Should Catholics Breakfast With Bush?
by Vince?Daliessio
Lew Rockwell blogged about the then-impending National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, at which President Bush was scheduled to speak (text of speech here). Daithi MacLochlainn of The Gaelic Starover, a libertarian Catholic blog, pointed out how Bush's wars and?other positions really are not consistent with recent Catholic teaching, implying that the organization should not invite the president to speak;
"The late Pope John Paul II spoke clearly on the tragedy in Iraq, 'When war, as in these days in Iraq, threatens the fate of humanity, it is ever more urgent to proclaim, with a strong and decisive voice, that only peace is the road to follow to construct a more just and united society... Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of man.'
His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, also has spoke out, 'There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq. To say nothing of the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a 'just war.''
A reader replied;
I hope you might recall that both John Paul 2 and Benedict XVI have welcomed George Bush to come and speak with them post Iraq invaision. Dispite their declarations about the war, they have and continue to effectively invite George Bush to "come for breakfast."
My rejoinder;
Popes are bound by moral duty to try to pursuade leaders on an immoral path back onto a moral one (e.g. Pope John Paul II meeting with Castro), as these leaders have temporal power over the well-being of the souls within their communion who live under their political leadership. That is a fundamentally different thing than asking such an unredeemed leader to speak to an assembled audience, nominally gathered in faith but in reality simply brought subtly further under that leader's authority. Such a gathering implies to the majority that the leader speaks to them with some moral authority. As this is surely not an interactive, forensic event, the audience is tacitly urged thereby to submit to the moral leadership of the political leader. This is corrupt, and by definition, immoral.
I once believed, as you do, that the Republican Party claimed a moral, principled stand on issues surrounding the beginning and end of human life. Recent experience has shown that this is simply empty rhetoric, used to seduce those to whom these things are vitally important, to support the war-making Military-Industrial-Welfare complex. Mr. Bush, and indeed, the vast majority of politicians care only as much about the abortion issue as it takes to win a simple majority of the votes to obtain / stay in office, and have no principled opposition to abortion at all. For the same reasons, although the majority of American citizens are against unrestricted abortion on demand, they refuse to support laws and politicians who are nominally against it because they have a legitimate distrust of politicians who claim to pass laws for our own good.
Catholics?who support Bush's wars for the sake of his feigned opposition to abortion are going against the express teaching of TWO popes. The message cannot be made any clearer.
Comments
Yes, the Lord ate with Republicans and sinners (I believe they were known by another name back then. "Tories," right?) But He didn't let success spoil Him, lest He be denied His crown of victory over death. I had reasons of my own for not attending the NCPB this year: My Canaanite Moment
http://gaelicstarover.blogspot.com/2005/04/sending-condolences.html Bishop John Michael would have made an exceelent choise for speaker at the breakfast!
Unless I am mistaken, in Jesus' day a "Publican" was a tax collector, wasn't he, LOL?
(Giggle) I think you mean Publicans, not Republicans! Although the difference between Republican and sinner is kind of moot, don't you think? :)
http://gaelicstarover.blogspot.com/2005/05/selective-orthodoxy.html
Our Lord may have eaten with sinners. However, he didn't have them address His followers nor did he encourage us to applaud their sins. Give Bush a plate, but not a podium, Our Lord also told sinners to "go and sin no more". The archbishops present had an obligation to do likewise and failed.
Exactly. It's the Pope's JOB to call leaders like Bush on the carpet about imperial wars. But the organizers of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast could have invited anyone to speak to the group, and certainly did NOT have to invite the president, who has been totally ineffective at pursuing the issues that these guys claim to be important (abortion, end-of-life issues) while "showing them the money" on "faith-based initiatives". And Bush certainly has other things he COULD be doing. But the Breakfast's organizers are eager to curry favor with Bush, who continues to promise to fund "faith-based initiatives", while Bush needs a Catholic endorsement to counter the very public dressing-down he has recieved from not one but TWO popes, regarding the war in Iraq, and warmaking generally. Previous to this, only Adolph Hitler had earned this dubious distinction. So the prayer breakfast fiasco is the exact opposite of the Pope meeting with the president privately - it is instead an empty exercise in backslapping and butt-kissing that risks communicating to Catholics that this guy is "A-OK" on Catholic issues. Let me be clear - President Bush has not substantively supported ONE issue at the core of Catholic teaching, while promoting many things that are completely against it. Bush is the last leader any Catholic organization has any business even appearing to endorse.
True, I see no resemblance between the Vatican in Rome and the Christian Right here in this country. The latter is merely a cheerleading squad for the GOP's warmaking arm. As for the Popes supposedly giving in by inviting W to breakfast, didn't Jesus confront sinners as opposed to avoiding them?
True, but we are talking about two different things here. If the agenda of the sinners had been to corrupt others instead of to ask forgiveness, Jesus would have the guts to call them on it. No such thing happened here - the organizers of the Breakfast appeared to fall over each other in the rush to praise Bush. Makes sense if the organizers believe Bush genuinely wants to regulate abortion and was forced to go to war, otherwise the organizers are simply being used, willingly or no, to imply that good Catholics should support Bush.
The Lord himself ate with Republicans and sinners.
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