The Catholic Response to Obama's Election
by Fr. Roger Landry - November 28, 2008
During their annual meeting earlier this month, the Bishops of the United States, even though they had several other items on their agenda, spent much of their time discussing the significance of the election of Senator Barack Obama to be our nation's 44th president.
As a body, the bishops were clearly pleased about one aspect of his election: the triumph over our country's history of racism that Obama's victory symbolized. When Obama was born, there were still Jim Crow laws in effect in several southern states. He was a boy when Martin Luther King was assassinated and as a teenager would have observed the terrible tensions of desegregation. Many of the bishops themselves were seminarians and young priests during the days of the civil rights movement and, before the abortion and the redefinition of marriage were forced upon our nation by activist courts, made the overcoming of the evil of racism their great moral cause. That they lived to see a black President brought a genuine sense of joy and achievement.
These sentiments were summed up by Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley in an interview during the bishops' meetings, when he said, "When I was in high school (in Ohio) I joined the NAACP and did voter registration in black neighborhoods, when I wasn't old enough to vote myself. And I was there at Resurrection City after Martin Luther King was murdered, and living in the mud with thousands of people on the lawn of the Lincoln Memorial and having off-duty redneck policemen throwing canisters of tear gas at us and shouting obscenities. So, to me, the election of an Afro-American is like the Berlin Wall falling. I mean, for my generation, I suppose young people today can't appreciate that, but to me it is something very big."
But as happy as the bishops were about this huge victory in the fight against racial prejudice, they were horrified by Obama's fervent support for a far greater evil. Cardinal O'Malley said that his "joy" was outweighed "by the knowledge that this man has a deplorable record when it comes to pro-life issues and is possibly in the pocket of Planned Parenthood, which in its origins was a very racist organization [founded] to eliminate the blacks."
The bishops as a body authorized their president, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, to write a statement expressing their deep concerns. Bishop Coleman has asked every pastor in the Diocese of Fall River to distribute it to his parishioners in the parish bulletin. In it, Cardinal George expresses the bishops' common concern about the Freedom of Choice Act that was introduced in the last Congress and that the President-elect has publicly promised to sign, promising in a July 17, 2007 speech, "The first thing I'd do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing that I'd do."
Cardinal George framed his entire message with a quotation from Psalm 127, which focuses on the foundation of a house. If the foundation is weak, the whole structure will be weak and all the building will be in vain. He began by describing what the foundation of a just and lasting society is and then said foundation is being assailed by the practice of abortion.
"The fundamental good is life itself, a gift from God and our parents. A good state protects the lives of all. Legal protection for those members of the human family waiting to be born in this country was removed when the Supreme Court decided Roe vs. Wade in 1973. This was bad law. The danger the Bishops see at this moment is that a bad court decision will be enshrined in bad legislation that is more radical than the 1973 Supreme Court decision itself.
"In the last Congress, a Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) was introduced that would, if brought forward in the same form today, outlaw any 'interference' in providing abortion at will. It would deprive the American people in all fifty states of the freedom they now have to enact modest restraints and regulations on the abortion industry. FOCA would coerce all Americans into subsidizing and promoting abortion with their tax dollars. It would counteract any and all sincere efforts by government and others of good will to reduce the number of abortions in our country. Parental notification and informed consent precautions would be outlawed, as would be laws banning procedures such as partial-birth abortion and protecting infants born alive after a failed abortion. Abortion clinics would be deregulated. The Hyde Amendment restricting the federal funding of abortions would be abrogated. FOCA would have lethal consequences for prenatal human life.
"FOCA would have an equally destructive effect on the freedom of conscience of doctors, nurses and health care workers whose personal convictions do not permit them to cooperate in the private killing of unborn children. It would threaten Catholic health care institutions and Catholic Charities. It would be an evil law that would further divide our country, and the Church should be intent on opposing evil.
"On this issue, the legal protection of the unborn, the bishops are of one mind with Catholics and others of good will. They are also pastors who have listened to women whose lives have been diminished because they believed they had no choice but to abort a baby. Abortion is a medical procedure that kills, and the psychological and spiritual consequences are written in the sorrow and depression of many women and men. The bishops are single-minded because they are, first of all, single-hearted."
Cardinal George then stated forthrightly that the president-elect received no pro-abortion mandate on November 4. "The recent election was principally decided out of concern for the economy, for the loss of jobs and homes and financial security for families, here and around the world. If the election is misinterpreted ideologically as a referendum on abortion, the unity desired by President-elect Obama and all Americans at this moment of crisis will be impossible to achieve. Abortion kills not only unborn children; it destroys constitutional order and the common good, which is assured only when the life of every human being is legally protected. Aggressively pro-abortion policies, legislation and executive orders will permanently alienate tens of millions of Americans, and would be seen by many as an attack on the free exercise of their religion."
President-elect Obama has often tried to suggest comparisons between himself and another Illinois Senator who, upon becoming President, fought a civil war to end an immoral system in which blacks were considered three-fifths of human persons and the property of their owners. He battled and triumphed against a terribly unjust Supreme Court decision, bad laws in many states, and a culture that supported the evil practice.
Like the 16th president, the 44th is now faced with an even more unjust system in which the unborn are legally considered zero-fifths of human persons are the property of their mothers. There is an evil Supreme Court decision, many wicked state practices, and what in many segments amounts to a culture of death.
Had President Abraham Lincoln, rather than fighting against the dehumanizing evil he encountered, sought to eliminate all restrictions to slavery and forced everyone throughout the Union to cooperate in the evil practice, he would have come down in history as one of the worst rather than one of our best presidents. One day future generations will look back at the practice of abortion in our country with even greater shame than we now look back at the history of slavery. President-elect Obama has the opportunity to go down to future generations as a true hero or an evil perpetuator of this national blight, which attacks the very foundations of our country.
The bishops of the United States are reminding him of these realities, praying as a body for his conversion on the issue, and asking all the faithful to join them in doing both.
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
