{"id":2639,"date":"2008-10-31T06:41:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-31T06:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/sign-of-the-times.html"},"modified":"2008-10-31T06:41:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-31T06:41:00","slug":"sign-of-the-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/sign-of-the-times.html","title":{"rendered":"Sign of the times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Wisconsin Catholic school principal found himself in hot water<\/a> this week for posting a sign supporting Barack Obama in his yard: <\/p>\n

The heated reaction to a Barack Obama sign appearing in the Catholic Memorial High School principal’s yard “reflects a complex intersection of personal politics, free speech and the need for clarity about the Catholic identity,” the school’s president says.<\/p>\n

The perceived endorsement by Principal Mark Schmitt, of an abortion-rights candidate – a key issue for abortion-opposing Catholics – led to complaints by some parents, and Schmitt removed the sign Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n

But school leaders are still wrestling with the ethical fallout, said Father Paul Hartmann, the school’s president.<\/p>\n

“(Catholic Memorial) is absolutely pro-life – in its curriculum, its classroom teaching, and its Catholic spiritual life,” Hartmann assured the school community in a late-night Wednesday e-mail.<\/p>\n

In an interview Thursday, Hartmann said that he was still gauging the impact of the controversy and conferring with the school’s board of directors.<\/p>\n

“I think we’re still trying to assimilate a response,” Hartmann said.<\/p>\n

Religion and politics clashed largely because of the well-known location of Schmitt’s home; he lives across the street from the school at 601 E. College Ave.<\/p>\n

A fair number of parents this week have voiced their support for Schmitt’s actions, though others are perturbed.<\/p>\n

Parent Pat Walters saw the sign in Schmitt’s yard almost two weeks ago and complained in person. According to Walters, Schmitt said that he was an abortion opponent, but that he supported Obama because of the Democratic candidate’s stance on more important global issues.<\/p>\n

“I have no problem with who he votes for,” Walters said Thursday, adding that he thought highly of the school and expected to send his five younger children there. “But for the leader of the school to be advertising values opposite of what we’re teaching our children, that’s wrong.”<\/p>\n

Schmitt did not return a call for comment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Wisconsin Catholic school principal found himself in hot water this week for posting a sign supporting Barack Obama in his yard: The heated reaction to a Barack Obama sign appearing in the Catholic Memorial High School principal’s yard “reflects a complex intersection of personal politics, free speech and the need for clarity about the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-and-politicians"],"yoast_head":"\nSign of the times - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/sign-of-the-times.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sign of the times - 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}