreme Court — any more than doting husband Al … Read more
A friend recently sent me a remark by one Msgr. Alfred Gilbey, a onetime chaplain at Cambridge’s Fisher House who was often called “eccentric” (but that mostly meant that he was a believing and practicing Catholic priest in a chaotic time). I’m sure his words will come as news to many. In an article in … Read more
Appearing Sunday on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Sen. Barack Obama tried to undo the damage done by his Saddleback Church interview with Rick Warren — specifically his comment that the question of when an unborn child receives human rights was “above [his] pay grade.” “Was that phrase too flip?” Stephanopoulos asked Obama. “Probably,” Obama … Read more
Although I’m a lifelong Democrat, a former Democratic majority leader of the Rhode Island Senate, and in 1992 a Democratic nominee for the United States House of Representatives, I have for many years now denounced in writing the policies of the national Democratic Party. I have even written a book of denunciation: Can a Catholic … Read more
With the nomination of Gov. Sarah Palin as the Republican vice-presidential candidate, a fatal blow was delivered to the great myth of this campaign: that religious voters, as we have been told repeatedly, have embraced a broader issue agenda, having left behind their fixation on abortion and marriage. On the contrary: The thousands of Republicans … Read more
None of this year’s Catholic presidential candidates (Sam Brownback, George Pataki, Rudolph Giuliani, Joe Biden, Wesley Clark, Christopher Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, and Bill Richardson) earned a nomination from either of the two major political parties. Arguably, however, the Church had its highest profile in a presidential race since 1960 with this past Democratic primary. Unfortunately, … Read more
The pictures say it all. No, not the Tigh/Roslin ’08 pictures (though they do make you wonder). I mean these pictures here. The believers in the Lightworker (i.e., most MSM types) have all of a sudden morphed into upstanding Republican Puritans of a kind not seen since Ozzie and Harriet ruled the earth. So we … Read more
The usual politics aside, there’s more to John McCain’s recent appointment of Sarah Palin as his running mate and candidate for the vice presidency. While many pro-life and pro-family voters cheered her appointment, some are more hesitant to elect a mother of five children, one of whom is still an infant, to the vice presidency … Read more
Change and unity — the two words surely epitomize Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency. Last week’s Democratic Convention extolled change hourly, in a relentless drumbeat. The only relief came when unity was emphasized. What nags at the back of the mind is that the call for “change” and “unity” is not so much an … Read more
My piece last week on immigration flowed from my longstanding policy of spreading oil on the waters — then setting them on fire. Dozens of thoughtful responses offered a wide array of views on how to strike a Catholic balance between Church and state, mercy and justice, globalism and patriotism. But the most important question … Read more
“I’ve gotten more phone calls in the last two days than I received the entire two months I’ve been working for McCain.” J. R. Sanchez, head of McCain’s Catholic outreach in Florida, isn’t the only one experiencing this among religious and social conservatives. One Catholic activist from San Francisco told me she was offering to … Read more
Barack Obama’s tax advisers recently posted a piece in the Wall Street Journal about their candidate’s tax plans. Their article was designed to triangulate, painting their candidate as a tax cutter and the Republican opposition as a secret tax raiser. It was well-written and well-argued — not that you can really trust anything you read … Read more
Scene: The Democratic Convention. Denver, August 26, 2008. HILLARY CLINTON motions her hand to speak. FIRST CITIZEN. Stay, ho! and let us hear Hillary. THIRD CITIZEN. Let her go up into the public chair; We’ll hear her. — Noble Hillary, go up. HILLARY. For Obama’s sake, I am beholding to you. [Goes up, clad in … Read more
Joe Biden’s voting record on abortion in the United States Senate is likely to cause heartburn for two groups of people: ardent pro-choicers and Catholic bishops. Biden is a Catholic; and yet for the last ten years, according to the National Right to Life Committee, he has voted the “wrong” way 88.5 percent of … Read more
Sometimes the Church’s public face in a given country can make you proud, and sometimes it has to make you a little sick. American Catholics can justly take satisfaction that our bishops were almost alone in beginning the fight against abortion; the Southern Baptist Conference, of all things, at first backed Roe v. Wade, and … Read more