Well, in the past week or two, we've seen a couple examples of how the right-wing of the GOP is even more wingnutty than the Vatican. Today, in Jordan, Pope Benedict XVI visited a mosque and spoke out against divisions between Muslims and Christians.
The Holy Father expressed concern at the fact that some people "assert that religion is necessarily a cause of division in our world". Yet, he asked, "is it not also the case that often it is the ideological manipulation of religion, sometimes for political ends, that is the real catalyst for tension and division, and at times even violence in society?"
The New York Times adds this report:
Visiting a mosque on the second day of his closely watched first visit to the Holy Land, Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday denounced the "ideological manipulation of religion" and called for greater understanding between the Christian and Muslim faiths.
This is the second time in a little less than two weeks that the Vatican has spoken out in favor of religious tolerance, against the use of religion to drive ideological battles, and called for an easing of tensions between Christians and Muslims.
E.J. Dionne wrote about it earlier this week:
You have heard the expression "more Catholic than the pope." We now know that the reaction of right-wing Catholics to Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama falls into this category.
To the dismay of many conservatives, the Vatican's own newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, has offered what one anti-abortion Catholic blog called "a surprisingly positive assessment of the new president's approach to life issues" — so positive, in fact, that a spokesman for the National Right to Life Committee was moved to criticize Pope Benedict XVI's daily.
The Vatican newspaper offered its analysis at a time when Catholic liberals and conservatives are battling fiercely over Notre Dame's decision to invite the president as this year's commencement speaker and to grant him an honorary degree. 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.
The April 29 essay by Giuseppe Fiorentino, L'Osservatore's frequent foreign affairs contributor, painted Obama as a moderate on many fronts. "Some have accused him of practicing excessive statism," Fiorentino wrote, "if not even of making the country drift toward socialism." But "a calmer analysis," he said, suggests that Obama "has moved with caution." (I rely here on a translation of the article posted Wednesday on the Vatican's official Web site.)
On abortion and the other life issues, the article concluded that Obama "does not seem to have established the radical changes that he had aired."
And, taking a closer look at the actual editorial, we see that it goes even further than Dionne to ease the harsh rhetoric condemning the new president and his positions on issues from economic policy to stem cell research. The editorial, titled Obama in the White House: 100 Days that Didn't Shake the World, gently scolds the American episcopate for its hardline stance against the President:
Even on ethical questions over which the Catholic episcopate has expressed strong concern from the time of his electoral campaign Obama does not seem to have established the radical changes that he had aired. The new guidelines regarding embryonic stem cell research do not in fact follow the prospected change of route laid out months ago. They do not allow for the creation of new embryos for research or therapy purposes, for cloning or reproductive ends; and federal funds can only be used for experimentation with surplus embryos.
Thus these measures do not elimate the reasons for criticism in the face of unacceptable forms of bioengineering that work against the embryo's human identity, but the new regulations are less permissive than expected.
Moreover, a definite cause for surprise was the presentation of a law designed by the Democratic party: the Pregnant Women Support Act, aimed at limiting the number of abortions in the U.S. through initiatives to assist pregnant women. While not a negation of the doctrine that Obama has conveyed up to this point regarding abortion, this legislative project could represent a rebalancing in favour of motherhood.
The Pregnant Women Support Act has become a third way between the Pro-Life movement and Pro-Choice Democrats who do not want to restrict women's reproductive rights or create an invasion of privacy by the State. Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, who heads the Committee on Pro-Life Issues in the US Council of Catholic Bishops, has recently endorsed the plan, noting that PWSA creats "an authentic common ground, an approach that people can embrace regardless of their position on other issues."
And so, while James Dobson picks on Obama for not sending an envoy to a prayer breakfast, the President is building common ground and moving beyond old divisions to create new consensus.
And Obama is sounding an awful lot like the Pope. (Or is it the other way around?)
We are reminded that because it is our common human dignity which gives rise to universal human rights, they hold equally for every man and woman, irrespective of his or her religious, social or ethnic group. In this regard, we must note that the right of religious freedom extends beyond the question of worship and includes the right - especially of minorities - to fair access to the employment market and other spheres of civic life.