{"id":203,"date":"2008-10-16T11:22:05","date_gmt":"2008-10-16T11:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/is-barack-obama-the-new-al-smi.html"},"modified":"2008-10-16T11:22:05","modified_gmt":"2008-10-16T11:22:05","slug":"is-barack-obama-the-new-al-smi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/is-barack-obama-the-new-al-smi.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Barack Obama the new Al Smith?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\"Al<\/span>That might be heresy to some in the Catholic universe, but the argument has much to be said for it–though don’t expect Cardinal Edward M. Egan to be making that claim at tonight’s Al Smith Dinner. The quadrennial white-tie gala fundraiser at New York’s Waldorf Astoria is a glitzy affair and a rare combat-free zone on the eve of the presidential vote. That will be especially welcome given the tenor of the current campaign (and one must put the onus on the McCain-Palin camp–there is no “pox on both houses” equivalency here). It will also be tough for the candidates’ speechwriters to come up with the usual jokey banter given the state of affairs in the nation and abroad. If I were Obama, I’d stick with conclave jokes about white smoke coming from McCain’s ears…And maybe David Letterman can give McCain some Top Ten pointers tonight<\/a> when McCain has his make-up visit to the show after his earlier bailout over the bailout…<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\"Obama<\/span>But there are at least a couple of ironies here. One is that the political bloodletting in the Catholic Church has reached such a point that a dinner honoring the first Catholic presidential candidate–and a man reviled for his faith–is virtually off-limits to Catholic candidates. For the last Al Smith dinner, in 2004, Cardinal Egan refused to host John Kerry because he is a pro-choice Catholic. Instead he invited former Republican President George H.W. Bush and former New York Gov. Hugh Carey, a Democrat, as this CNS story explains<\/a>. <\/font><\/p>\n

Problem is, according to much of the “pro-life” rhetoric, Obama is the most “pro-abortion” candidate EVER, to the point that he supports “infanticide.” (Yes, “scare quotes” are necessary given the nature of allegations.) So how is it that Obama gets to appear and Kerry doesn’t? Putting up a “No Catholics Need Apply” sign at the Al Smith event may be the ultimate paradox. <\/font><\/p>\n

It wasn’t always so…<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

…Time was when churchmen and candidates worked together for the Catholic good and the common good, such as when <\/font>Smith was attacked in The Atlantic Monthly<\/font><\/a> in a open letter by Charles C. Marshall. A reluctant Protestant apologist (he was drafted for the task by the magazine’s editor), Marshall still recycled various dubious claims about Catholicism’s incompatibility with democracy, and Catholics’ standing as loyal Americans, as demonstrated (he said) by various papal encyclicals. <\/font><\/p>\n

Smith’s first response–possibly apocryphal, but certainly true in a larger sense–was the memorable line, “What the hell is an encyclical?” Rather than castigating Smith (as would happen today), he received help drafting a response<\/a> from the World War I hero Father Francis Duffy. (Cardinal Patrick Hayes also reviewed Smith’s response and pronounced it “good Catholicism and good Americanism.”) Smith’s actual response<\/a> re the encyclicals was: “So little are these matters of the essence of my faith that I, a devout Catholic since childhood, never heard of them until I read your letter.” <\/font><\/p>\n

The second irony is that Obama’s views may certainly be closer to Catholic social justice teachings than McCain’s. (And hey, why didn’t Obama point out in last night’s debate that the Catholic bishops have closer ties to ACORN–to the tune of $1 million in grants–than he does?) His community-based activism and his views on justice and peace are far more consonant with Catholic social teaching than McCain’s. Michael Sean Winters made that argument in The New Republic<\/a>, and it occasioned a lively debate at Commonweal’s blog<\/a>. <\/font><\/p>\n

Moreover, Obama is the first presidential candidate of a prominent minority community and he has faced ugly abuse not only for his race but also for his faith–much as Smith did. Will 2008 be a replay of 1928?<\/font><\/p>\n

Or, put this way, is Obama the “real” Catholic candidate? Perhaps a useful thought experiment would be this: Imagine that Al Smith had been elected in 1928. Instead, we got Herbert Hoover. And I think you know what came next…<\/font><\/p>\n

BTW: The photo of Al Smith (second from the left, with the “Sachems of Tammany Hall, 1929, including Mayor James J. Walker”) is courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York, where an excellent exhibit, “New York Catholics: 1808-1946,”<\/a> organized for the bicentennial of the diocese, continues through the end of this year. It’s worth checking out if you’re in the city.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That might be heresy to some in the Catholic universe, but the argument has much to be said for it–though don’t expect Cardinal Edward M. Egan to be making that claim at tonight’s Al Smith Dinner. The quadrennial white-tie gala fundraiser at New York’s Waldorf Astoria is a glitzy affair and a rare combat-free zone…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,12,10,1,9],"tags":[37,223,30,224,41,222,34],"class_list":["post-203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-catholics","category-economy","category-election-08","category-religion-in-the-public-square","tag-abortion-2","tag-al-smith","tag-barack-obama","tag-cardinal-egan","tag-john-mccain","tag-presidential-campaign","tag-social-justice"],"yoast_head":"\nIs Barack Obama the new Al Smith? - Progressive Revival<\/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\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/is-barack-obama-the-new-al-smi.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Barack Obama the new Al Smith? - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"That might be heresy to some in the Catholic universe, but the argument has much to be said for it–though don’t expect Cardinal Edward M. Egan to be making that claim at tonight’s Al Smith Dinner. 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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\/progressiverevival\/author\/dgibson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}