{"id":384,"date":"2009-03-31T19:41:59","date_gmt":"2009-03-31T19:41:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/2009\/03\/notre-dame-outrage-update-card.html"},"modified":"2009-03-31T19:41:59","modified_gmt":"2009-03-31T19:41:59","slug":"notre-dame-outrage-update-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/03\/notre-dame-outrage-update-card.html","title":{"rendered":"Notre Dame outrage update: Cardinal George, Archbp Quinn, et al"},"content":{"rendered":"

America<\/em> magazine, as promised, has the official, redacted version of Fr. Cleary’s letter to President Obama here<\/a>. It is much more successful, I think, largely thanks to editing. <\/font><\/p>\n

Better still, from my point of view, FWIW, is a commentary on the whole Notre Dame-Obama controversy  by the retired archbishop of San Francisco, John R. Quinn. It is titled “A Critical Moment: Barack Obama, Notre Dame and the future of the U.S. church.” <\/a><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

I have always greatly appreciated Archbishop Quinn’s intellect and approach, and they are on display here. Quinn says this is “a critical moment” for the church in the United States, and poses several key question as to how this uproar will affect the future of the faith and the pro-life movement. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

He concludes:<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

We must weigh very seriously the consequences if the American bishops are seen as the agents of publicly embarrassing the newly elected president by forcing him to withdraw from an appearance at a distinguished Catholic University.  The bishops and the president serve the same citizens of the same country. It is in the interests of both the church and the nation if both work together in civility, honesty and friendship for the common good even where there are grave divisions, as there are on abortion.<\/p>\n

But it does not improve the likelihood of making progress on this and other issues of common concern if we adopt the clenched fist approach. The president has given ample evidence that he is a man of good will, of keen intelligence, desirous of listening and capable of weighing seriously other views. The Directory for the Pastoral Ministry of Bishops, citing Augustine, points out that ” Certain situations cannot be resolved with asperity or hardness” and goes on to say “(B)ecause his daily pastoral concerns give the Bishop greater scope for personal decision-making, his scope for error is also greater, however good his intentions: this thought should encourage him to remain open to dialog with others, always ready to learn, to seek and accept the advice of others.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, the president of the USCCB, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, has called the invite to Obama “an extreme embarassment”<\/a> and adds: “Whatever else is clear, it is clear that Notre Dame didn’t understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation.”<\/span><\/p>\n

And Archbishop John C. Nienstedt of Saint Paul and Minneapolis released his letter to Jenkins, calling the invitation a “travesty”<\/a> and adding if Jenkins doesn’t withdraw the invitation “please do not expect me to support your University in the future.” <\/p>\n

So there. <\/p>\n

PS:<\/strong> (Always a postscript to this story) Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg, FL reflects on the controversy on his blog<\/a>, with a sane take, I thought:<\/p>\n

\n

“Early ‘markers’ [of Obama’s record on the life issues] are not encouraging in this regard but hope needs to spring eternal and while Notre Dame may have acted way too early and too generously, I am more alarmed that the rhetoric being employed is so uncivil and venomous that it weakens the case we place  before our fellow citizens, alienates young college-age students who believe the older generation is behaving like an angry child and they do not wish to be any part of that, and ill-serves the cause of life. Notre Dame has in the past and continues to give this local Church fine, professional and very Catholic women and men who both know and live out their faith. Most of them I know are ardently pro-life and like myself are probably disappointed with their alma mater. They and I will choose to convey our sadness to the Board of Trustees and Administration in a calm and dignified manner.” <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Hat tip to CWNews<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

America magazine, as promised, has the official, redacted version of Fr. Cleary’s letter to President Obama here. It is much more successful, I think, largely thanks to editing. Better still, from my point of view, FWIW, is a commentary on the whole Notre Dame-Obama controversy  by the retired archbishop of San Francisco, John R. Quinn. 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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\/384","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=384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}