Published: October 18, 2011
“Special reason to feel betrayed”
Will Catholic voters turn against President Obama?
(The following are excerpts from a column by Colleen Carroll Campbell, a former presidential speechwriter and host of EWTN’s "Faith & Culture” program. It was published Oct. 13 on stltoday.com, website of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. A link to the full article is provided below.)
…Given the role Catholics played in Obama's 2008 victory and their habit of picking presidential winners, you might think that an embattled president with a 40-percent approval rating would be working overtime to solidify his support among this crucial voting bloc. Instead, Obama seems intent on convincing Catholics that their faith in him was unwarranted.
While other voters have been disappointed by Obama's economic failures and arrogant, ham-handed approach to everything from health care reform to the Solyndra scandal, swing-voting Catholics have special reason to feel betrayed. A candidate who won their support by pledging to respect the religiously grounded views of those with whom he disagrees has morphed into a president whose administration relentlessly attacks religious liberty.
In the past year, Obama's Justice Department has argued in court that defenders of traditional marriage -- the most visible segment of which are observant Catholics and bishops -- should be regarded in law as the equivalent of racists. His National Labor Relations Board has issued rulings against two Catholic schools, St. Xavier University in Chicago and Manhattan College in New York, saying that they are not sufficiently Catholic to warrant religious exemptions from federal labor law -- a stunning breach of the precedent in which religious bodies, not government officials, decide who qualifies as a member of a particular church…
And just last week, Obama's Justice Department argued before the Supreme Court for the effective gutting of the longstanding "ministerial exception" that allows religious bodies to hire and fire employees without government interference…
Obama displays a similarly dismissive attitude toward his pro-life and Catholic critics... He answered a recent invitation to dialogue from U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops President and New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan with stony silence. And he has ignored pleas for compromise from the likes of Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins and Catholic Health Association President Sr. Carol Keehan, two former Obama cheerleaders who now look like Obama's dupes.
To read the full article, Click Here.
READER COMMENTS
Posted Tuesday, October 18, 2011 12:11 AM By Sawyer
Any "Catholic" who votes for Obama in the next election is not a Catholic at all. Any "Catholic" who supports the Democrat Party is not a Catholic at all. How much more clear does it have to become that the Democrat Party is hostile to Catholic faith and to the truth of the natural law? The attacks by the Democrats have been relentless over the past three years. The Democrat Party is the party of the culture of death, and any vote for Obama or any Democrat is a vote for the culture of death. Yet, there will be millions of "Catholics" who will support the culture of death, and there will be clergy aplenty who will give facile and dubious support to such "Catholics" whose real religion is Leftism.
Posted Tuesday, October 18, 2011 12:20 AM By Central Valley
The majority of bishops were silent then and they will be silent in 2012. Cowards who will not defend the faith and our freedoms. Do they defend the faith and the faithful or do the defend the party?
Posted Tuesday, October 18, 2011 4:11 AM By BJ
Is that the sound of a stable(empty) door being shut or a cork being squeezed into a now empty genie bottle? Those who insisted on voting for a rabidly pro choice to kill your baby if that is what you 'choose', political party,..... should not be surprised. The beautiful colleen says it well.
Posted Tuesday, October 18, 2011 5:00 AM By Juergensen
Of course Catholic voters won't turn against Obama. The USCCB says they can vote for Obama again "if" - like last time they voted for Obama - they don't intend to support Obama's affinity for abortion ("A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, IF the voter’s intent is to support that position" - Sec. 34, Faithful Citizenship). Obama owes the USCCB big time.
Posted Tuesday, October 18, 2011 5:05 AM By ted
Catholics who voted this incompetent fool into office knew what they were getting, and evidently didn't care that he was the most pro-abort candidate ever. They ignored that and put him in office, so they should think about it this year, take the moral guidance of the Church and vote him OUT. He is a disgrace to the office, and more importantly has proven to be the same rabid anti-life Socialist many of us saw him to be. He's completely unfit to be president, and a danger to our country.
Posted Tuesday, October 18, 2011 5:33 AM By Canisius
How stupid are you Catholics who voted for this con artist. Were you all caught up in his shuck and jive of Hope and Change. Perhaps the Truth will set you free next time, understand this, Obama is the most anti-Catholic president in recent history
Posted Tuesday, October 18, 2011 5:52 AM By Larry
I would hope that the "Obama Catholics" would feel betrayed, but I also fear that it may be a vain hope--that the bulk of Obama Catholics may not be such great fans of Church teaching to begin with.
Posted Tuesday, October 18, 2011 6:00 AM By dan
The homily last Saturday night at my parish on rendering to Caesar ... was pure Bernardine boilerplate. After hearing this homily, one could be encouaged to vote for Obama on the basis of the "consistenct life ethic" of the Democratic party in their support for the poor. If this preaching was typical throughout the Archdiocese, we should expect California Catholics to vote in droves for Obama once again.
