As expected, our President did not show the common sense or decency to refrain from giving the commencement speech at Notre Dame University. It is all about Obama - nothing else matters. Recall that this is the man who gave the Queen of England an iPod loaded with his own speeches and an audio reading of his book. The man's ego, his sense of self importance, knows no bounds.
Worry about creating a deeper divide within a religious community? Not when cameras and a teleprompter are nearby; not when the adoring crowds can stroke an ego; not when a political advantage might be gained.
Part of an
interesting analysis from George Weigel:
He, President Obama, would settle the decades-long intra-Catholic culture war in favor of one faction — the faction that had supported his candidacy and that had spent the first months of his administration defending his policies. At the Seventh Provincial Council of Baltimore in 1849, the U.S. bishops petitioned the Holy See to grant the archbishop of Baltimore the title of Primate of the Catholic Church in the United States (as, for example, the archbishops of Québec City and Mexico City are the “Primates” of their respective countries). The Holy See declined and, ever since, the archbishops of Baltimore have had to settle for being the ordinaries of the “premier” see in American Catholicism. Barack Obama at Notre Dame was not so modest. Rather like Napoleon taking the diadem out of the hands of Pope Pius VII and crowning himself emperor, President Obama has, wittingly or not, declared himself the Primate of American Catholicism. What the bishops of the United States have to say about this usurpation of their authority will be very interesting to see. Whether Obama’s Catholic acolytes will recognize a genuine threat to religious freedom in what they are already celebrating as their Notre Dame victory over the pro-life yahoos and reactionaries will also be instructive.
