As I said earlier today, I realize we play right into the hands of those who are manufacturing the bogus Catholics-vs.-Obama meme, in continuing to discuss the president's appearance at Notre Dame yesterday. And I also said earlier today that I had wrapped up my commentary.But the outpouring of published statements about what took place at Notre Dame yesterday--the vast majority of them from the right--as this day goes on demands attention. Go to Google news and look at the list of articles about Obama and Notre Dame, and you'll see what I mean.
I have several observations about this outpouring of right-wing vitriol (and outright lies) about yesterday's event:
- For any of us who watched coverage of the president's commencement address yesterday, and above all, how he was received by an iconic Catholic audience, it will be very difficult for this coverage to falsify our memory of what we saw and heard.
- A lot of folks will not have watched, however, and this well-orchestrated spin campaign that continues to try to drive a wedge between Obama and Catholic voters will lead some citizens to think that Obama continues to be at odds with "the" Catholic positions on issues and with "the" Catholic voter.
- These right-wing commentators who are pouring out dreck in the aftermath of Notre Dame are counting on their lies to taint and misshape the perception of many people who did not watch the commencement events, and who are accustomed to reading that "the" Catholic position conforms to the Republican agenda.
- As I observed yesterday, the mainstream media continues to do its pimping job for the right, in its approach to the story of Catholic voters and Obama. Which suggests to me that there's a tremendous fear of letting the real story--namely, that a majority of Catholic voters support the president and do not buy the positions of the fringe right--out of the bag.
- In that regard, it's grimly funny to read one piece after another in mainstream secular media outlets slamming the new president and going to bat for "the" Catholic position on abortion and other issues, when those writing these pieces have no interest at all in Catholic thought or Catholic values, except insofar as they can twist that thought and those values to bolster economic and political positions at odds with traditional Catholic moral teaching.
- A case in point: Peter Roff of the "non-partisan" Let Freedom Ring institute (as his U.S. News and World Report bio proclaims) expressing shock and alarm at the president's "alarming violation of church-state separation." And doing so in that, well, that bastion of Catholic values and defender of embattled Catholic orthodoxy, U.S. News and World Report! Could anything be more richly ironic than this attempt of a writer for a secular journal to use said secular journal to lecture Catholics on what being truly Catholic entails, while decrying the president's attempt to address intra-Catholic issues as a breach of church-state separation?
- And so why the fervent interest of one secular journal and newspaper after another in lecturing Catholics about what it really means to be Catholic, following Obama's speech? Because these political commentators and the economic elites they serve fear tremendously the resurgence of a Catholic voice in the public sphere, which is authentically Catholic and representative of the real views of a majority of American Catholics, regarding social and economic issues.
- They have benefited for decades now from the captivity of "the" Catholic voice to the Republican party, and they are going to fight tooth and nail to keep that captivity going.
- And we who recognize the unholy game that is being played here would be foolish to be naive about the economic and social power these folks have, about their ability to disseminate lies through the mainstream media, and about their willingness to play even dirtier than we have begun to imagine, in their attempt to combat the emergence of a new coalition of progressive people of faith at this point in our nation's history.
