As President Barack Obama's controversial commencement speech at Notre Dame nears, are there any lessons to be learned in the resignation of Justice Souter in regards to the Catholic Church and the issue of abortion?
President Obama recently accepted an invitation to speak at Notre Dame's on May 17th which has been treated to the requisite boos in response by many of the Catholics across the country who think there is but one issue on this planet worth thinking about.
Forget for a second that the concept of a university is based on the premise that they serve as a location where you can get ideas other than your own. That they are places that are supposed to be ideal for disagreement and discussion.
Forget also that Notre Dame has a political science department that will presumably lecture about the actions of, you know, politicians and the bizarre stance it would be for a school with such a department to not want to speak with the leader of the very country in which the institution exists.
Forget that there are other tenants in the Catholic Church. Do they invite speakers who had sex before marriage?
Let it be said here before readers of this paper, and God, that I have not mentioned my stance on the issue.The fact of the matter is we live in an era in which there has to be more openness in religion for discussion. Rev. John Jenkins President of the Notre Dame seems to understand this with his invitation. There has to be a broadening our level of communication.
What if our Christian President Obama was as closed minded as some Catholics? Would he have mentioned Musilims in his first speech to the world after becoming President? Would he have made his first interview with a Muslim reporter? Would he have spoken as frankly to the leaders of the majority Muslim country of Turkey?
The problem is the unspoken wink that if you're a good Catholic you should only listen to a President, and to a lesser degree, lower official based on one issue. That a politician's projected skill at making decisions on large issues such as the economy or education should not be taken into account. The same goes for national security, which often has pro-life type ramifications less spoken about.
The American people, more so now than in any time in our recent history, are wrestling with these issues everyday and the Church used to be where they could go for answers. Any President who took office would have had to deal with these issues, the elected one has, ambitiously (or over ambitiously) set out to find some answers. Yet while Catholic grade schools close around the area and attendance in Mass is down across the board, the Church's concentration on one issue is not particularly effective.
That is not to say the pro-choice candidate is always right with these other topics. It only means that these things should be considered by conservative Catholics as both important to our country and our faith. That anything less than a focus on the larger picture is short sighted.
The political issue of abortion rests largely in Supreme Court appointments. The school of thought, goes that they will decide to overturn old findings and make new rulings on fresh issues such as those brought about by scienceBut things aren't always as they seem in the Supreme Court.
Liberal Judge David Souter is leaving and will likely be replaced by a judge who is thought to lean the same way. Presidents have often been wrong in their assumptions, though. Souter was selected by George Bush in 1990 and was expected to conclude accordingly.Souter will leave, among others, John Paul Stevens on the bench. Stevens is considered the most liberal judge and was also appointed by a Republican; this time by Gerald Ford.Yet followers of the Church continue to think about just one issue inadvertently depending on the Court despite it's independibilty.
In the meantime perhaps Catholics should just follow the Pope. It's safe to say, Pope Benedict XVI isn't afraid to meet with people with different ideas. On Tuesday, he visited the Islamic Shrine, The Dome of the Rock, and the Jewish site, The Wailing Wall.
Taking in to account the big picture, who better to explain to the bright eyed former students the endless possibilities after college than the black guy from Hawaii who lived in Indonesia who went on to become President.
