Trouble Ahead for the Church

By Russell Shaw
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 3/1/07)

Although, practically speaking, the 2008 presidential campaign began the day after the campaign of 2004 ended, it has lately shifted visibly and audibly into high gear. Make no mistake, that means trouble ahead for the Church.
It's not only that several politicians who'd like to be president are Catholics who support legalized abortion. This truly is the Church's most excruciating political problem today, but it's hardly the only one.
That was painfully clear in the recent flap — mercifully brief — over former Sen. John Edwards' refusal to fire two campaign staffers who made blatantly offensive anti-Catholic remarks on their blogs. When the predictable uproar erupted, both quit, apparently by their own choice.
For Catholics, the genuinely problematical aspect of the episode concerned not the two staffers but the candidate. Edwards, a Methodist, may be a decent fellow, but his obtuseness about Catholic feelings in response to severe provocation leaves a bad taste in many mouths.
And to think — the campaign has just begun.
As if anticipating what lies ahead, the president of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh a while back announced a novel approach to avoiding the pitfalls associated with cozying up to politicians. Henceforth, Dr. Charles Dougherty told the Catholic school's directors, Duquesne wouldn't be inviting such people as commencement speakers. "A high-profile political figure is inappropriate" in that role, Dougherty said.
The decision is prudent. But its implications are more than slightly sad.
The prudence has to do with the fact that some Catholic schools for years have made a dumb mistake — and brought richly deserved opprobrium on themselves — by bestowing commencement honors on pro-choice politicians.
Duquesne's ban isn't confined to pro-choicers, though. It covers politicians across the board. In the present instance, Dougherty vetoed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) as invitees to speak at the law school's commencement this spring.
Political figures are welcome on campus as speakers in settings where a range of views gets heard, Dougherty said. But not at graduation, where the designated speaker gets not just the last word but the only one.
It's hard to think of a more unhappy commentary on the times than this.
Polarization and social fragmentation — on abortion, on Iraq, on social issues like gay marriage, on a great deal else — have for years been driving Americans apart and shredding the social fabric. As Dougherty remarked, having a politician — any politician — as a commencement speaker these days is "sure to offend large numbers in the audience." That in itself is a symptom of our continuing culture war.
The problem under discussion here is especially acute in the Catholic context. The unsettled question of giving communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians spotlights Catholic political and social polarization in a manner especially painful for the Church.
The bishops' 2004 compromise allowing each bishop to handle this matter as he thinks fit was the only one possible in the circumstances, yet it left the question essentially unresolved. Since bishops disagree among themselves, it's likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future.
Thirty-odd years ago, some of us lived in mortal fear of the day when openly pro-choice Catholics would routinely seek the presidency and, in doing so, split the Church along political lines. That time has come. That's where we are now, and there's no end in sight.
Some people probably will view this as a sign of the political maturation of American Catholicism. Others will view it as a cross for the Church. Viewing it as a cross seems about right to me.

Shaw is a freelance writer from Washington, D.C.

(c) Copyright 2007 by Arlington Catholic Herald