In the News
Prayer breakfast brings 'faithful Catholics' together
4-28-04
By Joe Feuerherd
National Catholic Register
April 28 was a day for Washington Catholics, particularly those
of a conservative political bent, to celebrate their faith. The
occasion was the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, an event its
sponsors hope to make an annual occurrence.
It was fitting that Cardinal Avery Dulles -- son of Dwight Eisenhower's
secretary of state -- was the principal celebrant at the opening
mass and keynote speaker at the breakfast, which drew more than
1,000 attendees.
No political bombs were dropped and there was no Kerry-bashing
from the podium. It was clear, however, that this crowd was not
one to buy the distinctions between personal faith and public policy
that Kerry invokes when questioned about his Catholicism.
The steering committee that put the event together includes Bill
Saunders of the Family Research Council, Joseph Cella, president
of the Ave Maria Fund, a political action committee supported by
Domino's Pizza magnate Tom Monaghan, and Austin Ruse, president
of Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute.
"Sometimes," Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy
Thompson told the gathering, "we are tempted to hide our faith
or separate it from what we do." Thompson said he was "proud
to be a Catholic" and encouraged the audience to "live
our faith in all that we do."
But the difficulty of living the faith in the compromising world
of politics and government was evident with the appearance of Catholic
pro-life hero Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA).
Pennsylvania political observers give Santorum credit (or blame)
for pushing the state's senior senator, Arlen Specter, over the
electoral finish line in the April 27 Republican primary. Specter
defeated long-shot pro-life congressman Patrick Toomey by just two
percentage points.
One government lawyer at the breakfast saw Santorum's support for
Specter (he campaigned aggressively for Specter and appeared in
a campaign commercial) as a betrayal. "I'd like to ask him
why he backed Specter" said the disillusioned pro-lifer.
But the crowd, either unaware or forgiving that pragmatism trumped
principle, gave Santorum a standing ovation.
"The greatest power the devil has," Santorum said, "is
lies." Those "lies," said Santorum, allow "the
greatest country in the world" to be a "land so blessed"
and yet "soulless, vacuous and empty of His spirit."
Rep. Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat from Michigan, provided a
bi-partisan aura to the event. In what appeared to be a veiled reference
to Republican attacks on John Kerry, Stupak argued against a "bomb
thrower" mentality exemplified by such television programs
as Hardball and Crossfire. "In our current society it is so
easy to judge and condemn," he told the crowd.
The scholarly Dulles, meanwhile, offered no condemnations, but
a few judgments. "Our civilization seems to be gravitating
toward hedonism and moral chaos," said Dulles. Authentic freedom,
he said, is more than a life or society free of constraints. Rather,
he said, it is the result of "choices made responsibly with
a view toward goodness and truth."
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