is that people reading the Washington Post today can understandably believe that not only E. J. Dionne believes this, but any enlighted member of the Catholic Church does too:
There were many messages sent from South Bend. Obama’s opponents seek to reignite the culture wars. He doesn’t. They would reduce religious faith to a narrow set of issues. He refused to join them. They often see theological arguments as leading to certainty. He opted for humility.
Refusing to defend innocent human life is not “a narrow set of issues.” But Fr. Jenkins glossed over this human-rights issue yesterday in his introduction of the president of the United States. And so who watching wouldn’t think embryo-destroying stem-cell research and abortion are just two issues in a broad field to the Catholic Church, and narrow ones at that? I certainly wouldn’t expect a graduate of Notre Dame’s Class of 2009 to think otherwise.