E. J. Dionne has an oped in today's Washington Post that examines the official reaction to the extremist elements in the Notre Dame address controversy.
We now know that the reaction of right-wing Catholics to Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama falls into the category of "more Catholic than the pope."
In a report on the Vatican response, Dionne notes that:
The article will strengthen the liberal claim that the Catholic right's over-the-top response is rooted at least as much in Republican and conservative politics as in concern over the abortion question.
It seems that both the Vatican, and a prominent Catholic publication, America Magazine, are calling out the protesters who are raising a large stink about the invitation to the President to address the graduating class and snag an honorary degree along the way.
The consternation on the right over the Vatican article was immediate. Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee in the United States, told LifeSiteNews.com that L'Osservatore's assessment was "not helpful" and that "there's nothing middle of the road about the substantive policies that this administration is pursuing on life issues."
Largely lost in the Notre Dame furor is the extent to which the ferocity on the Catholic right has emboldened moderate and liberal Catholics to fight back.
The current issue of America magazine, published by the Jesuits, includes a sharply worded editorial criticizing the "divisive effects of the new American sectarians" which "have not escaped the notice of the Vatican."
"Their highly partisan political edge has become a matter of concern," the editors write. "That they never demonstrate the same high dudgeon at the compromises, unfulfilled promises and policy disagreements with Republican politicians as with Democratic ones is plain for all to see. It is time to call this one-sided denunciation by its proper name: political partisanship."
The Jesuit Fathers also note, in an editorial:
The clouds roll with thunder, the House of the Lord shall be built throughout the earth, and these frogs sit in their marsh and croak—‘We are the only Christians!’" So wrote St. Augustine about the Donatists, a perfectionist North African sect that attempted to keep the church free of contamination by having no truck with Roman officialdom. In the United States today, self-appointed watchdogs of orthodoxy, like Randall Terry and the Cardinal Newman Society, push mightily for a pure church quite unlike the mixed community of saints and sinners—the Catholic Church—that Augustine championed. Like the Circumcellions of old, they thrive on slash-and-burn tactics; and they refuse to allow the church to be contaminated by contact with certain politicians.
The good Fathers then call out the extreme right wing with the following observation:
For today’s sectarians, it is not adherence to the church’s doctrine on the evil of abortion that counts for orthodoxy, but adherence to a particular political program and fierce opposition to any proposal short of that program. They scorn Augustine’s inclusive, forgiving, big-church Catholics, who will not know which of them belongs to the City of God until God himself separates the tares from the wheat. Their tactics, and their attitudes, threaten the unity of the Catholic Church in the United States, the effectiveness of its mission and the credibility of its pro-life activities.
(Highlights added)
Even the Vatican and the Jesuits are beginning to push back against the absurd rigidity of the right wing Catholics. Now...where is the sane and rational Protestant leader who will do the same? It is not enought to think the right wing is too absurd to be given a serious challenge. The media, seeking controversy no matter how small a segment it represents, gives weight to the fringe.
As an atheist, I have no truck with the arcane workings of the various church organizations. But I have thought for far too long that the lunatic fringe was creating the impression that they represented Christianity, just as the Taliban created the impression that they represent Islam.
I am delighted to see this official push back from the sane in the hierarchy.