Star One Smart Blog's

Denouncing American Obama idol worship..

"President Obama is a man of intelligence and some remarkable gifts. He has a great ability to inspire, as we saw from his very popular visit to Canada just this past week. But whatever his strengths, there’s no way to reinvent his record on abortion and related issues with rosy marketing about unity, hope and change. Of course, that can change. Some things really do change when a person reaches the White House. Power ennobles some men. It diminishes others. Bad policy ideas can be improved. Good policy ideas can find a way to flourish. But as Catholics, we at least need to be honest with ourselves and each other about the political facts we start with."

"Unfortunately when it comes to the current administration that will be very hard for Catholics in the United States, and here’s why.  A spirit of adulation bordering on servility already exists among some of the same Democratic-friendly Catholic writers, scholars, editors and activists who once accused prolifers of being too cozy with Republicans.  It turns out that Caesar is an equal opportunity employer."

...

"...in democracies, we elect public servants, not messiahs.  It’s worth recalling that despite two ugly wars, an unpopular Republican president, a fractured Republican party, the support of most of the American news media and massively out-spending his opponent, our new president actually trailed in the election polls the week before the economic meltdown. [Then, George Soros. -ed.] This subtracts nothing from the legitimacy of his office.  It also takes nothing away from our obligation to respect the president’s leadership.
  
"But it does place some of today’s talk about a “new American mandate” in perspective.  Americans, including many Catholics, elected a gifted man to fix an economic crisis.  That’s the mandate.  They gave nobody a mandate to retool American culture on the issues of marriage and the family, sexuality, bioethics, religion in public life and abortion.  That retooling could easily happen, and it clearly will happen -- but only if Catholics and other religious believers allow it.  It’s instructive to note that the one lesson many activists on the American cultural left learned from their loss in the 2004 election --  and then applied in 2008 -- was how to use a religious vocabulary while ignoring some of the key beliefs and values that religious people actually hold dear. "

Spoken well, Archbishop.

---