Archbishop Nienstedt calls Obama ‘anti-Catholic,’ vows to pull support from Notre Dame
The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has called President Obama an “anti-Catholic politician” and has condemned the University of Notre Dame for inviting Obama to speak at the school’s graduation in May. Archbishop John Nienstedt wrote to protest the invitation because of the president’s support for women’s abortion rights, embryonic stem cell research and civil unions for same-sex couples.
OK - the Pope lets back into the Church some dudes who got kicked out around the time of Vatican 2 for, among other things, being a little anti-semitic. Then the new pope, who was a member of the Hitler Youth during WW2, decides that his conservative theology should advance in the Church and does things like re-allow Latin mass, and let these guys back in to the church - reversing their excommunication (for defying an order from Rome, no less.)
(Scary Pope)
So the new Archbishop Nienstedt comes in, all conservative, and he immediately starts going after "the Homosexuals," clamping down on two of the most left-wing Catholic churches, things like that. And now - he wants Notre Dame to not invite Obama for his abortion politics. (Oh - the Archbishop and the Holocaust Denier probably hung out together since they were both outstate Catholic priests for years together.)
What a load of baloney. I respect a lot of my Catholic roots, but obedience to a church hierarchy not so much, when the Archbishop defines 'Catholicism' as simply issues of fetal politics.
Obama is a very pro-Catholic politician. If you look at the ten points that the Office of Social Justice came up with, he hits home runs on a lot of them. Caring for the poor, being against the war and the death penalty, respect for workers. Catholic social doctrine is very much in line with Obama's administration. I seem to recall several times where he was taking a position that he was getting grief for from the left and thinking he was being kind of Catholic - can't remember specifics, though.
I'm sorry, but this is just too far to the right for me. Crazytalk.
Here's the letter:
Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.
President, University of Notre Dame
400 Main Building
Notre Dame, IN 46556Dear Father Jenkins:
I have just learned that you, as President of the University of Notre Dame, have invited President Barack Obama to be the graduation commencement speaker at the University’s exercises on May 17, 2009. I was also informed that you will confer on the president an honorary doctor of laws degree, one of the highest honors bestowed by your institution.
I write to protest this egregious decision on your part. President Obama has been a pro-abortion legislator. He has indicated, especially since he took office, his deliberate disregard of the unborn by lifting the ban on embryonic stem cell research, by promoting the FOCA agenda and by his open support for gay rights throughout this country.
It is a travesty that the University of Notre Dame, considered by many to be a Catholic University, should give its public support to such an anti-Catholic politician.
I hope that you are able to reconsider this decision. If not, please do not expect me to support your University in the future.
Sincerely yours,
The Most Reverend John C. Nienstedt
Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis
2 comments:
As one of the Roman Catholic Church's worst nightmares, a former priest who has seen the light and wants to share it with the rest of the world ( at JesusWouldBeFurious.Org ) I'm delighted to see the hierarchy making it clearer and clearer that church members who aren't bishops are NOBODIES.
By continuing to be members of this "church" all you are doing is giving the conservative hierarchy more credibility and political capital.
Separation of Church and State is a bedrock of America’s foundation which the Catholic Church seemed to endorse when the Second Vatican Council cited the words of Pius XII: "divine Founder, Jesus Christ, has not given it any mandate or fixed any end of the cultural order. The goal which Christ assigns to it is strictly religious … The Church can never lose sight of the strictly religious, supernatural goal."
Notre Dame is following a tradition having invited Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush to speak to graduates months after taking office. When G W Bush (43) spoke in 2001 about the disintegration of the family, many graduates wore white arm bands to protest the selection.
Notre Dame is not the only Catholic school having faced controversy for their invitees. Remember when College of Saint Thomas denied permission for Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu to speak although the school hosted Ann Coulter two years earlier.
My view is that there are some that are protesting on legitimate religious reasons, but too many are using this as political exploitation since it is being promoted by the anit-Obama media outlets after all 2008 election polling analysis indicate that Catholics supported Obama over McCain by a nine-point margin—54 percent to 45 percent.
For some, politics is their religion.
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