{"id":483,"date":"2009-05-16T14:04:30","date_gmt":"2009-05-16T14:04:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/2009\/05\/support-for-notre-dame-and-oba.html"},"modified":"2009-05-16T14:04:30","modified_gmt":"2009-05-16T14:04:30","slug":"support-for-notre-dame-and-oba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/05\/support-for-notre-dame-and-oba.html","title":{"rendered":"Support for Notre Dame and Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

As cited below<\/a>, retired Archbishop John R. Quinn, who wrote in support of the Notre Dame invitation earlier in America<\/em> magazine<\/a>, has sent a personal note to President Obama in which he says wants “to offer a different voice from the often strident outcries over your forthcoming visit to Notre Dame University.” Quinn says he recognizes differences with the president, especially on abortion, but also notes the history-making breakthrough represented by the election of an African-American, and the example of his family life, which is so important to the Church. He concludes:<\/p>\n

\n

It strikes me that you have shown a measured, thoughtful approach to issues of public concern and your ability to listen to and weigh views different from your own is an asset to the discharge of your high responsibilities. This admirable quality inspires hope for further dialog on issues over which there are major differences.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr. President, I address this letter to you not to deal with matters of policy or legislation, but simply to wish you great blessings and to assure you of my prayer that your service as President will bring lasting benefits to all Americans who, with you, cherish the ideal of “liberty and justice for all.”<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Quinn also spoke to PoliticsDaily editor Melinda Henneberger<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong>about the letter:<\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
\n
In a phone interview on Thursday, I asked Quinn why he had written to the president – especially since at age 80, he so rarely speaks out these days: “No, I really don’t,” he said, “but I just thought there needed to be a positive note in this whole discourse.” [snip] The archbishop said he had not heard back from the president, and wasn’t waiting by the mailbox. “But I hope he feels some encouragement from what I said, and knows that some of us see some very positive features even though we retain some differences.”<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Board of Trustees of Notre Dame, Richard Notebaert, tells the AP that Father John Jenkins, CSC, has the “full support” of the board. <\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n
\n

“He respects people who differ, but he’s resolute in his decision because he did it based on conscience and what he really believes in,” says Notebaert, in <\/strong>a profile of Jenkins<\/strong><\/a> that should be required reading, esepcially by those ready to burn him in effigy–or real life.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Catholic World News<\/a> also points out that Notebaert is a major Republican donor, having donated $67,800 to McCain Victory 2008 and $28,500 to the Republican National Committee, according to Federal Election Commission records. <\/p>\n

Doesn’t sound like an Obama shill to me. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As cited below, retired Archbishop John R. Quinn, who wrote in support of the Notre Dame invitation earlier in America magazine, has sent a personal note to President Obama in which he says wants “to offer a different voice from the often strident outcries over your forthcoming visit to Notre Dame University.” Quinn says he…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,6,7,3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bishops","category-catholic","category-church","category-history","category-politics","category-pop-culture"],"yoast_head":"\nSupport for Notre Dame and Obama - Pontifications<\/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\/pontifications\/2009\/05\/support-for-notre-dame-and-oba.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Support for Notre Dame and Obama - Pontifications\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As cited below, retired Archbishop John R. 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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\/483","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=483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}