{"id":305,"date":"2009-03-05T12:33:49","date_gmt":"2009-03-05T12:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/2009\/03\/naumann-v-sebelius-the-battle.html"},"modified":"2009-03-05T12:33:49","modified_gmt":"2009-03-05T12:33:49","slug":"naumann-v-sebelius-the-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/03\/naumann-v-sebelius-the-battle.html","title":{"rendered":"Naumann v. Sebelius: The Battle of the Kansans heats up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann devotes his weekly column to Obama’s choice of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a pro-choice Catholic, to be secretary of Health and Human Services. The column pretty well summarizes his disappointment and the history of their differences<\/a>, leading up to his calling on her to refrain from taking communion.<\/p>\n

\n\"Naumann-Sebelius.jpg\"<\/span>A spikier version of his views emerges in this interview with Our Sunday Visitor<\/a>. Naumann says the 10 percent decline in abortions in Kansas cannot be attributed to her policies, and claims she distanced herself from the notorious Kansas abortionist George Tiller only when it “became politically not very convenient for her to” be associated with him. <\/p>\n

Naumann gives Kansas’ two senators, conservative Republicans, including Catholic convert and pro-lifer Sam Brownback, a pass for supporting Sebelius:<\/p>\n

\n

“…in a sense I can understand that. When there is a pro-life president, we resent if there is an effort to try to prevent the president from appointing people who share his vision. So, I can understand why they might acquiesce, I guess, is the best way to put it, to her appointment.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On the other hand, Naumann calls the 26 other prominent Catholics who came out in support of Sebelius<\/a> “very, very dishonest” and adds “not very competent.”<\/p>\n

Given the support of Brownback and Pat Roberts, the other senator from Kansas, it seems unlikely that Sebelius will not be confirmed. And Naumann, as everyone else, admits that she is an ace on health care reform, which is a priority for Obama and the Catholic Church and the country. And the HHS secretary is the point person. But with enough pushback, perhaps the confirmation hearings could turn into a scrap, or at least give Sebelius an opportinuty to clarify her record and positions on abortion rights and reduction. <\/p>\n

Naumann appears to be becoming the champion of the anti-Sebelius push. At the Catholic League, Bill Donohue<\/a> has called on Catholics to rally ’round Naumann and against Sebelius, and at InsideCatholic.com, Deal Hudson sets out a three-point strategy<\/a> for derailing Sebelius.<\/p>\n

One is to get the president of the USCCB, Cardinal Francis George, “to express officially, the view of all the U. S. Catholic bishops that Gov. Sebelius should not present herself for communion at any Catholic parish, even in Washington, DC.” The second point is to get Michael Steele, a pro-life Catholic who is the new (and flailing) chairman of the Republican National Committee, to “forget about Rush Limbaugh and actually be the Republican leader of the opposition to the Sebelius nomination.”<\/p>\n

\n

“If Steele wants to demonstrate the GOP’s commitment to the pro-life plank of the platform then he should get out in front on this issue. The failure to exert his leadership at a moment like this will not only further diminish his leadership — after the Limbaugh stumble<\/font><\/a> — but further convince religious conservatives that they really don’t have a permanent home in the Republican Party.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Finally, Deal says Catholics should pressure the Finance Committee (which will hold the Sebelius hearings) to connect her to George Tiller, which “may create enough public disgust to make the nomination an embarrassment for Obama.”<\/p>\n

The risks for the GOP in going along with this, Hudson says, are huge:<\/p>\n

\n

“I don’t think the GOP yet realizes this is quickly becoming a signal moment in its relationship with conservative Christian voters.  We will soon see if its leadership learned any lessons from the 2008 presidential campaign, and particularly its treatment of Gov. Sarah Palin.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Can’t draw the line any clearer than that. Stay tuned…  <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann devotes his weekly column to Obama’s choice of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a pro-choice Catholic, to be secretary of Health and Human Services. The column pretty well summarizes his disappointment and the history of their differences, leading up to his calling on her to refrain from taking communion. A spikier…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bishops","category-catholic","category-church","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nNaumann v. 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He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s. Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name \"Karol Wojtyla,\" and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States. When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation. Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism. Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a \"powerful\" and \"first-rate\" treatment of the crisis from \"an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber.\" His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as \"an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book\" from \"a master storyeller.\" Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/author\/dgibson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}