Line item veto for Catholics

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend observed in a Newsweek editorial on July 9, 2009 that President Obama’s agenda better represented the views of American Catholics than the Pope’s. The political analysis may be correct and if the Pope were the chief lobbyist for the America Catholic laity, relevant. But in the context of religious belief, her observations are more an indictment of Catholics than the Pope.

People, in and outside the Catholic church, debate the right or wrongfulness of war, euthanasia, stem-cell research, abortion and capital punishment. The conclusions drawn are influenced by reason, ethics, politics and yes, faith. Only in recent years, would it be considered acceptable to co-opt the mantle of one’s faith to deride it.

The faith she references is an ocean wide and an inch deep. Faith has political currency today and both the left and the right are in the market for a prominent Catholic to carry their water. Kennedy Townsend fits the bill for the left. Townsend notes that “polls bear out the fact that Catholics do not want the Vatican to tell them what to think.”

She thinks that the Pontiff “could learn from Obama’s style of respectful disagreement,” yet she wants more. She sees the Pope’s respectful disagreements less charitably. Rather than being the voice of Church teaching, she envisions the Pope’s proper role as a celebrity endorser for progressive Catholicism.

The modern faithful worship a more “user friendly” God than the one introduced to us in the Baltimore catechism. This God isn’t pushy, knows his/her place and doesn’t much interfere. A God more “invented” than revealed, endorsing our decisions but not influencing them. He appears all over the political map. The Almighty has strong pro-gun and anti-immigration leanings in the South and holds an equally passionate (and divine) position in support of assisted suicide farther west.

We could successfully transform the Pope into a mere conduit for the current leanings of the faithful. In so doing, we make the Pope into the Press Secretary for Catholicism. There is no going back from that point. The credibility of the Papacy derives largely from its willingness to be pro-actively tone deaf to the politics.

An American Catholic politician who proposes that the shepherd should follow the flock is akin to an anti-civil rights Democrat or pro tax increase Republican.

Townsend can legitimately borrow the Kennedy aura to wax on things political and frankly, she should be commended for her passion. If she correctly portrays the state of Catholic political thought, it should be so acknowledged. As a political citizen, she is on solid ground. As a person of faith, she is way out on a limb.