Vice President Biden went on Meet the Press this weekend and told David Gregory that he’s “absolutely comfortable” with gay marriage and that he doesn’t see much of a distinction between gay marriage and marriage marriage.

Leave aside for now the fact that Joe “I’m-gonna-shove-my-rosary-beads-down-their-throat” Biden is Catholic while his understanding of marriage is…not so much. The VP’s words have put President Obama in something of an awkward position.

Photo: Joe Biden, absolutely comfortable with gay marriage.

You see, Obama is against gay marriage…except that he’s kinda not. Or he might be now, but probably won’t be later…like after November. He appeals to moderate and independent voters by saying he believes marriage is between a man and a woman, but he appeals to his liberal base and gay-rights activists by insisting that his views on the matter are “evolving.”

When White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters yesterday that the president’s views on gay marriage “are crystal clear,” he must have meant “transparent,” as in, the president’s position is a transparent political attempt to have it both ways.

Anyway, Vice President Biden’s remarks have upset the political balancing act, and the press wants the President to stop fence-sitting and pick a side. Given how the media lists heavily to port, gay marriage is one issue on which they aren’t likely to cut the administration much slack. They’re already starting to call out the White House for prevaricating.

There’s good reason to think that the last thing the White House wants between now and November is to be seen as the aggressor on cultural issues, especially on an issue that has been a perennial loser at the ballot box (and especially in swing states). Still, there are some that see Biden’s remarks, not as a gaffe, but as a message to the gay-rights community: “We’re with you, just stick with us through the election and see what happens then. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.”

Either way, there is a chance we may see marriage become a high-profile campaign issue between now and November. Stay tuned.

Stephen P. White is a fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC and coordinator of the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society. The views expressed here are his own.

In 2009, Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, KS publically compared then-Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to Richard Rich, the man who betrayed St. Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons. In that column Archbishop Naumann wrote:

It saddens me that so many Catholics, to gain political advancement, have chosen to compromise their Catholic faith by their failure to defend the most fundamental of all human rights – the right to life.

It seems Naumann had privately told Sebelius (a Catholic) to stop advocating for abortion or stop presenting herself for Communion. Given the choice between the Eucharist and abortion rights, she chose the latter.

Photo: HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

More recently, as President Obama’s HHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius has overseen the implementation of what the USCCB has called an “unjust and illegal mandate” which constitutes an “unprecedented” threat to religious liberty.

Last year, Sebelius delivered the keynote address at a NARAL fundraiser in Chicago. “We are in a war,” she told the abortion boosters in the crown.

All of this, apparently, uniquely qualifies Secretary Sebelius to deliver the commencement address for the Georgetown Public Policy Institute at Georgetown University, America’s oldest Catholic college.

If we are in a war, as Sebelius says, at least she is clear about which side she’s fighting for. Would that we could say the same for Georgetown.

Stephen P. White is a fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC and coordinator of the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society. The view expressed here are his own.

I had a chance to speak with Andy Garcia yesterday about his new film, For Greater Glory, which tells the story of the Cristero War in 1920s Mexico. Garcia plays General Enrique Gorostieta, who was hired by Catholic rebels to lead their armed resistance against the virulently anti-Catholic regime of President Plutarco Elias Calles.

What really struck Garcia about the story when he first read the script, he told me, was the way it “reeked of classic Hollywood epics, like John Ford used to make, like How the West Was Won.” The script reminded him of the kind of movies he loved to watch growing up.

Photo: Andy Garcia as Gen. Gorostieta in "For Greater Glory"

What Garcia didn’t realize, at least not at first, was that the script was based on real events. Like most Americans, he had never heard of the Cristero War. When he asked Mexican-American colleagues, they seemed to know next to nothing about it, either. He even asked friends who were born and raised in Mexico—they too knew little if anything about the Cristero War.

The whole story seemed to have been forgotten, Garcia said. “Even my friends who went to parochial and Catholic schools in Mexico didn’t know this story.” No one wants to talk about it. No one teaches it. And among those who did know about it, the Cristero War was “taboo subject matter.”

Once you learn the story, it’s not too hard to understand why.

Graham Greene—whose novel The Power and the Glory is easily the best well know (albeit fictional) account of this dark period in Mexican history—famously called the Calles regime’s brutal suppression of the Catholic Church the “fiercest persecution of religion anywhere since the reign of Elizabeth.”

In 1926, there were some 4,500 Catholic priests in Mexico. By the mid-1930s, fewer than 340 remained. Tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands were killed, including many martyrs for the faith.

Born of that ruthless persecution, the Cristero rebellion lasted the better part of three years. (The rebels were known as Cristeros for their battle cry: ¡Viva Cristo Rey!)

Garcia, whose character leads the Cristero army, says that he hopes this movie will teach people about the incredible struggle for religious freedom: “I want people to know the story…the historical characters…to become interested in knowing more about what really happened.” He continued, “It’s like the old saying goes: we study history so that we don’t have to repeat it.”

Asked if he sees parallels between the violations of religious liberty faced by the Cristeros and the threats to religious liberty in the US today, Garcia was quick to point out that he sees a tremendous difference. “Priests aren’t being killed in the United States for celebrating the Mass.”

He did say that the struggle for religious freedom—“the very essence of what the Cristeros were fighting for,” as he put it—is an ongoing struggle. “This is not just something of the past, this is something of the present.” The fight for religious freedom is ongoing all over the world, he added.

Garcia’s own experience as a Cuban exile is a constant reminder of that. Born in Cuba just before the Revolution, his family fled to Florida shortly after Castro came to power. The struggle for religious freedom is inextricably linked to our other freedoms, Garcia said, thus the importance of religious freedom is universal.

Garcia himself is Catholic, but seems particularly resistant to the idea that For Greater Glory is a “Catholic movie” in the parochial sense. The universality of the dramatic themes in For Greater Glory—heroism and sacrifice in the cause of human freedom—make them easy to champion, Garcia says, and for people everywhere to admire. He returns to the theme of universality again and again.

And well he should: For Greater Glory isn’t a Catholic movie for Catholics. It’s not even just a move about religious freedom.

The movie Schindler’s List tells a story of the Jewish people in a particular way, Garcia explained, but no one would think that movie was just for Jewish people…or that Braveheart was a movie just for Scottish people. “You don’t have to be Catholic to see [For Greater Glory]. You didn’t have to be Catholic to be in it. You don’t have to be Catholic to understand the importance of the story. It will resonate with everyone.”

Garcia’s character in the movie, General Gorostieta, is a perfect example of this. An atheist, Gorostieta believed the cause of freedom to be worth fighting for, even if that meant freedom for others who believed what he did not. Standing up for freedom, he finds himself on the path to faith. Such freedom can only flourish where there is deep mutual respect, Garcia says, even between and among those who disagree on matters as important as faith.

As much as the question of religious freedom is on the minds of Americans today (and Catholics in particular) For Greater Glory never chases headlines. The film is mercifully free of the kind of propaganda—religious, political, or otherwise—that could so easily have ruined this magnificent and moving story. The true humanity of that story—the one thing Garcia hopes people are able to take away from this film—is allowed to speak for itself.

For Greater Glory is rated R (violence) and opens June 1.

Stephen P. White is a fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. and coordinator of the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society. The views expressed here are his own.

David Gibson quotes me in his recent column to show that Paul Ryan is wrong about subsidiarity. Gibson writes that, despite Ryan’s attempts “to justify his budget priorities in terms of the Catholic principle known as “subsidiarity,”… “the evidence shows his platform and that principle just don’t match up.”

Here’s a bit from the column which I think highlights a serious oversight in Gibson’s argument which leads him to a mistaken conclusion. Gibson writes:

“The right ordering of economic life cannot be left to a free competition of forces,” Pope Pius XI wrote in the 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, another keystone for Catholic social teaching on subsidiarity. “For from this source, as from a poisoned spring, have originated and spread all the errors of individualist economic teaching.”

In his 1961 encyclical, Mater et Magistra, Pope John XXIII articulated another element of subsidiarity, writing that, “In a system of taxation based on justice and equity, it is fundamental that the burdens be proportioned to the capacity of the people contributing.”

Experts and church leaders agree that none of this corresponds to the Republican budget that Ryan crafted, even though Ryan has echoed many of the terms that the Catholic Church uses.

But experts and church leaders don’t all agree that none of this corresponds to the Republican budget that Ryan crafted. Some do; some don’t. But any argument about what subsidiarity demands of government in our current circumstances is going to involve a whole mess of judgments about whether the current size and scope of government is too great, too little, or just right.

Photo: Congressman Paul Ryan

If one begins with the premise that government isn’t doing enough to promote the common good, then applying the principle of subsidiarity will likely result in a preference for a more robust government. If one begins with the opposite premise, that government is already overbearing and counter-productive to the common good, then applying the principle of subsidiarity will likely result in a judgment that we should have less government.

Take the quote Gibson uses from Quadragesimo Anno: while it’s true that abandoning economic life to the whim of the market is incompatible with Catholic social teaching, it hardly follows that any and every proposal for freer competition than what we have right now is anathema. In fact, that quote tells us next to nothing about whether our current arrangement allows for too much market competition, too little, or just about the right amount.

The same goes for the point raised by the quote from John XXIII (and also gets to the question raised by Mark Stricherz earlier this week.) Is the tax burden in the US properly proportioned to the capacity of the people contributing? Well, that depends on your judgment about what the proper proportioning looks like. Given that roughly half of American households pay no federal income tax, I’d say the answer isn’t obvious. Serious people can and do disagree.

As Paul Ryan put it yesterday at Georgetown, “I suppose there are some Catholics who for a long time have thought they had a monopoly of sorts . . . not exactly on heaven, but on the social teaching of our Church. Of course there can be differences among faithful Catholics on this.” And that’s the point that Gibson and other keep missing. Even if we all agree on the principles of Catholic social teaching that doesn’t mean we’re going to agree on the application of those principles to our particular circumstances.

As Pope Benedict XVI wrote in Caritas in Veritate, “The Church does not have technical solutions to offer.” That doesn’t mean “anything goes,” but it does mean that while the principles of Catholic social teaching can guide us toward a free and just society, they can’t do for us the hard work of governing justly. The responsibility for that still falls on the prudent judgment of the men and women entrusted by their fellow citizens with the difficult task.

Stephen P. White is a fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. and coordinator of the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society. The views expressed here are his own.

There is a great deal to be said (and done) in light of today’s statement from the USCCB on religious liberty: “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty.” Everyone should take the time to read it in full. The bishops remind us that violations of religious liberty can have vivid and painful consequences. The faithful must be aware of the stakes, for they are high indeed. The bishops write:

Religious liberty is not only about our ability to go to Mass on Sunday or pray the Rosary at home. It is about whether we can make our contribution to the common good of all Americans. Can we do the good works our faith calls us to do, without having to compromise that very same faith? Without religious liberty properly understood, all Americans suffer, deprived of the essential contribution in education, health care, feeding the hungry, civil rights, and social services that religious Americans make every day, both here at home and overseas.

What is at stake is whether America will continue to have a free, creative, and robust civil society—or whether the state alone will determine who gets to contribute to the common good, and how they get to do it. Religious believers are part of American civil society, which includes neighbors helping each other, community associations, fraternal service clubs, sports leagues, and youth groups. All these Americans make their contribution to our common life, and they do not need the permission of the government to do so. Restrictions on religious liberty are an attack on civil society and the American genius for voluntary associations.

As Jesus warned St. Peter, discipleship sometimes means that someone else leads us where we would rather not go. (John 21:18) Discipleship always leads to the Cross, and sometimes more than figuratively. So the bishops remind us that the most serious threats to religious freedom place upon us, the Faithful, a burden far greater than many of us would care to admit, and may well demand of us more courage than we have ever had to show for the sake of our faith:

It is a sobering thing to contemplate our government enacting an unjust law. An unjust law cannot be obeyed. In the face of an unjust law, an accommodation is not to be sought, especially by resorting to equivocal words and deceptive practices. If we face today the prospect of unjust laws, then Catholics in America, in solidarity with our fellow citizens, must have the courage not to obey them. No American desires this. No Catholic welcomes it. But if it should fall upon us, we must discharge it as a duty of citizenship and an obligation of faith.

It is essential to understand the distinction between conscientious objection and an unjust law. Conscientious objection permits some relief to those who object to a just law for reasons of conscience—conscription being the most well-known example. An unjust law is “no law at all.” It cannot be obeyed, and therefore one does not seek relief from it, but rather its repeal.

Like I said, there is much to be done. We can all start by reading the bishops’ statement and taking it prayerfully to heart.

Stephen P. White is a fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC, and coordinator of the Tertio Millenio Seminar on the Free Society. The views expressed here are his own.

When I saw this Politico story about Paul Ryan and Catholic social teaching, I had two thoughts. The first was that “subsidiarity” and “federalism” aren’t as similar as Congressman Ryan makes them out to be. My second thought was, “I bet Michael Sean Winters will have something to say about this.”

And he did! Winters is (spoiler alert) not a fan of Ryan’s budget—or his politics in general, really—but he does score some legitimate points against the congressman from Wisconsin, and by extension, some common misconceptions about subsidiarity that often pop up on the “right.”

Here is the statement in question from Congressman Ryan:

To me, the principle of subsidiarity, which is really federalism, meaning government closest to the people governs best, having a civil society of the principal of solidarity where we, through our civic organizations, through our churches, through our charities, through all of our different groups where we interact with people as a community, that’s how we advance the common good. By not having big government crowd out civic society, but by having enough space in our communities so that we can interact with each other, and take care of people who are down and out in our communities.

Those principles are very very important, and the preferential option for the poor, which is one of the primary tenants of Catholic social teaching, means don’t keep people poor, don’t make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life. Help people get out of poverty out onto life of independence.

First things first. Subsidiarity is not “really federalism.” Federalism is a principle of political decentralization which often parallels the principle of subsidiarity, but is not identical to it. This is exactly the point Winters makes. I think Winters even slightly overstates the degree to which subsidiarity is about decentralization, saying subsidiarity, “insists that solutions be crafted at the lowest level of social organization possible, first the family, then the community, then the State,…” As I’ve written elsewhere, subsidiarity is not about exercising power at the lowest possible level so much as it is about locating social responsibility in its proper place…with an emphasis on “proper.”

The goal or end of subsidiarity is the proper ordering of society for the common good. This requires each person and institution of civil society be afforded, as a matter of justice, their proper autonomy. Pope John Paul II spoke of this principle, and its centrality to Catholic social teaching, in Centesimus Annus:

According to Rerum Novarum and the whole social doctrine of the Church, the social nature of man is not completely fulfilled in the State, but is realized in various intermediary groups, beginning with the family and including economic, social, political and cultural groups which stem from human nature itself and have their own autonomy, always with a view to the common good. This is what I have called the “subjectivity” of society which, together with the subjectivity of the individual, was cancelled out by “Real Socialism”.

The proper autonomy of these intermediary groups is derived from the kind of groups they are. Subsidiarity presupposes what Pope John Paul II calls the “subjectivity of society,” an idea that doesn’t marry too easily with the kind of social contract theory that underpins most American political thinking on both the right and the left. (Subsidiarity jives even less well with radical forms of legal positivism. Extreme libertarianism, insofar as it denies the subjectivity of society, is, as Monty Python would say, right out.) For example, a family has rights because of what it is, not because the state says so or even because a majority of citizens agree that it should. It has rights and proper autonomy because of the kind of institution it is by nature—by virtue of the social nature of the persons that are its members. So Winters is right again when he says, “Subsidiarity is rooted in Catholic personalism.” Misunderstand the human person and you will always misunderstand subsidiarity.

And Winters is also right that subsidiarity must always be accompanied by the principle of solidarity. Solidarity and subsidiarity must go hand in hand. Ignoring one always works to the detriment of both.

In Winters’ judgment, Congressman Ryan’s budget plan overplays subsidiarity and fails to satisfactorily address the principle of solidarity and so fails to sufficiently promote the common good. Fair enough.

But Winters’ then charges Ryan with all sorts of duplicity and malfeasance with regard to Catholic social teaching, none of which sticks unless one grants Winters a whole slew of assumptions—mostly liberal and mostly about the likely macro-economic effects of various policies—which, whether you share the assumptions or not, do not come directly from Catholic social teaching. No doubt Winters finds his own policy assumptions morally compelling, but he fails to distinguish between these assumptions—which are debatable—and principles of Catholic social teaching which, at least for Catholics, are not. Winters slips these assumptions into his moral reasoning as unstated premises. Then, having reached a different conclusion about the best course of action than Congressman Ryan, accounts for the difference by accusing Ryan of having betrayed Catholic social teaching.

The result is that Winters’ harshest criticisms of Ryan—those that are not mere ad hominems—all beg the question: they presuppose what they are trying to prove. To take one example, Winters slams Congressman Ryan for wanting to shortchange solidarity by “voucherizing” Medicare. But Winters assumes without argument that solidarity is better served by the current Medicare model (or some tweaked version thereof) than by Ryan’s proposal.

Now if “Medicare as we know it,” to borrow a phrase from our President, better serves solidarity than the Ryan Plan, then yes, the Ryan Plan is inferior to Medicare as we know it, at least with regard to solidarity.

But what if “Medicare as we know it” is about to go supernova and take our federal budget with it? What if “Medicare as we know it”  is already jeopardizing solidarity, both for those who will find it insolvent when they retire in a few decades, and for those future generations who will be saddled with the crushing debt of a program long since defunct? If that’s the case, then wouldn’t a sustainable plan to actually provide health insurance for seniors better serve solidarity between and among the generations, even if that meant a smaller (though still multi-trillion dollar) role for the federal government? Winters doesn’t admit the possibility that this could be so. (And which might explain why he assumes Ryan is either acting in bad faith or is ignorant of Catholic teaching.)

Winters is correct that Paul Ryan’s description of subsidiarity leaves something to be desired. But Winters’ own tendency to assign government a virtual monopoly role in promoting social solidarity is at least as unbalanced. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote in Caritas in Veritate:

Solidarity is first and foremost a sense of responsibility on the part of everyone with regard to everyone, and it cannot therefore be merely delegated to the State.

And again,

The principle of subsidiarity must remain closely linked to the principle of solidarity and vice versa, since the former without the latter gives way to social privatism, while the latter without the former gives way to paternalist social assistance that is demeaning to those in need.

None of this proves Winters wrong or proves Ryan right. But consider this: Despite the fact that the national debt exceeds GDP, Paul Ryan’s budget increases federal health-care spending from $810 billion in 2013 to $1.257 trillion in 2022. Michael Sean Winters seems emphatically convinced that that constitutes “social privitism.” (He’s already called it “social Darwinism.”) Meanwhile, US unfunded liabilities for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicare Part D come to about $1,044,000 per taxpayer and climbing, making the threat of “paternalist social assistance” seem at least plausible.

Both men express their concerns in terms of the principles of Catholic social teaching, principles that must be implemented according to the particular demands and circumstances of the times in which we live. Given all that, ask yourself this: whose concerns seem more reflective of reality? Winters’ concern about too little solidarity, or Ryan’s concerns about too little subsidiarity?

Stephen P. White is a fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. and coordinator of the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society.

On January 19, Rick Santorum tweeted: “Sharp contrast to Obama is what will win in November. I’m that contrast.” He was fresh off a stunning win in the Iowa Caucus, though at the time it looked like a narrow second place finish, behind Mitt Romney. The RealClearPolitics poll average had him at 14.2%, two tenths of a point behind Ron Paul for fourth place.

Since then Santorum has surged, becoming the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney as Newt Gingrich has faded further behind the frontrunner. To date, Santorum has won eleven states and made very strong showings in other critical states like Ohio, Michigan and Illinois, showing his ability to appeal to blue-collar conservatives in swing states.

There have been some distractions, to be sure, but when Santorum has stayed on message, he has been very compelling. So while the well-funded Romney machine rolls on, Santorum has shown a tenacity and resilience unmatched by other candidates. In particular, no other candidate has hit Mitt Romney as hard or as effectively as Santorum has on health care reform.

Name an important issue and Obamacare in tied into it. Jobs and the economy? Obamacare stifles one sixth of the economy under heavy top-down federal regulations. Deficits and debt? Recent CBO estimates put the cost of Obamacare at $1.76 trillion over the next decade alone, further weakening the economy. Medicare, the single largest driver of long-term deficits? Obamacare fails to address it while making future reform more difficult. Religious liberty? Obamacare gave us the HHS Mandate.  On the fundamental issues of the limits government—as Santorum said in the second Florida debate, “Folks, we can’t give this issue away in this election. It is about fundamental freedom”—Obamacare is right in the thick of it, as evidenced by the current Supreme Court cases.

Furthermore, Obamacare is a political winner for Republicans, for all the reasons above. The law is stubbornly unpopular, again, for all the reasons listed above. It’s an issue that energizes not only the Tea Party and the conservative base, but many moderates and swing voters as well.

And so Rick Santorum has said over and over and OVER again that in order to beat Obama, the GOP nominee must present a contrast with Obama and the issue to do that on, the issue to win the White House on, is Obamacare. And it’s an issue on which there is one Republican candidate who is “uniquely disqualified.…the worst candidate to go up against Barack Obama.” And that’s Mitt Romney and his Romneycare albatross.

All of which raises this very interesting question: if the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare, if the court takes Santorum’s best weapon against Romney off the table, would it actually help Romney by defanging (at least somewhat) Santorum? Hopefully we’ll get to find out soon.

Stephen P. White is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC (disclosure: where he was a colleague of Sen. Santorum) and the coordinator of the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society. The views expressed here are his own.

Congressman Paul Ryan, released his 2013 budget resolution this week, and it has everyone in Washington actually agreeing on some things.

First, just about everyone agrees that the Ryan plan, unlike, say, the President’s budget, would actually address our nation’s long term fiscal crisis. (The President’s budget never balances, which is part of the reason that under his proposal, by 2019 the US will be spending more each year just to pay the interest on its debt [$794 billion] than it spent on the entire Iraq War [$787 billion].) As for the Democratic Senate’s budget, well, they haven’t even attempted to pass a budget in 3 years.

A second thing everyone agrees on is that the Ryan plan and the President’s plan offers a clear choice between two visions of the America future, one conservative and one liberal. While they’re nearly unanimous that the choice is dramatic and clear, they don’t agree on what those choices are. Conservatives fear that Obama’s plan leads more or less to Orwell’s 1984, while liberals see the Ryan plot as something out of Upton Sinclair, a regression to the Industrial Revolution (minus the boom in manufacturing.)

Michael Sean Winters falls into the latter camp, taking a decidedly hostile view of the Ryan plan. Winters insists that whatever the math, the Ryan budget fails utterly on moral grounds and would consigns the nation to a,

vicious future in which the rich get richer, the poor and the marginalized are left to fend for themselves, vulnerable seniors are given vouchers, not health care, and – most disturbingly for Catholics – the common good is entirely set aside in the name of freedom.

Winters uses Medicare to drive the point home:

Medicare stands for a simple moral proposition: After a lifetime of hard work, no human person should have to worry about paying for their health care in a society as wealthy as ours. No budgetary fact, such as the explosion in health care costs, and no demographic fact, like the increasing number of elderly living longer, can obscure the truth of that moral proposition.

The idea that the federal government bears an exclusive and unlimited moral obligation to provide health care to retirees—budgetary and demographic facts, be damned—is hallucinatory.  The government has an obligation to provide for the least among us; on this almost no one disagrees. But while it may tell us something about our society’s commitment to social justice, the fact that poverty and want exist tells us absolutely nothing about what the federal government can and cannot afford. Stubborn denial, however nobly intentioned, cannot resolve the brute fact of scarcity.

“Libertarianism is a cancer in the American body politic,” Winters writes, “and the Ryan budget usefully demonstrates just how dreadful their social Darwinism is.” So dreadful, in fact, that over the next decade, the Ryan plan would increase Medicare spending by almost 70% over 2011 levels. Are we really to deride annually increasing, multi-trillion dollar expenditures as cancerous social-Darwinism? Heck, that doesn’t even sound very libertarian.

Set aside the question of what government should pay for. The question of what government can pay for is simply a function of revenue, and that means taxes. So Winters’ point about “a society as wealthy as ours,” suggests that there is some great untapped reserve of excess wealth in America, as if the only thing between sustainable entitlement programs and fiscal calamity is obstinate refusal to raise taxes on the rich.

I’ll leave it to economists to explain the precise effect a massive tax increase—eliminating the Bush tax cuts for those over $200,000, for example—would have on government revenues. But consider that the President’s budget recommends precisely such a tax hike, and yet promises deficits in perpetuity. The much ballyhooed “Buffet Rule”—a tax on millionaires—would raise about $47 billion, which some may find better than nothing, but would barely cover even one fifth of the federal deficit from last month alone. Even discounting any drag such taxes might have on the economy, the scale of our problem is simply too vast to be solved by new revenue…and that means cutting spending.

The national debt plus the unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare and Medicare Part D total about $133 trillion. The value of all the private assets in America—personal, business, corporate, and non-profit—is about $83 trillion dollars.* American society is wealthy—indeed, incredibly wealthy—but only from a certain perspective. Ours is also a society that has borrowed and promised beyond its means…to the tune of about $50 trillion and counting.

There is one last point I want to make, though this post is already too long. Winters does eventually get around to the problem of scarcity in the context of Medicare coverage, and raises a very good point. Unfortunately it is a badly lopsided point.

Like the proposal in Massachusetts to legalize physician-assisted suicide, the idea of introducing personal, financial decision-making into the delivery of health care to seniors opens up the possibility of social and familial pressure on seniors, when they are most vulnerable, to act against their own interests and to acquiesce in threats to their own dignity. In Oregon, which legalized euthanasia some years back, if you are, say, 85, and you go to the doctor and she discovers that you have a condition that will be very expensive to treat, along with the options for treatment and care, you will receive a nice, well-crafted brochure about how to kill yourself. Imagine for a moment, if in addition to that kind of social pressure, there would be added an additional layer of concern: What if the health care you purchased with your voucher doesn’t cover the treatment you need? What if a different, more expensive health care plan would cover it, but under the Ryan plan you would pay the difference of course, and you would need to mortgage your home to do so.

Winters is absolutely correct that the commodification of health is a dangerous thing, and no one wants to have to make decision about health care based on finances. Therein lies perhaps the biggest difference between Congressman Ryan’s proposals for Medicare and those laid out, for example, in Obamacare. In the kind of health care system Mr. Winters prefers, financial decisions about the delivery of health care to seniors still have to be made, just not by seniors. And not by family. Or even by their doctors. Under Obamacare, which the Ryan plan would eliminate, such cost-benefit decisions are made by a board of 15 bureaucrats in Washington.

Mr. Winters thinks it’s a travesty that anyone should have to contemplate taking out a second mortgage to pay for the coverage they need. But if that’s a travesty, what do you call it when the law precludes any better coverage and even a second mortgage won’t help?

Stephen White is a fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC and coordinator of the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society. The view expressed here are his own.

On March 2, USCCB president, Timothy Cardinal Dolan, wrote to his fellow bishops to let them know how things stand in the negotiations with the White House over the HHS mandate. (Thomas Peters wrote about this on Tuesday.)

Now it seems the White House is somewhat annoyed with the Cardinal and his fellow bishops for not falling in line. One administration official, in response to the Dolan letter, complained to David Gibson at Religion News Service, saying:

The White House has put nearly every issue requested by the bishops on the table for discussion and has sought the views of bishops on resolving difficult policy problems, only to be rebuffed.

Nearly every issue? Which issues, one wonders, might not be on the table? What is the administration not willing to concede?

The bishops have stated publically that they are primarily concerned about religious freedom. Could it be that that was one of the issues the administration was keeping off the table? Cardinal Dolan already said as much last week:

At a recent meeting between staff of the bishops’ conference and the White House staff, our staff members asked directly whether the broader concerns of religious freedom — that is, revisiting the straight-jacketing mandates, or broadening the maligned exemption — are all off the table. They were informed that they are. So much for “working out the wrinkles.”

It seems that the administration has put “nearly every” issue on the table with the exceptions of the onerous mandate and the impossibly restrictive “religious exemption.” Which, as my preeminent colleague George Weigel puts it, “leaves one wondering precisely what is on the table.”

HHS Mandate delenda est.

Stephen P. White is a fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC and coordinator of the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society.

Who wants to watch a big-budget historical drama about Catholics fighting for religious liberty against a government hell-bent on radical secularization? Then you’re in luck: For Greater Glory is a new movie based on the Cristero War between Catholics and the Mexican government in the 1920s—a war which gave us not a few Catholic martyrs.

I have NO IDEA if this movie is any good—as entertainment, as history, or as art. I have no idea if anyone will go see it. I don’t even know how many theaters it will show it. But the trailer is promising…

Also promising are some of the names attached to the project. For Greater Glory is the directorial debut of Dean Wright who has had quite a career in visual effects (see his IMDB bio, here). Andy Garcia, Peter O’Toole, Bruce Greenwood and Eva Longoria headline a cast which also includes Eduardo Verástegui (best known as the lead in Bella). The score is done by James Horner, one of the industry’s best. (He did the music for Braveheart and a bunch of other big films with great music.)

Given the return to prominence of religious liberty in our national debate, the movie is timely. I’m actually encouraged by the fact that it began filming in the summer of 2010, long before the filmmakers could have had any idea that their film would be so topical. That should keep any ill-considered pontificating or overreaching allegory to a minimum.

No word yet on the film’s rating.

I’m going to a screening next Thursday and I’ll let everyone know what I thought of the movie then, presuming there’s no embargo.

[UPDATE: I'm told that the new, and presumably final, title of the film is The Greater Glory. I've changed the post to reflect that. The trailer obviously uses the older title, Cristiada.]

Stephen P. White is a fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC and coordinator of the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society.

In the last few weeks of HHS influenced dead-horse beating and extended discussions on Women’s Health™, I consistently find myself coming back to the idea that President Obama and his administration really think they can take on the Catholics and win.

They are obviously trying to win at all costs.

After all, at Notre Dame the President of the United States LIED about respecting conscience.  Then he LIED about accommodating us Catholics (last time I had an accommodation like that was when I had my prostate checked).

"Now just try to relax...you might feel some discomfort."

The Church has a pretty good track record of outlasting other empires.  So, I thought it would be particularly helpful to review some of the different powerful groups that the Church has bested.

Way back in 476 A.D., the Roman Empire bit the dust.

Although he looks impressive, where are his successors?

Romulus Augustus lost control and had to run away, but the Church was still going strong under Pope St. Simplicius.

No one really know much about him, except that he won.

The Mayan Empire lasted somewhere around 3,540 years.  They were powerful and strong.

Until the Catholics showed up.

Nobody even knows this guy's name.

In 1540, the Mayan Empire ended but the successor of Peter, Pope Paul III, was still going strong.

He also had 4 kids, proving that even a sinful pope can outlast a plain-old political empire.

100 years ago, the last Chinese Emperor, Alsin-Gioro Puyi, was overthrown and that was the end of the Chinese Empire.

In retrospect, the commie shirt was a probably a bad fashion choice.

But the Church kept on rocking under the leadership of Pope St. Pius X.

He always looked tough. I bet he could beat you up.

The Ottoman Empire was one of those go-to answers I always used in high school.

“Who won the battle of blah-blah-blah? – The Ottoman Empire”

It was also a good one to just drop into an essay to show that you really knew world history.  Plus you could also try and sneak in a furniture joke or drop a Dick Van Dyke reference.

Unfortunately for the Ottomans, their empire went bye-bye in 1922 under Sultan Mehmed VI.

Sorry, Sultan. Pack your knives and go.

Meanwhile, the line of Fishermen was still going strong under Pope Pius XI.

I’m sensing a trend here and though I’ve probably made my point, I’m having too much fun.

"The Chair? Oh, we've had that for years. Do you like it?"

Remember the Nazis?  They were pretty big back-in-the-day.  Hitler’s Third Reich seemed to be everywhere.

But of course it didn’t last.  They were done in 1945.

The man who forever changed the history of facial hair. Not even Michael Jordan could make the "toothbrush" mustache cool again.

But the Catholics?

Oh yeah, they were still going strong with Venerable Pope Pius XII.

The Catholic Church invented bling.

The Soviet Union was pretty big in its day.  They had a pretty intense run from 1917, but then hit a brick wall in 1991 when they were officially dissolved under Mikhail Gorbachev.

"Ok, fine. I quit. Catholics win."

Of course, who can blame them when you’re up against this guy:

Defeated Communism in his spare time.

Okay, so that’s probably enough examples.

But just so you know, Wikipedia says that 145 “empires” have gone out of existence in the time since the Catholic Church was founded.  So, we’ve seen a lot of power build up and fade away.

Someone once told me that the reason the political left cannot stand the Catholic Church is that they simply cannot fathom how on earth we still exist.  We were supposed to have collapsed decades ago.

To them, our continued existence is beyond belief.  How does this tired, stupid, outdated myth continue to persist and even grow?  It makes no sense.

So when President Obama and his minions try to take on the Church, I say:

We will outlast you.  We will crush you.  And if you try to oppress us, you will just increase our numbers.  You cannot destroy us.  We will still be here long after you and your government have perished from this earth.

So bring it, Mr. President.

We eat guys like you for breakfast.

I know who wins.

Pope #265

Patrick Thornton has a real job (sort of).  He is likely now on some type of homeland security watch list and may not be able to travel internationally.  This is fine because he wasn’t really planning on going anywhere anyway.  If you’re reading this, feel free to wave to the FBI through your webcam.  The views expressed here may or may not be his own.  It depends who’s asking.

Former Senator Rick Santorum has solid conservative credentials—an important thing for a Republican candidate. He has shown a knack for appealing to blue-collar voters in swing states. He’s able to draw clear distinctions between himself and President Obama. And then there’s his social conservatism—depending on whom you ask, this is either his greatest asset or his greatest liability.

If you ask me, it’s both.

There is no question that Santorum’s views on the “social issues” are deeply influenced and informed by his religious convictions. That is as it should be; anyone who claims to hermetically seal off his deepest convictions (religious or otherwise) from his politics is either a fool or fibbing.

But the strongest case for social conservatism (at least in terms of philosophical coherence and political efficacy) is built, not on the positive prescriptions of religious truth, but on the principle of limited government. This doesn’t mean keeping faith on the sideline. It means that because the state is not God, there are some things the state cannot and must not do.

In the second Florida debate, Santorum made precisely this case:

Faith is a very, very important part of my life, but it’s a very, very important part of this country. The foundational documents of our country — everybody talks about the Constitution, very, very important. But the Constitution is the “how” of America. It’s the operator’s manual. The “why” of America, who we are as a people, is in the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.” The Constitution is there to do one thing: protect God-given rights. That’s what makes America different than every other country in the world. No other country in the world has its rights — rights based in God-given rights, not government-given rights. And so when you say, well, faith has nothing to do with it, faith has everything to do with it. If rights come… (applause) if our president believes that rights come to us from the state, everything government gives you, it can take away. The role of the government is to protect rights that cannot be taken away. And so the answer to that question is, I believe in faith and reason and approaching the problems of this country but understand where those rights come from, who we are as Americans and the foundational principles by which we have changed the world.

That’s the Santorum that can win. Smart. Articulate. Politically pitch-perfect.

And then there is the Santorum who says things like this:

One of the things I will talk about that no president has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, ‘Well, that’s okay. Contraception’s okay.’ It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also [inaudible], but also procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. We take any part of that out, we diminish the act. And if you can take one part out that’s not for purposes of procreation, that’s not one of the reasons, then you diminish this very special bond between men and women, so why can’t you take other parts of that out? And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point where it’s simply pleasure. And that’s certainly a part of it—and it’s an important part of it, don’t get me wrong—but there’s a lot of things we do for pleasure, and this is special, and it needs to be seen as special.

Again, I know most presidents don’t talk about those things, and maybe people don’t want us to talk about those things, but I think it’s important that you are who you are. I’m not running for preacher. I’m not running for pastor, but these are important public policy issues. These have profound impact on the health of our society.

Santorum diagnoses the relationship between contraception and the sexual revolution along the same lines as Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae: when you separate the unitive and procreative components of sex you get big problems. I completely agree with that diagnosis. But why, oh why turn this into a campaign issue?

Opposition to contraception (as such) is a complete loser as a political issue. That’s not news. But set aside, for a moment, the obvious unpopularity of the Church’s teaching on contraception among the broader public. Set aside for a moment the über-predictable way statements like Santorum’s get twisted by the media. Set aside for a moment the way this hampers Santorum’s ability to discuss the issues on which this election should be decided (something about which Santorum himself has complained).

Set aside all those pragmatic political considerations and think about this: How does a promise to use a constitutional office to discuss the dangers of contraception square with the notion that, as Santorum put it, “The Constitution is there to do one thing: protect God-given rights?” Ask yourself what your reaction would be if President Obama used his office to telling the country what he thinks of the arguments in Humanae Vitae.

The problem isn’t that Santorum is wrong about contraception, or any other social issue for that matter, it’s that his zeal for the cause sometimes outpaces both political prudence and the conservative principles upon which the success of that cause depend.

There is a vast difference between matters of cultural importance and matters of political relevance; the use of contraception has a great deal of the former and almost none of the latter. If Rick Santorum is going to win the GOP nomination, to say nothing of the general election, he must show much better discipline in distinguishing the two. That’s not selling out, that’s statesmanship.

Stephen P. White is a fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC and coordinator of the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society. The views expressed here are his own. [Disclosure: For several years, Sen. Santorum and Mr. White shared an employer in the Ethics and Public Policy Center.]

A victory to be proud of and to find hope for our cause. This story is very good news. The First Amendment will be upheld and respected. Religious freedom will not be squashed.

http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=44892

Although it does re-enforce the separation of state and church, it does not enforce, but rather protects separating individuals from their religion. This is what the current administration needs to keep hearing from the American people. Keep up the fight.

Could you speak out against what is happening in this photo, Mr. President? Why so silent?

In the wake of some of the most horrifying anti-Christian violence the world has seen in the last few years, President Obama remains inexcusably mute. He and his administration are proving themselves to be deaf to the cries of Christians suffering. Among the many countries where Christians have sadly fallen to attacks are in China, Nigeria, Egypt, India, Iraq, Sudan and Indonesia.

Regarding this persecution, I have yet to hear, read or see on the news any statement from President Obama denouncing the violence of religious persecution. We only hear strong condemnations from the outside.

“Massacres are taking place for no reason and without any justification against Christians. It is only because they are Christians. What is happening to Christians is a genocide.” – Former Lebanese President Amine Gemayal.

”We cannot accept and thereby facilitate what looks more and more like a particularly perverse program of religious cleansing in the Middle East.”  – French President Nicholas Sarkozy

“The most recent developments [i.e., deadly Islamist attacks against Egyptian Christians in May 2011] fill us with dread. …The aim of the Islamists is to stoke up hatred and violence.” – Former Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel, June 27, 2011.

Further evidence is found at Reuters, the National Catholic Register (Jan. 29-Feb. 11, 2011), and the Voice of America which posted the following story January 17th, 2012

A high-ranking Chinese official in the Vatican has called on Beijing to release nine arrested Catholic bishops and priests, saying their continued detention damages China’s international image.

Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-fai, secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, made his remarks in an interview published Tuesday by the Rome-based AsiaNews agency.

Hon urged the public to pray for the detained bishops and priests, and also to appeal for their release. He said if the nine priests have done something wrong, they should be tried in court, not sent to prison or isolation.

The Catholic News Service says eight of the arrested clergy are members of the so-called “underground” or clandestine Catholic community that is not sanctioned by the Chinese government.

The Vatican has had tense relations with communist China, which requires that Catholic priests register with the government. China does not allow the pope to appoint its archbishops and cardinals, which is contrary to the Church’s tenets.

Amnesty International has also reported on the harsh repression of the Catholic Church in China, mentioning that an elderly Bishop Han Dingxiang served 19 years in a Chinese labor camp. Bishop Han has recently died, and his remains were burned and hidden.

So what does get attention? Take a look at the official President Obama website.

Hate Crimes Prevention Act  – Obama signed … Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law. The Act allows the Department of Justice to prosecute crimes motivated by a person’s actual or perceived gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.

I have yet to learn of this type of sensitivity shown to countless Christians who have been slaughtered throughout the world. So despite the thousands who have been harassed, imprisoned and some who were killed for being Christian, the President remains silent as the grave. His disregard of Christian suffering is becoming all too characteristic of his Presidency. Meanwhile, the spirited defense of an increasingly protected minority, as shown in the Pres. Obama website, is all too typical.

The latest slap in the face dealt to Catholics is the HHS mandate. With such flagrant violation of religious freedom, is it any wonder that there is an increasing fractious relationship between religious and secular groups in this country?

But the liberal left–in politics and media with all its anti-Christian mockery–is playing a very dangerous game indeed. They are schooling an entire generation in complete indifference towards religious liberty. Our society is becoming quite comfortable with ‘sandbagging the Christian’ on comedies, late-nite and TV dramas. This invariably leads towards a disregard for our freedoms in the political sphere. It also leads to a disregard for those suffering deadly violence abroad. Sadly it also lowers the individual worth for everyone by placing arbitrary value on a person for what is in vogue at the time– intrinsic human value is thus compromised. 

Finally, I will end with this thought: here they want us to forsake our faith through legislation while other countries are doing it with a noose and bullets. If it is as they say, the past is the prologue of the future, then watch and pray. Speak out, Mr. President, against Christian persecution. We are shocked by your silence.

——————————————————————

Jennifer Roche has authored many articles for secular and Catholic publications including the National Catholic Register, Inside Catholic, the Catholic Herald (London, UK) and written a travelogue on the Maltese Islands called Cat Tails from Malta. She has also contributed to GodSpy, Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) college guide, MeloMag art magazine and Absolute Arts. She welcomes your comments!

Christian Ghetto – 2062 is a fictional account of what life could be like in some 50 years. It is 2062.  I see my granddaughter, Sybil. How can this be–she is yet to be born? It must be some miracle of God. I know her because she looks just like I did at 16. Her name, Sybil, is written on the wall with the text “Happiness is Peace” underneath. She is alone, staring at the wall in what looks like a dormitory. Sybil takes a notepad and begins to write:

I just returned from my compulsory ‘pilgrimage’ to see the sponsor. I feel even worse than before the trip. They always say “happiness is peace,” but I don’t feel happy. During this time of year–the holiday season–all students visit their sponsors. We call them sponsors because the use of “parents/mother/father” is banned. The only sense of family we have is the ‘Supreme Establishment’ who lead our society. First and foremost, it is the S.E. who gave birth to the new America by fostering the demise of Christian belief.

During my visit, we learned about the Great Cleansing again, and how the S.E. conquered religion. The sponsors taught that religion was a man-made concept. In the past centuries, God was an idea formulated to shackle man and prevent him from becoming his true self, which we learned was to become gods ourselves.

Religion, they said, caused divisions, set back human progress and gave mankind unreasonable fears. God was ridiculous–something fools believed in. Of all the religions, the worst among them was Catholicism. It was the most pernicious, and it had to be stamped out. Catholics believed in a God-man figure called Jesus. He accepted suffering and never wanted man to be happy. After the Great Cleansing, Jesus was hated most of all. To kill Jesus in the heart and mind is the passage to happiness, the sponsors taught.

Some who still believed in the Jesus God-man lived in the ghettos. After the Great Cleansing, many fled to communities where priests and churches still existed. Each time the Supreme Establishment attempted to destroy them a great blazing fire encircled the Christians to protect them. The sponsors told us that eventually they would be conquered. They would be eradicated and total Reason would triumph.

We were told never to look at the great fire or the heart with the cross inside that hovered above the ghetto when they were attacked and on their feast days, such as something called Christmas. But I imagine that most of us knew that we all looked, and even some of the sponsors looked. Many were like me, and we wondered in our hearts and minds what it all meant.

Going to see the sponsor was something I hated. It was always the same: how much better we are after the Great Cleansing, how our freedom is great and on and on. Then, we had the fertility festivities, and I always leave unhappy. The festivities were to mark the end of religion–the breaking of the chains so to speak.

An event in 2012 was clouded in controversy for the Christians. They were forced to go against their conscience. The old constitution, the one that mentioned the unmentionable now, God, was abandoned. It all started in 2012 with something called the HHS mandate. Today, during the holiday season, these letters were everywhere. Most people had no idea what it meant and most didn’t care. The music and food are the highlight for most people.

After festival, we learn again that the very beginning of the Great Cleansing began in 2012–some 50 years ago. They started by wiping away religious freedom, making the Christians go against their conscience. Once they lost those rights, religion increasingly declined. Just 15 years ago, the last vestiges of Christianity, in fact, all religions were forbidden by law. Books, paintings, churches, schools, symbols, even religious holidays were forbidden. The cleansing police confiscated all religious items. Most Christians complied or faced a 10-year prison sentence. This is when Baptisms, marriages, priests and all sacraments and Christian teachings were outlawed.

This is also when other churches, mosques and synagogues were destroyed. I have heard that there are some other religious ghettos apart from the Christian ones, but I have never seen them so I don’t know much about them.

With the food and housing shortages, space was necessary and all worship sites were destroyed. However, when I have travelled for my sponsor visits I have seen so much land. There seems to be so much open space. But they tell us that more is needed for the growing food crisis and because of the out-of-control population. This is why the Supreme Establishment enacted the Great Sleep pill. All take the pill at the age of 45. This way no one suffers and no one gets too old and uncomfortable.

I have heard that some sponsors are more rich and powerful than others, which is not supposed to exist in the new America.  These sponsors go to some offshore paradise islands, and live until natural death or until they choose. Many who aren’t rich and miserable have spoken against these practices, but when they do they usually have accidents and just disappear.

After the holidays, we are kept separate. Each person has his own room.  The Supreme Establishment knows it is best to keep the young isolated so that we may always be obedient. This isolation ensures that everyone is willing to cooperate, and the young do what they are told in order to gain approval–like well-trained dogs.

Eventually, some will be selected to be sponsors, others will be sent to Guidance and Stability Academy where they learn how to promote the Great Cleansing and others will just be part of the system of sustainability–growing food etc. It will be the students of the Academy who will finally destroy the remaining Christian ghettos or so I am told.

I’ve mumbled over and over the ‘cleansing pledge’ that the sponsor taught me: Glory be to Me, Myself and I as it was in the beginning is Now and God is Not nor ever shall Be. But, it is the same for me always: the only peace I know is when I do the drawing. I draw a heart with a cross inside. Above the heart, flames hover like a dove. I am happy and at peace when I do this, but I don’t understand it.

After the Great Cleansing, signs that read, “Keep the Poison Out,” were installed around the Christian ghettos. But I wonder why I feel such peace when I make the heart and cross drawing. Is their faith really poison? Each time I do the drawing it must be destroyed so no one can explain the drawing’s power or meaning since I can’t show it to anyone. Perhaps someone will learn about it by some great miracle? Perhaps I will understand someday . . . perhaps God does exist?

180 days ago I called for a boycott of Italian clothing brand Benetton after they posted a photoshopped image of Pope Benedict “kissing” an Imam with the caption “UNHATE.”

Over 800 papists joined this page on Facebook promising to boycott Benetton. We also began a Twitter campaign under the hashtag #ByeByeBenetton. Since then I personally haven’t set foot in a Benetton store, even though in the past I had been their customer.

Today I was alerted to the happy news that Benetton has apologized, removed all instances of the offending image they could find, and has promised to donate to a Catholic charity as a gesture of good will:

The Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said on Tuesday that the dispute between the Holy See and the Benetton Clothing Group over the incorrect use of the Pope’s image has been resolved.

Father Lombardi’s statement came after Benetton issued a press release last Friday apologising for having upset the feelings of Pope Benedict XVI and believers and pledging that it had withdrawn all photographic images of the Holy Father from every publication of the company. It also promised not to use any images of the Pope in the future without prior authorisation from the Holy See and to use its best efforts to stop further use of the photo montage by third parties on internet sites or elsewhere.

… Father Lombardi said Benetton’s statement marked the end of the dispute which came following meetings between the lawyers of the Holy See and the Benetton Group. He said the Holy See did not wish to ask for financial compensation but instead wished to obtain a moral compensation for the harm caused and reiterated its determination to protect — even through legal means — the image of the Pope. Father Lombardi said instead of financial compensation, they had asked for and Benetton had agreed to make a financial donation to help the charity work of the Church. He said this concludes an unpleasant affair that should not have occurred but which has hopefully taught a lesson about the need for due respect for the image of the Pope, just as for any other person, and for the feelings of the faithful. [Vatican Radio]

If this resolution satisfies the Vatican it satisfies me, so I hereby declare the boycott OVER.

Now, I think it’s just as important to THANK organizations when they try to make amends for having mocked and offended Catholics as to boycott them when they don’t. So please join me in thanking Benetton on their Twitter and Facebook accounts in your own words, or simply saying something like “Thank you Benetton for apologizing to the pope! I am no longer boycotting your products.”

If you are on Twitter please use the #ThankYouBenetton hashtag like I did here.

Ph/t: B-Bach’s Beat.

Just moments ago President Barack Obama said he was in favor of same-sex marriage.

During the interview, here’s how he says his understanding of Christ and his Christian faith inspired him to do so:

“This is something that, you know, [Michelle and I have] talked about over the years and she, you know, she feels the same way, she feels the same way that I do. And that is that, in the end the values that I care most deeply about and she cares most deeply about is how we treat other people and, you know, I, you know, we are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated…”

Contrast this to his public position in 2004:

In 2004, as a candidate for the US Senate, he cited his own religion in framing his views: “I’m a Christian. I do believe that tradition and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman.”

He maintained that position through his 2008 presidential campaign, and through his term as president, until today.

Fellow Catholics, we have a lot of work ahead of us. More from me soon.

Oh and by the way, the people of North Carolina overwhelmingly rejected same-sex marriage 61%-38% last night. Now that President Obama has come out in favor of same-sex marriage, the Democratic convention which will be held in North Carolina in a few months will probably put this position in favor of redefining marriage in the official platform of their party.

Fellow Catholics, we all have a very clear choice ahead of us this November.

This is one of those dawn-to-dusk sort of days that I love.

Time for a quick breather and catch up!

The majority of my energy has been focused recently on helping turn out pro-marriage voters in North Carolina in support of the Marriage Protection Amendment being voted upon there today.

If you live in NC, or know folks who do, please make sure to get to the polls! One way you can do that is to join the 22 online Catholic activists who have re-tweeted this message already:

Plenty of papists on the AmericanPapist Facebook page have already said they voted for marriage today!

I’m trying to track down a fascinating report I saw that Pope Benedict mentioned this effort to protect marriage in his homily today. The bishops of North Carolina were visiting with him in Rome yesterday for their ad limina visit, after all, so it is not out of the question. (If anyone has seen news on this, please let me know in the comments!)

In addition to doing radio and media interviews for the North Carolina vote, I’ve been helping keep the NOM Blog active with all the latest and greatest marriage news — so go check it out! — including, of course, our Catholic Vice President’s embarrassing words this weekend in support of redefining marriage. I hope his bishop was watching, that’s all I can say about that right now. You can read CV’s Stephen White for more.

Meanwhile, Catholic Vote has launched an open letter to Georgetown University entitled “Catholics For Unity” (a concept I really like) which is already well on its way to 15,000 signatures. Once you have signed it please share it on Facebook and help me get this tweet trending:

The thought also strikes me that we should try to use the hashtag #catholicsforunity to keep up momentum! I think the open letter is very concise and charitable. The concept of building up Catholic Unity is one that I will be reflecting on and writing more about in the days and weeks ahead.

And on a related note, here’s another AmP first — an AmP Activist Pin on Pinterest promoting the CatholicsForUnity campaign! So if you are on Pinterest, please re-pin it!

I’ll be watching the election results roll in tonight and tweeting them @AmericanPapist if you are on Twitter. Suffice it to say there are lots of exciting things coming up soon, so stay tuned!

Well, to be more precise: opponents of North Carolina’s Marriage Protection Amendment have completely given up the effort to defeat the amendment on the issue of marriage.

Instead, they’ve chosen to put all of their TV money into ads claiming that the Marriage Protection Amendment will somehow make it harder for the law to protect unmarried women who are the subject of domestic violence. These opponents are even avoiding calling the amendment what it is, instead preferring to call it simply “Amendment 1.”

The Vote FOR Marriage NC coalition, which is organizing the effort to pass the amendment, organized a press conference of local law enforcement officials debunking these false charges and also released a TV ad in response to the opposing sides’s claims. They also link to this study which provides more scholarly and legal evidence that the Marriage Protection Amendment will take away no common sense protections:

On April 18, three professors of law at Campbell University School of Law issued a report called “The Meaning and Potential Legal Effects of North Carolina’s Proposed Marriage Amendment.” In their report, the legal scholars state, “same-sex couples would still be protected under domestic violence laws…and could continue to receive public health insurance benefits.” The professors were speaking as independent legal experts and not on behalf of the university.

“The study by the law professors is the second analysis of our opponents’ claims that has concluded they are false.  Opponents of this Amendment know that they are fighting an uphill battle, and as a result, have sadly decided to take North Carolinians on an emotional roller coaster,” said Fitzgerald. “Greensboro News & Record editorial writer Doug Clark studied the claims and concluded ‘they’re crying wolf.’”

North Carolina law (General Statutes 50B-1) provides wide-ranging protections for citizens against domestic violence that are not dependent on the victim’s marital status. Out of the extensive six different sub-categories outlined in this statute, even roommates qualify under these protections regardless of marital status. [Vote FOR Marriage NC]

There are more signs that the movement to redefine marriage is failing to get traction in North Carolina, besides the fact that opponents of protecting marriage have given up their attempts to argue on the grounds of marriage anymore.

For one thing, opponents of the amendment have taken to sign destroying as their primary grassroots activism, it seems. While this is hardly a new tactic for their side, the scale is impressive — roughly half of the pro-amendment yard signs around the state have been stolen or vandalized, according to a campaign spokesperson.

If that’s not “signs” of a desperate movement I don’t know what is.

And so, despite editorials by the New York Times claiming the amendment is nothing more than “bigotry”, and despite the fact that opponents of the amendment are outspending supporters by at least a 2-1 margin (not to mention all the favorable coverage they receive from the media), the amendment appears to be heading towards a win next Tuesday, according to all the recent polls.

Why? Because of a winning coalition of Catholics (bishops and lay people), Southern Baptists, Evangelicals, African Americans, Republicans and Democrats, and a deeply committed and professional campaign (which, I’m especially happy to see, has been utilizing social media very well).

Early voting continues in North Carolina through Saturday and then everyone goes to the polls next Tuesday, May 8th. If you live in the Tar Heel State or have friends and family who do, please choose to support marriage and pray for the protection of this institution, which is a precious gift of God to society.

And join me in watching the poll returns on the night of next Tuesday on Twitter…

UPDATE — by the way, I forgot to mention Pope Benedict’s general prayer intention for May: “that initiatives which defend and uphold the role of the family may be promoted within society.” Bravo, North Carolina papists!

[UPDATE: I removed the links to The Blaze because I think they have a security issue on their website.]

I did a double-take when I saw this headline and article on The Blaze:

David Barton is Today’s #1 Google Trend After Talking About Religious Freedom on “The Daily Show”

That’s simply incredible — to become the top search on Google. I’ve met David Barton. He’s a kind and charismatic man.

But what could he have said on the Daily Show that would earn such widespread interest?

At 2:10 in this video they discuss religious freedom and the HHS mandate. Maybe people watching the Daily Show were being exposed to Barton’s viewpoint for the first time and were hungry to learn more!

You can watch the other two parts of this interview here.

What do you think — what made this interview go viral?

LifeSiteNews (which hosted an excellent gala this weekend which I was happy and honored to attend!) reports on this news story which broke last week:

A homosexual activist group calling itself “Angry Queers” claimed responsibility for smashing nine windows in a church known for teaching traditional sexual morality early Tuesday morning.

“Upon arriving at the church, we discovered nine separate windows had been smashed in with rocks, including two beautiful 100-year-old stained glass windows,” wrote Tim Smith, pastor of the Portland campus of Mars Hill Church. “We estimate the damage to be several thousand dollars.”

The vandals sent an e-mail to local television station KOIN-TV stating they took the action, because “Mars Hill is notoriously anti-gay and anti-woman.”

Church members say they hold to “traditional Bible-based views on homosexuality.”

Eyewitnesses told police they saw six young men wearing “dark, mask-like partial face coverings” flee the scene around 2:30 a.m.

“This certainly saddens us greatly as our pastors in Portland have made many efforts to build relationships with the homosexual community in Portland,” Smith said. “Even though they chose to destroy our property and scare away people trying to worship Jesus, we wish them no harm.”

The Oregonian reported “black-clad demonstrators…some of whom wore kerchiefs to cover their faces, shouted profanities at adults and children” last October, when the new campus of the Seattle-based church opened. About 20 protesters blocked the entrance and screamed, “Shame on you homophobes. You’re not welcome here. You’re going to burn in Hell.”

Some of the anecdotal evidence suggests that this vandalism could also be tied to the area Occupy Movement protest. I hope the police track down these criminals and bring them to justice.

Also I must point out that there has been no condemnation of this act by local gay activist groups. You can be sure that if an LGBT center was vandalized by self-professed Christians, they would be clamoring for an apology, and the media would be covering it.

Special thanks to LifeSiteNews for filling in the gap left by mainstream media once again.

I’m not going to try to render judgements about the George Zimmerman v. Trayvon Martin controversy. But I did find this excellent Reuters article on George Zimmerman’s background fascinating for its presentation of Zimmerman’s Catholic faith.

Now, obviously, Catholic people can commit crimes and sins just like everyone else, but I thought it fascinating to see how Reuters presented his Catholic background as an important part of his personal profile:

“…The 28-year-old insurance-fraud investigator comes from a deeply Catholic background and was taught in his early years to do right by those less fortunate. He was raised in a racially integrated household and himself has black roots through an Afro-Peruvian great-grandfather – the father of the maternal grandmother who helped raise him.

“… Gladys [Zimmerman's mother] came to lead a small but growing Catholic Hispanic enclave within the All Saints Catholic Church parish in the late 1970s, where she was involved in the church’s outreach programs. Gladys would bring young George along with her on “home visits” to poor families, said a family friend, Teresa Post.

“…Zimmerman served as an altar boy at All Saints from age 7 to 17, church members said.

“He wasn’t the type where, you know, ‘I’m being forced to do this,’ and a dragging-his-feet Catholic,” said Sandra Vega, who went to high school with George and his siblings. “He was an altar boy for years, and then worked in the rectory too. He has a really good heart.”

The trial of George Zimmerman will no doubt be a media circus. And just as I would ask us to keep the repose of Trayvon Martin in our prayers, let’s hope Zimmerman’s humanity is not trampled upon in the weeks and months ahead.

One of my favorite lines from the movie All the President’s Men, which tells the story of the Watergate scandal, comes from Mark Felt (“Deep Throat”):

“Forget the myths the media’s created about the White House–the truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.”

That’s the reaction I got when watching Kathleen Sebelius fumble through a round of (brilliant) questions by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) over the HHS mandate.

Two of the things that become very evident very quickly is just how a) ignorant Sebelius actually is about the history of religious liberty in this county and b) how uncaring she is about the whole concept of religious liberty to begin with:

No wonder things got out of hand. When it comes to religious liberty, these people are just not very bright.

A third thing becomes very apparent observing this exchange: hubris. It’s not just that Sebelius clearly doesn’t know the first thing about religious liberty, and doesn’t care about preserving it — she also comes across as believing it is beneath her to know or care about it.

Related: Sarah Torre at The Heritage Foundation’s Foundry blog on this exchange.

As the Catholic League helpfully points out, the fact that 90 faculty members of Georgetown University wrote in protest of Congressman Paul Ryan coming to speak on campus today gives him the same distinction as Francis Cardinal Arinze, whose visit to the campus in 2003 was greeted with a letter of protest by 70 members of the faculty.

They wrote, in part: “We would be remiss in our duty to you and our students if we did not challenge your continuing misuse of Catholic teaching to defend a budget plan that [blah, blah].”

Back in 1999, however, a visit to Georgetown U. by a hard-core pornographer was greeted with no protest from the faculty whatsoever. Now that’s what I would call being remiss in one’s duty — allowing that to happen without protest!

The lefties at Catholics United proudly posted a photo of their paltry protest staged outside where Congressman Ryan is speaking at Georgetown:

I count all of 11 protesters (if you count the dude with the guitar, because as we all know its not a protest unless someone brings a guitar…).

Even more rudely, a few protestors went inside and draped a banner from the balcony which read “Stop the war on the poor; no social justice in Ryan’s budget.”

This is all part of the Catholic Left’s ongoing efforts to discredit and demonize Congressman Ryan. Again, I think it’s so revealing to see how much of a fit the left has over him and his ideas.

Pushing back against their attempts by his liberal critics to claim he believes in the philosophy of Ayn Rand, he laughs it off and responds “If somebody is going to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas.”

I guess I’m glad overall that the liberal Catholic groups and the lefty faculty members at Georgetown chose to protest Rep. Ryan’s speech, because hopefully it will draw more attention to it. Here is one of my favorite parts from the beginning of his speech:

I suppose there are some Catholics who for a long time have thought they had a monopoly of sorts . . . not exactly on heaven, but on the social teaching of our Church. Of course there can be differences among faithful Catholics on this.

The work I do as a Catholic holding office conforms to the social doctrine as best I can make of it.  What I have to say about the social doctrine of the Church is from the viewpoint of a Catholic in politics applying my understanding to the problems of the day.

Serious problems like those we face today require charitable conversation. Civil public dialogue goes to the heart of solidarity, the virtue that does not divide society into classes and groups but builds up the common good of all.

The overarching threat to our whole society today is the exploding federal debt. The Holy Father, Pope Benedict, has charged that governments, communities, and individuals running up high debt levels are “living at the expense of future generations” and “living in untruth.”

We in this country still have a window of time before a debt-fueled economic crisis becomes inevitable. We can still take control before our own needy suffer the fate of Greece. How we do this is a question for prudential judgment, about which people of good will can differ.

If there was ever a time for serious but respectful discussion, among Catholics as well as those who don’t share our faith, that time is now.

I would urge you to take the time to read his whole speech and thing about it in terms of prudence and the Church’s social teaching.

UPDATE: George Weigel has good comments on Ryan’s speech as well as the left’s attacks, particularly this observation:

“…Ryan’s refusal to concede the moral high ground to the Catholic Left in the public-policy debate, plus the intelligence, good humor, and conviction he brings to these arguments, helps explain why he’s the Catholic Left’s worst nightmare. The Catholic Left recognizes that; and thus, predictably, things have turned chippy, even ugly.”

Even hissy-fity.

This morning immediately after the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast I had a brief chance to speak with Rick Santorum. A few minutes before that, I asked CatholicVote supporters on my facebook and twitter page to let me know what question they would ask if they had a chance to do so. Here’s what we came up with and here’s my resulting exchange with Santorum:

Peters: Senator, thank you on behalf of the CatholicVote community, congratulations…

Santorum: Yes, thank you, Thomas.

Peters … our prayers and our solidarity for your incredible run. I asked our supporters if they could ask you any question what they would ask you and by far the most popular was “how is your lovely daughter Bella doing?”

Santorum: She’s doing much better. Almost back to good as new.

Peters: Wonderful! And the second question was, a lot of our supporters are trying to figure out what they can do to continue to influence the primary and the general election positively. They’re passionate about your candidacy, your issues – what can they do to stay in the game?

Santorum: We’ll be announcing something very soon. So stay tuned.

So there you have it! Thanks again, everyone for your fast input. I’ll have more on Rick’s special “announcement” when it happens.

I also have to give a special shout-out to Rachel Campos-Duffy who did an amazing job of emceeing the prayer breakfast! You can browse her recent blog posts for CatholicVote right here.