{"id":552,"date":"2009-06-17T19:18:01","date_gmt":"2009-06-17T19:18:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/notre-dame-gets-a-pass-from-bi.html"},"modified":"2009-06-17T19:18:01","modified_gmt":"2009-06-17T19:18:01","slug":"notre-dame-gets-a-pass-from-bi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/06\/notre-dame-gets-a-pass-from-bi.html","title":{"rendered":"Notre Dame gets a pass from Bishops"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\"Kicanas.jpg\"<\/span>Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, a Chicago native and in line to be the next president of the U.S. bishops conference, foresees some informal discussions about the Notre Dame-Barack Obama invite flap, but nothing substantive or punitive. I suspect some side discussions will be intense, but here’s what he is telling NCR’s John Allen, who has this Q&A<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Allen: Many bishops were publicly critical of the decision to invite Obama. Do you think that represents a consensus, or was it that bishops with a different view chose not to speak out?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kicanas:<\/strong> My sense is that many bishops wanted to do what has already been done, which is that the bishop of the area, who is Bishop [John] D’Arcy, would have the responsibility to teach. He has done that. On occasion, the president of the conference speaks. I think that many bishops who didn’t say anything believe that’s the best way for the church to respond, for the local bishop to handle the situation. I think Bishop D’Arcy certainly made his position clear. He expressed his disappointment that he wasn’t consulted about it, and he chose not to go.<\/p>\n

Allen: But do you have the impression that there are bishops who were at least sympathetic to the argument that Notre Dame made in favor of the invitation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kicanas: <\/strong>I think the tension is that the bishops agreed on a statement about honoring politicians who hold positions contrary to the teaching of the church.<\/p>\n

Allen: You’re referring to the 2004 statement?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kicanas: <\/strong>Yes. The honoring question, I think, was the most complex, and certainly one that many bishops spoke up about … that it was not fitting in light of that statement to be honoring President Obama.<\/p>\n

Allen: Do you think it would have been a different case if it weren’t for the honorary degree … that is, if it were simply him coming to speak without getting an honorary doctorate?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kicanas: <\/strong>Bishops probably differ there. Some would feel that he ought not to be given a platform at all, because his positions have been so supportive of abortion legislation. Other bishops would not have been so concerned had he simply been invited to speak. Certainly, what concerned many bishops is that he was honored. <\/p>\n

I think it’s something that’s going to take further discussion, further interaction between bishops and presidents of universities to talk through this, because the pressures on presidents are different than the pressures on bishops. Therefore, it’s important that he continue this dialogue. I don’t think there’s any lack of clarity from the bishops on what we teach, but I think we have to continue to explore, understand, and appreciate what’s the best approach to these very complex issues.<\/p>\n

Allen: Will there also be discussion about what the bishops should do when a university doesn’t follow your policies?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It may be that there was some lack of clarity about the statement itself. It did refer to ‘Catholic politicians’ in the title. Certainly, most bishops probably understood it in a broader context, but there could have been some misunderstanding of that. Again, there’s a need for more conversation with presidents of universities to help clarify what the bishops’ concerns are and if some accord could be reached.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

John has wall-to-wall coverage<\/strong><\/a> of the bishops’ meeting in San Antonio, including an interview with LA auxiliary bishop Thomas Curry, who has been known to speak his mind, and name names of those he disagrees with. Curry would be more critical than Kicanas r Notre Dame, but he also sees “strong views and no consensus.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, a Chicago native and in line to be the next president of the U.S. bishops conference, foresees some informal discussions about the Notre Dame-Barack Obama invite flap, but nothing substantive or punitive. I suspect some side discussions will be intense, but here’s what he is telling NCR’s John Allen, who has this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,6,7,3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bishops","category-catholic","category-church","category-history","category-politics","category-pope"],"yoast_head":"\nNotre Dame gets a pass from Bishops - 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\/06\/notre-dame-gets-a-pass-from-bi.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Notre Dame gets a pass from Bishops - Pontifications\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, a Chicago native and in line to be the next president of the U.S. bishops conference, foresees some informal discussions about the Notre Dame-Barack Obama invite flap, but nothing substantive or punitive. 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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\/552","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=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}