Chaput encourages dissent over President Obama's speech at Notre Dame

Local Archbishop, Charles Chaput, has insinuated himself into the flap over President Obama speaking at Notre Dame's commencement.  This micro-controversy is being promoted partly by Patrick Reilly, president of the Virginia-based Cardinal Newman Society.  You may check their website notredamescandal.com.  It blares:  "Help Stop the Scandal at Our Lady's University!" 

Joe Feuerherd of the National Catholic Reporter calls Reilly a "self-appointed ayatollah to Catholic academia."  He notes that the Cardinal Newman Society had also opposed Sr. Jean Prejean's delivering the commencement address at Belmont, California’s Notre Dame de Namur University in 2005  because she was insufficiently "pro-life" by the Society's definitions.  (For the record, Prejean is an opponent both of the death penalty and abortion, and cares about poor people, which makes her suspect.)  The Society never said a word, of course, when Vice President Dick Cheney spoke at Catholic University, also in 2005.  Says Feuerherd:

Here’s what is really going on. Ayatollah Reilly searches for hot button issues on Catholic campuses -- anything that has to do with gays gets them excited, as do performances of “The Vagina Monologues” and, of course, pro-choice speakers (few of whom actually even discuss abortion in their presentations) – that will energize their base of donors and activists. Then they highlight these offenses on the Web and through direct mail to generate revenue.

Also flogging the issue is Dan Gilgoff of US News and World Report who asserts that Notre Dame has been absolutely swamped with phone calls and that the Catholic blogosphere is "aflame" with passion on the alleged issue. 

According to Sarah Posner at Tapped, Gilgoff has also been promoting the idea that Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary-designate of Health and Human Services, will be denied holy communion in the Archdiocese of Washington.  Not so, according to Posner.

Over the past weekend, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver was in Michigan and spoke at a seminary near Detroit.  In an area that is quite possibly the most economically depressed in the entire United States, what was the subject of Archbishop Chaput's talk?  Says Colorado Independent:

Chaput spoke on — what else? — the rights of the unborn and how those rights are being under-served by Catholic ignorance of the faith, because if Catholics were serious about their faith, they would rise up against the “meaning of November” — or the election of Obama.

Chaput then appealed for a letter-writing campaign which was promptly picked up by bloggers and used to indicate support for their campaign--bloggers such as Thomas Peters, for example, who, says the Independent, worked with Chaput before the last election to suppress the Catholic vote for pro-choice candidates.

Comments

[Wendy Norris]

Excellent summary, John. And thanks for the link to our coverage on Archbishop Chaput's remarks in Detroit.

As if I needed any more reminders why I left the Catholic Church many years ago.

Sigh.

[John Petty]

You remind me of a priest who was a chaplain in a hospital. One of the patients was a man with AIDS who had left the Catholic church because the bishop had said something stupid about homosexuals. The man still wanted to receive communion however. When the priest arrived, the man told his story, and the priest said, "Forget that asshole. Welcome home."