Yesterday, in Al Smith Scandal?, Anna Williams wrote on the controversial invitation to President Obama to attend the annual Al Smith Dinner. Offering a more critical response are our friends at the Human Life Review, who just posted an article from the upcoming issue which, though written before the invitation, addresses the question.
In Sleeping With the Enemy?, George McKenna reflects on the Church’s relation with the state and particularly with politicians who promote policies in opposition to the moral law and the Church’s freedom. At this point in our history, he argues, a “certain kind of etiquette ought to prevail when representatives of church and state meet with each other.”
The generally philo-Catholic attitude of the last century’s Washington politicians may have produced an excessively cordial relationship between the two estates. One thinks of the annual Al Smith dinners, where presidents and would-be presidents roast and backslap each other as they confabulate with clergy, pundits, and celebrity lawmakers.
In the current era this may be drawing to a close—on two occasions, in 1996 and 2004, neither presidential candidate got invited, apparently because of flare-ups on the abortion issue. And that is as it should be. Is it possible that Obama thought he could roll the bishops on the mandate because, on the basis of his reception at Georgetown and Notre Dame, his charm would be enough to subdue them?
Whatever the case, I would like to see a somewhat cooler atmosphere prevail when prelates meet with politicians. In the language of old-fashioned diplomacy, I would think that a “correct” relationship would be enough. If Jesus was right to draw a distinction between the respective “things” of God and Caesar, it follows that our shepherds need to keep a sharp eye out for people who want to grab things that don’t belong to them. This requires great attentiveness and sobriety, because some of those people have learned to wear the clothing of our flock.
It’s a vexing question. I don’t have a settled view on it. Much of the problem is the nature of the Al Smith Dinner, which is a Catholic social event and at the same time an independent fund-raising event. It’s both like a dinner party you give in your home for good friends and like a Lenten Friday fish dinner in the church hall your parish offers the community to make money. It’s a social event, but one blending two different kinds of relation. It’s a fund-raiser, yes, but it’s a Catholic party as well.
But though I understand the cardinal’s reasoning, which treats the dinner like the dinner in the church hall, there are times that making such careful distinctions hurts as much as it helps, or more than it helps. An invitation may not in strict fact convey approval of a politician’s policies, but an invitation to an affair like the Al Smith Dinner, because it is in some ways like the dinner party in your home, does say that he has not gone too far, that he’s enough of a friend to have, and have at the head table, even though he advocates abortion and homosexual marriage and assaults (not too strong a word) the Church’s freedom and integrity.
As I say, I don’t have a settled view on this. But if I were hosting such an event, I wouldn’t be comfortable inviting the president. The invitation may not, strictly speaking, convey approval, but it does in fact because so many people within and without the Church understand the nature of the differences and will wonder why the Church doesn’t seem to. Without more confidence that I ought to invite the president, I’d think prudence requires me not to.
August 16th, 2012 | 2:55 pm
If I recall correctly, part of the reason for honoring Al Smith is that he was the target of some very vicious anti-Catholic bigotry when he ran for President in the 1920′s.
I thought the idea of having a prominent dinner under the banner of Al Smith and inviting presidential nominees was to counter the idea that Catholics should be shut out of public life as un-American.
So now, have we come full circle? Is there something about American politicians and public life that really is at odds with Catholicism and Christianity to such an extent that we need to withdraw from friendly interactions with our nation’s leaders?
Maybe the anti-Catholics of the 1920′s were being unwittingly prophetic in their insistence that a Catholic could not be a “good American.” If we look at the un-Christian (and even anti-Christian) values and culture that our country more and more embraces perhaps they are right.
August 16th, 2012 | 4:01 pm
Hello, Slats Grobnik,
I think the Church must withdraw from interactions with political leaders who personify the anti-life, anti-Christian, deification of the state if that interaction will signal approval of that or in any way tend to legitimize that in the minds of Christians.
Emperor worship was a genuine threat to Christianity. Cyprian’s Exhortation to Martyrdom makes clear that he saw the worship of false gods for what it was — an assault on the very life of the Church. The current deification of the state, where Caesar claims for himself authority over innocent human life that belongs only to God, overruling His command, “Thou shalt not kill,” is no less a threat, but the Cyprian of our times has yet to appear and exhort us to be loyal to Christ before all else and not to count the cost of doing so. We don’t even have as yet a Cardinal Clemens von Galen, who bluntly announced to Catholics in Germany in August of 1941, “Woe to mankind, woe to our German nation if God’s Holy Commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ which God proclaimed on Mount Sinai amidst thunder and lightning, which God our Creator inscribed in the conscience of mankind from the very beginning, is not only broken, but if this transgression is actually tolerated and permitted to go unpunished.” (‘Woe to mankind’ indeed, considering what followed over the next several years.)
Where is our Cyprian, Our Blessed Clemens von Galen, exhorting us to resist? They have not yet appeared, but resist we must. That resistance will probably cost us very much in terms of temporal things, but, I suspect, will enrich us spiritually beyond our wildest expectations and ultimately will do much to re-Christianize what has been lost since the “Enlightenment.”
August 16th, 2012 | 4:46 pm
And yet Saint Cyprian fled Carthage as persecution raged, not because he was a coward but because he discerned at the time Carthage needed a bishop more than it did a martyr. It would be later in which the great Cyprian discerned that now was the time for him to give witness with his life.
One of the ‘funny’ things that Cyprian had to face was the ‘influence’ of the Confessors [those Christians who had been imprisoned for the faith but released before they were martyred. In Cyprian’s time, the kind of set themselves up a ‘superior Christians’ who had more ‘power, influence and authority’ than the bishops. However, as Cyprian would write in his “UNity of the Church” it is the bishops ,in union with the bishop of Rome, who are the real mainstay of the Church, not only preserving apostolic succession but the unity of the Church.
As for dealing with ‘the Emperor’, we have a different example rather than ‘resistance’. The unnamed author of the Letter to Diognetus is a beautiful as well as full description of exactly who Christians were and what they represented to the Roman Empire: ‘what the soul is to the body, Christians are to the world’. Diognetus is not the real name of the person receiving ‘the apologia-letter’. The real person was none other than the Emperor himself, Marcus Aurelius, who was a great persecutor of the Church as philosophical and ‘enlightened’ as he was.
The early Church as well as the Church today seeks to continue Her mission which is one in which She engages the world. We are not a ‘sect’,nor ever have been a ‘pure Church’. However, we are the Catholic Church, and as Cardinal George recently stated,
“Catholics are those who gather with the bishops in union with the pope”
August 16th, 2012 | 5:34 pm
Hi, Botolph,
I don’t think all of the confessors “set themselves up a ‘superior Christians’ who had more ‘power, influence and authority’ than the bishops.” Some did, and were indeed nuisances to the bishops. ;o) I suspect most of them were good people as they ended up in prison for Jesus’ sake.
And yes, “it is the bishops, in union with the bishop of Rome, who are the real mainstay of the Church, not only preserving apostolic succession but the unity of the Church.” That arrangement is what the Holy Spirit has preserved in the Church from the beginning, although Catholics should be familiar with St. Vincent of Lerins’ prescriptions for discerning orthodoxy, as there have been times when the faithful had to look further than their own bishop for it, as was the case when the English bishops didn’t take the path of Thomas More and John Fisher, and as was the case when many bishops embraced Arianism.
I am not sure I understand your point about resistance, but what I mean by it is non-violent, passive resistance as opposed to aggression. The Early Church converted the world by absorbing violence after the example of Christ, not by inflicting it on others.
One can resist Caesar’s efforts to involve the Church in the provision and distribution of abortifacients non-violently.
August 16th, 2012 | 7:26 pm
This one is not difficult. Whatever distinctions one makes regarding endorsing or not endorsing a candidate or his view, as well as between working together when possible/needed vs getting together for social events, there comes a time when one loses dignity, respect of others and ultimately self-respect when catering to someone openly attacking or mocking you, and more importantly those in your care. Catholics in the US, and most particularly in NY are in Cardinal Dolan’s care. It cannot be argued that Obama is not heading up the most significant attack against the Church in decades if not in our country’s history, and given that it is unseemly to invite him to a Church celebration. Cardinal Dolan has been a leader in responding to the Obama attack on the Church but in this instance he has stumbled.
August 17th, 2012 | 4:46 am
I think there is a lesson to be drawn from the history of the Church in France from 1870 to 1940.
The spiritual mission of the Church was gravely hampered, during that period, by the open hostility of most Catholics to the Republic, which neatly matched the anti-clericalism of the bouffeurs de curé. Despite the laws laicising public education and the dissolution of the religious orders, Leo XIII had exhorted Catholic to “rally to the Republic,” explaining that a distinction must be drawn between the form of government, which ought to be accepted, and its laws which ought to be improved, only to be accused by the Catholic press of “kissing the feet of their executioners.” In 1940, alas, too many Catholics rallied, not to the Republic, but to Vichy. After the Liberation most of the leaders of the Catholic political parties were in jail, a few were shot and the rest fled abroad. It was De Gaulle and the Fifth Republic that began to heal the divisions.
The state of the Church in France today owes much to this bitter legacy of turning faith into faction.
August 17th, 2012 | 10:43 am
Michael PS – what is the lesson you want us to draw from this history lesson in France? I agree that having the Church should avoid factionalism, but Catholics do have a duty to speak out on issues of justice.
The Democrats have a policy of supporting abortion and the Republicans have a policy against it. Over a million children are killed by abortion every year in our country, we have one of the highest rates in the developed world. The Democrats are in favor of requiring Churches to submit to government policies that violate its teachings, the Republicans are against it. Should the Church be neutral about these issues for fear of factionalism?
I don’t think anyone here is saying they don’t accept the “form of government” in the US (perhaps I am wrong). Instead I think they are saying they don’t support President Obama or the Democratic party. They’d be happy with a different President and with different laws.
August 17th, 2012 | 12:49 pm
Sally Rogers
The remedy proposed by Leo XIII and most (not all) of the hierarchy was fourfold
1) Frank and loyal acceptance of political institutions.
2) Respect for the laws of the country whenever they do not clash with conscientious obligations.
3) Respect for the representatives of authority.
4) Steady resistance to all encroachments on the spiritual domain.
In France, unfortunately, the first three were simply ignored. Most Catholics regarded the state as destitute of moral authority and its representatives as usurpers and tyrants. This reached its climax, when Léon Blum, the Socialist leader was dragged from his car and nearly beaten to death by Catholic activists (the Camelots du Roi)
As for the fourth, nothing would content them but a recognition by the state of the Church as the spiritual power and the bulwark of social order, perhaps, most cynically expressed in the the Catholic atheism of Charles Maurras and l’action française.
One can see the beginnings (only the beginnings) of the same poisonous atmosphere, when one commentator on this thread can pose the question, “Is there something about American politicians and public life that really is at odds with Catholicism and Christianity to such an extent that we need to withdraw from friendly interactions with our nation’s leaders?” only to receive an equivocal answer. This is very close to a sort of communitarianism, with religious solidarities and allegiances threatening to override republican unity.
August 17th, 2012 | 12:56 pm
Hello, Sally Rogers,
You are right concerning myself. The Founders had an amazingly good idea, founding a government the central purpose of which was to protect the inalienable, God-given rights of humanity, as is made clear by our primary and most authoritative legal document, the Declaration of Independence.
That the DOI is our most authoritative legal document was demonstrated by John Quincy Adams’ arguments in the famous Amistad case, which were so irrefutable that a Supreme Court consisting of a majority of slave-holders had no choice but to acknowledge the authority of the DOI and free the slaves Adams was defending.
Modern atheistic jurisprudence, of course, has no choice but to deny that the DOI is our primary legal document, and must deny that it is even a legal document at all, as there is no such thing as inalienable, God-given rights under atheism; there is only the deified Caesar-given rights bestowed upon humanity and withdrawn from it according to the whims of those currently holding the reins of power in the modern, radically secularized, defied state.
I should say I accept the original “form of government” in the U.S.
August 17th, 2012 | 2:30 pm
This is very close to a sort of communitarianism, with religious solidarities and allegiances threatening to override republican unity.
So the ultimate ideal is the maintenance of republican unity? Not obedience to Christ. Not defending and caring for Him in His least brothers and sisters. Not bringing an end to blatant, brutal, lethal violations of human dignity. Not any of that, but maintaining republican unity is our primary goal.
I suppose then that the reestablishment of Christendom, and by Christendom I mean nations with a right and just relationship between Church and state, is completely off of the radar, if that would disturb contemporary republican unity.
Obtaining Heaven? Avoiding Hell? Trivialities. The meaning of life, the Universe and everything is the maintenance of republican unity. I got it.
But what about the fervent prayer of Jesus, that we would be one even as He and the Father are One? Might not that solidarity with each other and the allegiance to each other His prayer being answered would bring to us – you know, those “religious solidarities and allegiances threatening to override republican unity” – might not they do just that? But what kind of minor thing is the clearly expressed will of God compared to the maintenance of republican unity? Right?
August 17th, 2012 | 3:00 pm
Michael:
We’re talking here about whether it’s wise to invite a politician to a friendly, comical dinner party when that politician is on record supporting unlimited abortions and policies that limit church autonomy regarding sinful conduct.
I can’t imagine that Leo XIII would say that holding such a dinner party is a moral imperative, much less inviting politicians who advocate immoral and unjust policies.
No one is arguing in favor of establishing the Catholic Church as the official religion of the US, nor of over-throwing our political institutions. It’s about a public perception that cozying up to politicians who advocate immoral actions is not a good idea.
I don’t believe that withdrawing from such unnecessary and frivolous interactions is a threat to our nation, or to the standing of the Church. Perhaps you are over-reaching in drawing parallels to French history.
That said, I really don’t have a strong feeling about the Al Smith dinner. Compared to other problems we are facing, it’s relatively unimportant.
August 18th, 2012 | 5:53 am
One recalls the mocking words of Laberthonnière, the Oratorian and friend of Blondel, to the Catholics of his day
“The triumph of the Church in society? That would be excellent. At least, it is necessary to examine by what means our religion permits us to pursue it. Moreover, it has not been promised us. And then, it is not, perhaps, the most pressing of our tasks… Her [the Church's] power does not consist in giving orders, to which external obedience is required, backed up by threats or favours. Her power is to raise souls to the life above. It is to give birth to and to cultivate in consciences the supernaturalising obligation to live for God and for others, through Christ, and to pass through defeats in time to a triumph that is timeless.
Do not indulge in childish dreams, when you have in your grasp eternal realities that invite you. Understand, all you who would triumph and reign on earth – Et nunc, reges, intellegite.”
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