Debating Catholic Support for Barack Obama
# Matt Talbot Says:
I’m not ashamed to say I choked up a bit toward the end of Obama’s victory speech in South Carolina last night. This guy has charisma coming out of his ears.There hasn’t been a rhetorician with his skills on the scene in at least 40 years. America is going to be an engaging place to follow politics if he gets the nomination and wins the general election.
# Morning's Minion Says:
Obama’s rhetoric is stunning. No public figure since Bobby Kennedy has spoken so eloquently, so hopefully, about uniting and bringing out the best in people.
# Matt Talbot Says:
There are actually a lot of parallels between RFK in his time, and BHO in his. Both are running as unifying candidates in a badly divided electorate, an electorate that was and is looking for an alternative to the status quo; both are running against an unpopular and unjust war…
Most of Vox Nova's posts on politics and/or the 2008 presidential campaigns have focused their criticism on the Republicans (and the evils of the Bush administration, in particular) -- perhaps, in their thinking, to make up for what they perceive as a dearth of criticism from other "conservative Catholics" in St. Blog's Parish. In the past several weeks, the members of the Catholic blog Vox Nova have raised serious (and, in my opinion, valid) concerns over the pro-life credentials of John McCain on ESCR. They have complained how Catholics have been "duped" by the GOP.
By comparison, the only two posts of which Obama is the subject have treated him with what one might call "kid gloves," and taken an approach that I can only describe as "laudatory."
Why does this get under my skin? -- We are talking about a candidate who for all his talk of unity has fought tooth and nail to exclude a rather significant portion of human beings -- of whom the "right" to murder he has obstinately advocated (going above and beyond even NARAL) to the point of opposing life-saving medical treatment to babies who survived an abortion, which no amount of praise or shouts of “Yes, we can! Si, se puede can conceal.
In his sharpest comments about the political landscape since he was installed as archbishop of Boston four years ago, O'Malley made clear that, despite his differences with the Republican Party over immigration policy, capital punishment, economic issues, and the war in Iraq, he views abortion as the most important moral issue facing policymakers."I think the Democratic Party, which has been in many parts of the country traditionally the party which Catholics have supported, has been extremely insensitive to the church's position, on the gospel of life in particular, and on other moral issues," O'Malley said.
Acknowledging that Catholic voters in Massachusetts generally support Democratic candidates who are in favor of abortion rights, O'Malley said, "I think that, at times, it borders on scandal as far as I'm concerned."
"However, when I challenge people about this, they say, 'Well, bishop, we're not supporting [abortion rights],'" he said. "I think there's a need for people to very actively dissociate themselves from those unacceptable positions, and I think if they did that, then the party would have to change."
I don't mean to suggest that Catholics should be wedded to the GOP, but if one voices their support for Obama, at least endeavor to explain how a candidate with a 100% approval rating from Planned Parenthood would merit Catholic support. I posed this question at Vox Nova and received the following reply from Gerald Campbell:
And again:
As for the unborn, this is an intellectual and practical challenge that has yet to be seriously engaged — by anyone, anywhere — on either side of the debate. This issue has been framed, and deliberately so, as a political wedge issue. Its logical structure is thoroughly contradictory and self-defeating. It insures that political chaos will endure and remain self-perpetuating. It is a debate that only serves the interests of Power.Pro-life advocates believe they have a practical solution to the mounting tragedy of the unborn. But, in fact, no such solution exists. For over a half century, this debate has been frozen in time while the rate of abortions have increased day after day, year after year, decade after decade. This is the tragic fact. No solution stands on the horizon. It is time to stop and think. [...]
At bottom, the behavioral crisis facing this country — as reflected in homelessness, violence, substance abuse, gangs, abortion, family dynamics, and so forth — is a spiritual crisis. It is a function of the failure of the individual to realize intrinsic relationships, e.g., love, compassion, understanding, mercy, etc. . . .The logic inherent in the atomistic individual leads directly to wide-spread spiritual alienation. This alienation is the root cause of dysfunctional behavior. The formal cause of human behavior is always spiritual.
In my work and testimony to the Congress, I speak of the “unmet need to belong.” This is not a psychological or sociological need, although it has psychological and sociological implications. It is an existential need. Individuals will do whatever it takes to find a way to belong with others, even if that involves sharing heroin needles, murdering another individual, or indulging in a life of power and wealth.
The question that must be faced by the national leadership is how to address a spiritual crisis. Policy is limited by the very fact that it is mechanical in nature. Are their other ways to impact the dynamics of a society?
Remember, the person is intrinsically relational. It cries out to belong with others in love and community. Isolation and aloneness strikes at the spiritual core of the human person. Indeed, spiritual alienation is the definition of Hell. Given that, all Americans would benefit from an inspired call to transcendent purposes which only they can realize in their interaction with one another. Such is the central dynamic of human community as existentially conceived.Watching Obama closely, one can already see such dynamics at work. . . . there are signs of a new political imperative appearing in the body politic. A new kind of politics is beginning to emerge, one that transcends the narrow and fragmenting dynamics of interest group politics. To be sure, we have been conditioned to believe that interest group politics is all there is. But it is not. There is also a politics that inclines individuals to noble purposes and thereby reduces the fragmentation and atomization of society.
And again:
What kind of dynamics would be unleashed across the country? In American institutions, in communities and schools, in families and neighborhoods? I think such transformation is something that would greatly benefit America and strike at some of the behavioral dysfunctions we see all around. This is the audacity of hope.
As I've noted previously, this is not the first time Gerald Campbell has waxed messianic on Obama. He talks a good game -- but having articulated his reasons, let me offer a brief response:
- "Wedge issues" -- to be understand as "a social or political issue, often of a divisive or otherwise controversial nature, which is used by one political group to split apart or create a "wedge" in the support base of an opposing politic group." We've heard this tactic before, most recently in the form of the "Catholic Call to Observe Civility in Political Debate", which translates into silence on such "divisive" issues as abortion, embryo-destructive research, and homosexual marriage.
- "No practical solution exists [to abortion]" -- I suspect the United Conference of Catholic Bishops would beg to differ. I agree with Gerald's basic proposition that the root of our nation's ills is spiritual. But I do not think that this is incentive for dismissing what he calls the "interest politics" or practical policy.
The USCCB, for example, takes a particualr interest in the "wedge issues" and "the narrow and fragmenting dynamics of interest group politics," in providing a good checklist of legislative pro-life issues in the 110th Congress -- on which practical decisions can and should be made, and policies enacted. Suffice to say I can predict where most Republican candidates would stand, and what they will do when legislation passes their desk. Unfortunately I cannot say the same for any Democratic candidate.
In fact, we can be certain that if Obama is elected he will do everything in his power to roll back even the incremental pro-life advancements that were implemented under Republican administrations and supported by the USCCB. Given what he has already promised Planned Parenthood and pro-choice lobbyists: he will encourage and implement where possible public funding for abortions (for instance the repeal of the Mexico City policy); as a means of reducing abortion, he will expand the distribution of contraceptives in public schools and encourage their use through sex education; he will oppose any restrictions to late-term abortions, and ensure that Roe v. Wade is unapposed. (Obama on abortion and birth control GlassBooth.org).
- Even if Obama is blessed with a golden tongue of rhetoric, I have little hope that he will provide the means to social-political unity (much less the kind of existential healing that Gerald envisions). Obama's platform isn't just about "CHANGE!", "HOPE!" and "UNITY!" -- whether Gerald admits it or not, a presidential administration under the likes of Obama (or Hillary) would inevitably amount to the enforcement of Democratic policy on "interest issues," including what I would call the paramount issue of our time. And with respect to abortion, Obama has already promised to his constituents that "he will not yield, and Planned Parenthood will not yield."
Related
- Sen. Barack Obama: "I don't know anybody who is pro-abortion" Carl Olson responds to (and dismantles point-by-point) Obama's Q&A with Christianity Today. Ignatius Insight January 24, 2008.
- "Nice is Different Than Good", by Paul. Thoughts of a Regular Guy July 20, 2006:
Senator Obama, in one of the debates with his opponent during his last campaign, asserted that "no one is for abortion". I've asked here many times, but I would still like to know, the practical difference, in terms of voting records, of a politician like Obama who is "personally opposed, but", and a hypothetical "pro-abortion" politician. Given that Obama, while a state senator, three times opposed legislation that would have protected babies who had been born alive from being aborted anyway, I can't see that there would be much difference.
- Michael Joseph clarifies "for whom I shall not vote" Vox Nova January 28, 2008:
However, while we try to heal that indifference, I think not only of the persons involved in having an abortion (e.g., mother, doctor) but of the need of government to secure justice for the one about to murdered. And so I admittedly vacillate between seeing abortion as a moral issue that can only be solved by true humanism and concern for the root causes of indifferences and seeing abortion as a legal issue for the one about to be murdered who could be protected by policy. Overturning Roe v. Wade does not stop abortion; the social and individual evils cannot be stopped by mere legality (which is why I do not condemn another Catholic who may support a pro-choice candidate). But when I think of the person who is killed, I am possessed by an overwhelming feeling that legal protection must extend to him/him regardless of the situation and environment in which the decision for an abortion is made.
- Katerina: "Obama doesn’t make me cry, but I’m willing to listen" Vox Nova January 28, 2008.
- Obama, the Proabort, by Alexham. Vox Nova January 28, 2008:
My left-leaning Catholic friends apparently need to be reminded that Senator Obama, for all of his pretty words, is a radical proabort.
If you honestly think that you can vote in good conscience for a man who is arguably more proabortion than NARAL, then you’re deluding yourself, and playing with fire in the process.
- The Audacity of Naïveté, by DarwinCatholic. January 28, 2008.
The Boston Phoenix reports that Boston archbishop Sean O'Malley has barred Congressman Mike Capuano from North Cambridge Catholic High School:
Capuano's appeal to the private nature of his religious faith mirror Senator Kerry's incapacity to comprehend the Church's criticism of his stance on abortion, as demonstrated in a recent interview with Tim Russert (
Posts
Following the 2004 Presidential election, we've expanded our discussion to cover the public policy decisions of Catholics in public service on both sides of the political divide.
