“Obama and the bishops are talking the same platform”
19th November 2008
About 50 pro-life protesters held signs and conducted a candlelight prayer vigil on the sidewalk outside the gates of St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo a week ago today as Pepperdine University law professor Douglas Kmiec, a prominent Republican and Catholic who endorsed Sen. Barack Obama during the presidential campaign, spoke inside.
A press release from one of the pro-life organizations represented at the sidewalk protest stated: “Obama is the most radical pro-abortion member of the Senate and will be the most radical pro-abortion president… It was wrong for Kmiec, a supposedly pro-life Catholic, to support him. It was wrong for Cardinal Mahony to pal around with Kmiec and invite (or permit his underlings to invite) Kmiec to a Catholic seminary to spread his moral sophistry and betrayal of Catholic teaching.”
Kmiec was introduced to the audience of about 300 by Fr. Richard Benson, C.M., academic dean of St. John’s. Professor Kmiec elicited laughter by mentioning the reaction of people in other parts of the country to the name of his home parish: Our Lady of Malibu. He also established his “Catholic credentials” by mentioning his past work as a professor and dean at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. After a few more jokes, Kmiec noted, “American Catholics have chosen the popular vote winner for the last 10 presidential elections.” This means, Kmiec explained, that “we are not in anybody’s pocket” and that “we have given real meaning to [Pope] John Paul’s wonderful [teaching] where he said that Catholicism is not an ideology; it transcends political parties.”
Later in the talk, Kmiec described meeting Obama at a forum for “faith leaders in Chicago.” Kmiec described how he had challenged Obama about his statement that the senator wouldn’t want his daughter to be “punished with a baby.” Kmiec recounted: “So I said to him: ‘What in the world are you thinking?’ [He asked me] ‘…how many children do you have?’ I said ‘five.’ He said, ‘When your wife first told you that she was with child, how did you feel?’ I said ‘great.’ Then he said: ‘There are some people who don’t have… [much], who don’t have a husband, who are… just barely knowing where they’re going to eat… and the announcement to them of a child coming is… [not great].’”
Kmiec described another exchange at the same meeting in which Franklin Graham (son of famed Protestant evangelist Billy Graham) asked Obama whether or not the senator believed that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Obama paused, said Kmiec, and responded: “No, I believe He’s my way.” Graham shook his head and asked again, “Is He the Way?” After another pause, Obama mentioned that the person who had been a “great Christian witness” in his life was his mother, and she never practiced [traditional Christianity]. Yet, he believed, God would find a way for her to be saved. In response to that exchange, Kmiec said, “I never doubted the senator’s faith again.”
Kmiec described another exchange he had with Obama: “I think Obama ought to accept… [the pro-life argument from Natural Law Theory]. I told him as much. And his reply is to say: ‘I see my duty as wider than just your faith tradition. I respect your views, but I also have to respect theirs [those who don’t believe abortion is wrong].’ And so he finds himself in this far left secularist position… to respect the choice of the mother.”
Kmiec said attempts by past Republican presidents to appoint justices friendlier to the pro-life cause to the Supreme Court have met with failure. He mentioned justices O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter -- all appointed by Republican presidents and who voted to affirm Roe vs. Wade. He did not mention justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito or Roberts. Kmiec’s point was that using legal means to advance the pro-life cause was not succeeding, so our time and attention would be better spent on cultural and economic means of reducing abortion.
The biggest division among the bishops, said Kmiec, was “over the question of whether the protection of human life must come only from cultural and economic resources or only from legal approaches.” And, he continued, “Cardinal George, the president of the Bishops’ Conference said, ‘Let’s do both.’” Kmiec said that “except for the abortion issue, Obama and the bishops are talking the same platform.”
After a brief break, Kmiec took three questions from the audience, one of which mentioned Obama’s support for the Freedom of Choice Act. Kmiec responded, “Most of what I’ve been told by members of Congress is that that bill will never make it out of the House…”
According to a report on the lecture from Catholic News Agency, a priest in the audience proposed a hypothetical situation in which Kmiec has a telephone conversation with Pope Benedict. The priest asked whether Kmiec would ask for further explanation of the letter to the U.S. bishops concerning proportionality in voting decisions. Kmiec responded that, if the pope said, “Doug, you’re wrong,” he would then have to tear out the first 174 pages of his pro-Obama book (Can a Catholic Support Him?) and stand with the magisterium.
Source:California Catholic Daily