In the News
A new Catholic moment
5-19-05
By Joe Feuerherd
National Catholic Register
The time has come to talk of presidents and popes.
In her lovely 1972 memoir, Private Faces Public Places, Abigail
McCarthy recalled the visit she and her husband, Senator Eugene
McCarthy, made to Rome in 1962. Vatican II was in full swing. John
Kennedy was president, John XXIII pope.
It was a glorious time to be active in the big issues of the day,
to be liberal, to be Catholic.
"Rome was full of our friends, not only among the bishops,
but also theologians and writers," wrote McCarthy. Visits with
Time magazine correspondent Bob Kaiser and his wife, who shared
an apartment with Archbishop "Ban-the-Bomb" Roberts of
Bombay; conversations with Msgr. George Higgins and Redemotorist
Fr. Xavier Murphy; lunch with a provocative young German theologian,
Fr. Hans Kung; a seat in the Council observers' area with Robert
McAfee Brown; convincing the papal gatekeeper that Mary McGrory
was Senator McCarthy's sobrina (cousin) so the Washington Star reporter
could join their audience with the beloved Holy Father.
Fast forward 43 years.
Tomorrow morning, May 20, a thousand or more Catholics will gather
to say an early morning rosary, to participate in a Mass celebrated
by San Antonio Bishop Jose Gomez, and to hear remarks by Denver
Archbishop Charles Chaput and President George W. Bush.
The committee sponsoring the event includes Leonard Leo, executive
vice president of the influential Federalist Society and chief of
"Catholic outreach" for the Republican National Committee
and Austin Ruse of the Culture of Life Foundation. The "host
committee" includes Mary Ellen and Robert Bork, Princeton University's
Robert George, Harvard's Mary Ann Glendon, former baseball commissioner
Bowie Kuhn, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, John Paull II biographer George
Weigel, and Opus Dei's Fr. C. John McCloskey.
It is a glorious time to be active in the big issues of the day,
to be conservative, to be Catholic.
Four decades ago, there were divisions among Catholic liberals.
Kennedy moved too slowly on civil rights, some said, or was too
bellicose in his Cold War rhetoric. The aging and affable John XXIII,
meanwhile, had launched an unlikely revolution. Would he, could
he, transform the church? There were many who doubted it.
Still, as presidential biographer Richard Reeves would later write,
" 'the two Johns,' the pope and Kennedy, had become a banner
for those around the world who yearned for change."
Today, to be sure, there are divisions on the Catholic right. Catholic
neoconservatives (i.e. Michael Novak, Weigel, Neuhaus) found themselves
favoring their president over their pope in the run-up to the Iraq
War. Others thought Pope John Paul The Great (as he is referred
to on the prayer breakfast Web site) was too lenient in dealing
with disagreement. They look to Benedict XVI to get even tougher
on those within the church who plan to keep talking about "settled
issues."
But these disputes are family squabbles, not deal-breakers. With
Ratzinger in Rome and Bush in the White House, conservative American
Catholics are not just in the ascendancy. They are triumphant. It
is their moment.
Today, the "Spirit of Vatican II" is a phrase used in
disgust by those who claim a greater orthodoxy, just as the once-proud
moniker "liberal" is verboten, even by those who embrace
its principles. There are no liberal Catholic politicians -- leaders
whose faith informed their public life -- with the national reputations
of a Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, Sargent Shriver, Robert Drinan,
Philip Hart, Daniel Patrick Moynihan or Mario Cuomo. The most prominent
Catholic politician who most clearly welcomes association with the
church is probably Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, whose unabashed
opposition to abortion and gay rights makes him a hero to those
who will gather at the prayer breakfast (he was the featured speaker
last year).
"Republicans now have a real chance of fashioning a long-term
governing majority, built in part on the 'new ecumenism' of Catholics
and evangelical Protestants," George Weigel wrote just prior
to last year's election.
Weigel is correct -- the opportunity for such a political realignment
is clearly present.
Meanwhile, the post Vatican II church realignment -- strengthened
enormously by the 26-year-reign of John Paul II -- has been confirmed
by the election of Benedict XVI.
There's plenty of reason for the prayer breakfast congregants to
celebrate.
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