In 1849 and then again in 1852, the Catholic bishops of the United States petitioned the Holy See to grant the archbishops of Baltimore the title of “primate” of the Catholic Church in the United States: an honorific, to be sure, but one that implied that the head of America’s oldest Catholic diocese would enjoy a de facto preeminence as leader of American Catholicism. But the Vatican, nervous that an American “primate” would assert himself in some fashion against Rome, declined to bestow the title (although, interestingly, it didn’t cavil about the title “primate” being given to the archbishop of Quebec City, the Primate of Canada, and the archbishop of Gniezno remained the Primate of Poland even when “Poland” disappeared from the map of Europe in the 19th century).
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The notion of a “primate” has little operational meaning throughout the Catholic Church in the 21st century. The Second Vatican Council mandated that every country have a national bishops’ conference. So, today, the president of the national conference is understood to be the principal figure in any local Church. Everyone understands, for example, that Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, speaks for the Church in the United States in a singular way, especially when he speaks for a united bishops’ conference on matters of first principles.
Everyone, that is, but the Obama White House.
In his appearance on Fox News Sunday on February 12, White House chief of staff Jack Lew discussed with host Chris Wallace what the administration was determined to sell as an “accommodation” to Catholic concerns, an “accommodation” that tweaked an HHS mandate requiring that all health insurance provide no-co-pay abortifacients, sterilizations, and contraceptives. Lew tried, unsuccessfully, to shore up the administration’s pretense that something in the moral calculus of the original mandate had changed with the administration’s “accommodation” — which, of course, it hadn’t. What was truly striking about the administration spin, however, was Lew’s suggestion that the Catholic Health Association (whose president, Sister Carol Keehan, had quickly and publicly applauded the administration’s “accommodation”) trumped the bishops’ conference when it came to who-speaks-for-the-Catholic-Church-in-America.
Chris Wallace quoted the bishops’ February 10 statement rejecting the “accommodation,” to which Lew replied, “We didn’t expect to get universal support of the bishops or all Catholics.” Wallace pressed on, noting that the February 10 statement was “the most powerful statement by the Catholic Church in this country” and that it expressed “grave moral concern.” Lew said that he couldn’t “speak to the differences within the Catholic Church,” and when Wallace asked how, then, he would “respond to [the bishops’] statement that this [is] government coercion,” Lew played the CHA card as a trump: “I would point to the statement put out by the Catholic Health Association, which knows a fair amount about . . . health care in this country. They thought this was a very good solution.”
In the administration’s view, then, primacy in the Catholic Church is not conferred by the pope, but by the White House. Thus Sister Carol Keehan could be recognized by the president’s chief of staff as primate of the Catholic Church in the United States, because she headed an organization that “knows a fair amount about . . . health care in this country” — unlike, for example, those mulish bishops who had failed to be taken in by the administration’s shell game.
That the administration would play divide-and-conquer with the Catholic Church in its attempt to ram through the HHS mandate was obvious from the outset, although the White House was likely surprised by the virtual unanimity of Catholic opposition to the mandate’s announcement on January 20 — a unanimity breached only by the likes of Catholics for Choice, a front group for pro-abortion donors that Lenin would have recognized as a gaggle of “useful idiots.” Indeed, the very rollout of the “accommodation” on February 10 reeked of divide-and-conquer. As Cardinal-designate Dolan has made clear in recent interviews, the White House called Father John Jenkins, C.S.C., president of the University of Notre Dame, with news of the “accommodation,” before it called the president of the bishops conference. Father Jenkins, to his great credit, told the White House that they had the wrong number and that they had to call Dolan. Jenkins later issued a statement welcoming what he took to be the administration’s recognition of “the freedom of religious institutions to abide by the principles that define their respective mission,” although he also expressed concern about “a number of unclear and unresolved issues” to be explored.
President Obama's approval rating continues to climb and there seems to be no rational reason for it. What's wrong with the American people? Setting aside the in-fighting by GOP candidates, which always happens during a primary, the man is destroying this country - pitting one American against another - and most Americans seem not to notice or care. He has not been the kind of President he promised to be, has spent most of his time criticizing America and those with whom he disagrees and has damaged our standing in the world. His policies are a failure and make clear that he favors certain Americans over others. What more must he do before we've had enough? Perhaps the American people have reached the point Benjamin Franklin warned of so many years ago - we now favor candidates who promise to provide for us rather than those who will enable us to provide for ourselves.
The reason for this is the one that primary voters and National Review commenters refuse to see - the majority of Americans have no appetite for an extension of the culture war in 2012. They want jobs, lower taxes, and smaller government - not reduced access to birth control or battles over same sex marriage AND (here is the key) they are increasingly convinced that they won't get what they want from a party that focuses on the secondary social concerns. The percentage of Americans that put social issues ahead of fiscal from either side of the left/right political spectrum are a loud minority - and the more people think that the Republican platform consists primarily of social issues, the higher Obama'a approval rating will go.
Social issues and economic issues are related. Look at the statistics for children raised in broken homes versus those raised by their married parents are striking. Bottom line, children raised by single mothers are far more likely to be takers than producers. Marriage is the key to a prosperous economy.
Having said that, even if we allow that the liberals will try to scare women into believing that a cohort of evil Republicans will swoop into their bedrooms and steal their morning after pills, how in the world can Obama run on the issue of jobs? Anybody but Obama will have a better record on job creation going into this election simply because no one on the Republican side has destroyed as many millions of jobs as has Obama, Reid and Pelosi.
Of course social issues and economic issues are related in practice, but they are singularly unrelated in folks decision making processes.
Take your example - do you actually believe that a majority of the electorate views laws that support marriage as a path to jobs and a better economy? That is a connection impossible to assert in a soundbite.
You have your cart in front of your horse - you draw those comparisons after you've convinced folks that you have a better economic plan. I'm talking about politics, not policy. If you lead with the social you will get heated debate and then folks walk away thinking "I still need a job - what are the priorities here?"
If this is truly the lesson, then surely they should have no appetite for the regime forcing "free" (no such thing) abortifacients to be provided for all. How is that about "jobs, lower taxes, and smaller government"? If there is a single American who believes that is the Obama administration's agenda, have I got a beauty of a bridge to sell to them! It is not a question of fiscal responsibility or social conservatism. This country needs both/and! We will not survive without rejecting Obama's vision for both economics and (im)morality.
You have heard about the President's new budget, right? If voters are looking for smaller government, lower taxes and jobs, they're not going to get it from Obama. Spending and taxes go up over the next ten years, as does the deficit. If what you say about money versus morals is correct, then the decline we see in this country is just beginning.
As I said above to Palin Fan - you are confusing practice with theory. I 100% agree that the Obama budget is a nightmare. My point is that the non-politically aware (which are the majority in this country) see Obama putting forth a budget and Republicans fighting about cultural issues.
They won't even question the budget unless the opposing party engages in it directly. Sure, it's getting dissected here, but the only thing on the Sunday shows you hear from any of the republican candidates are social issues. Folks will assume Obama is doing just fine on the economy if Republicans allow social issues to dominate the discourse.
But don't take my word for it - just watch the elections. . .
That, and the major pollsters like Gallup have stopped reporting the democrat/republican mix in their polling samples. Gee, why would they stop doing that during an election year?
I love when I get accused of liberalism on NRO. I've never voted for a Democrat in my life and never will. But my bonafides are as meaningless as your point.
Why should the major pollsters continue to report democrat/republican split in a nationwide election year when reporting approval rating? What does it reveal? Absolutely nothing aside from smug self-assurance that each party is internally consistent.
I've got hypocrites above touting how it is not an either or proposition while the social conservative Santorum supported no child left behind, medicare part D, and has condemned individualism as "not part of traditional conservatism".
If you genuinely believe that a Republican can win the Whitehouse with an improving economy on a platform of cultural identity in the current media age, I leave you to it.
Nathan- You seem to forget that in the 2008 election, a majority of Catholics voted for Obama. A majority. Normally, I would agree with you that it is not social issues that wins the day in elections, it's what is happening to my wallet. But, this is no normal social issue. This is the Obama Administration targeting Catholics in particular, at least that is how it feels. Will a lot of people vote only on economic issues? Sure. But don't be surprised to see a lot of Catholics who may have supported this president swing to the other candidate over this issue. Conservative or Liberal, there are few things more precious to people than their faith, and the ability to practice it freely. If you threaten that, there will be a response.
I have to admit Nathan has a point. Many are mixing principle and practice. Yes, in principle you would hope people can make the connection between morality and prosperity, but in practice (at least in the XXI century US of A) most do not. Elections on won or lost on perception, not substance.
The only way your post makes sense is that in reality you are a terrified Liberal that wants "social" issues off the front page, because it is finally sinking in that Obama's decision to have Leviathan smack Behemoth in the face, inadvertently waking him up, was a terrible mistake for which Obama will pay dearly.
Otherwise, your concern is about nothing at all:
1. It should be obvious that the GOP is currently in the middle of running its PRIMARY and that the current PRIMARY candidates need to address social conservative concerns right now, or risk losing.
2. 99% of all voters (GOP or otherwise) will NOT remember ANYTHING about this primary when November rolls around.
3. It is also obvious that the Republicans will run both sides of the conservative coin, but with the lion's share of the focus on the economic side for this election cycle, except in the few States where the social aspect still dominates. That's just common sense.
Therefore, for any kind of conservative, there is nothing here to worry about.
I guess there is one more possibility: you are not a terrified Liberal, but rather a Romney supporter.
It is impossible to know what the American people want, nor is this in any way relevant. America created a republic rather than a pure democracy to avoid creating a civilization where politicians seek to redefine innate truths regarding the meaning and origin of authentic human rights by plebiscites. To trivialize tyrannical abuses of human rights that result in the destruction of human life by a tyrannical president represents a destruction of a civilization.
Last Friday I was at a meeting of a committee of scientists studying an unrelated health issue. As we broke for lunch, somebody mentioned that the President was about to announce his compromise on the mandate. The general sentiment in the room was that this was a rotten shame, that those nasty Catholic bishops should certainly be getting their comeuppance, that our President was too accommodating, and so on. The usual prohibition on potentially divisive political talk having been violated, I spoke up to say that I considered the mandate an unconstitutional affront to religious liberty, and that it should be rescinded. If others shared my view, they wisely kept it to themselves.
My point is just that there are plenty of true believers out there; indeed, the most highly educated Americans are completely sold on this stuff. There is no possibility of a truce with these people, whatever Mitch Daniels, John McCain and the RINO faction may say. This is truly a war.
It can shape a crowd's attitudes. As a Biblical example Look what it did to the crowds in Jerusalem two millennia ago. Exuberant and supportive on Sunday; filled with hate and ready to kill by Friday. But note that just 40 days later, thousands of the same crowd had a divinely-inspired change of heart that changed everything.
The unemployment rate goes down, Obama's approval rating goes up.
Elections are decided on TWO issues: Economics and foreign policy.
That's it; the fact that ObamaCare is clearly impinging on the religious rights of
Catholics to not fund things their religion finds abhorrent is not going to determine the outcome of the election. Sorry.
It will if Catholics stand up for their Church. It most definitely will. Of course, it first requires that the Church stand up, which the Bishops have done. A good start. A bit late, but a good start.
Because there are those of his fans that are dissatisfied with his "wimping out" on their pet issues, when he stands up for something like this (in favor of abortion), his approval goes up.
I see the current issue as one that would increase polarity, moving people towards strong approval or disapproval, with less of an indecisive middle.
