<\/p>\n
John Gehring is Media Director and Senior Writer for Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good<\/span><\/p>\n Catholic progressives are not the only faithful worried In a rare public airing of criticism from an active bishop, “<\/span>I don’t feel so badly about Obama going [to Notre While the media highlights the most controversial religious The Catholic Church risks losing credibility in the public
\nabout the dangers posed by some U.S. church leaders turning away from civil
\nengagement in the public square and embracing a confrontational style when it
\ncomes to politics. The Obama-Notre Dame commencement
\ncontroversy<\/a> – <\/b>along with the
\nshrill tone of our nation’s bitter abortion culture wars — has provoked
\nself-reflection among those bishops who see prudence and reason as a more
\neffective strategy for winning hearts and minds.<\/p>\n
\nArchbishop Michael J. Sheehan of Santa Fe, New Mexico gave a provocative
\ninterview recently with the National
\nCatholic Reporter<\/i> decrying the
\ncombative tactics<\/a> of a few bishops as counterproductive to getting a fair
\nhearing for Catholic values. He lamented the fact that some church leaders even
\nrefuse to talk to politicians or deny them communion based on a single issue. Sheehan
\nalso disagreed with his brother bishops who lashed out at the University of Notre
\nDame for inviting President Obama to give the commencement address. According
\nto the National Catholic Reporter,<\/i>
\nhere’s what Sheehan told his fellow bishops:<\/p>\n
\nDame] because he’s our president. I said we’ve gotten more done on the pro-life
\nissue in New Mexico by talking to people that don’t agree with us on
\neverything. We got Governor Richardson to sign off on the abolition of the
\ndeath penalty for New Mexico, which he was in favor of. We talked to him, and
\nwe got him on board and got the support in the legislature. But you know, he’s
\npro-abortion. So? It doesn’t mean we sit and wait, that we sit on the sides and
\nnot talk to him. We’ve done so much more by consultation and by building
\nbridges in those areas. And then to make a big scene about Obama – I think a
\nlot of the enemies of the church are delighted to see all that. And I said that
\nI think we don’t want to isolate ourselves from the rest of America by our
\nstrong views on abortion and the other things. We need to be building bridges,
\nnot burning them.”<\/span><\/p>\n
\nvoices – Cardinal James Stafford describing Barack Obama’s election as an “apocalyptic” event<\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>surely made irresistible headlines –
\nmost Catholic leaders recognize the need for thoughtful dialogue. Pope Benedict
\nXVI’s recent cordial
\nmeeting<\/a> with President Obama at the Vatican offers an example of how the
\nglobal Catholic Church recognizes politics is the art of the possible rather
\nthan a zero-sum game. The Holy Father found common ground between the church’s
\nbroad international agenda and many of the president’s priorities: Middle East
\npeace, nuclear deterrence, poverty alleviation, religious freedom,
\ncomprehensive immigration reform, and addressing the dire impact of global
\nclimate change. Instead of vilifying Obama on the issue of abortion, Pope
\nBenedict gave Obama a signed copy of “Dignitas Personae,” a Vatican document on
\nbioethics. No screaming or spectacle, simply a gracious model of faith and
\nreason at work.<\/p>\n
\nsquare when even a few bishops are perceived to be closely aligned with
\nideologues pushing narrow agendas. As Archbishop Emeritus of San Francisco John
\nQuinn recently wrote in America <\/i>magazine:
\n“The condemnation of President Obama and the wider policy shift that represents
\nsignal to many thoughtful persons that the bishops have now come down firmly on
\nthe Republican side in American politics…The perception of partisanship on the
\npart of the Church is disturbing to many Catholics given the charge of Gaudium et Spes<\/i> (a seminal document of
\nVatican II) that the Church must transcend every political structure and cannot
\nsacrifice that transcendence, no matter how important the cause.”<\/p>\n