July 10, 2009
President Obama received a warm welcome at the Vatican on Friday in his first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI. Indeed, the Vatican has generally seemed more eager to form a relationship with Mr. Obama than many American bishops, who have been cooler because he differs from the church on abortion and other reproductive issues. The invitation Mr. Obama received to deliver the commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame, for instance, triggered strong public condemnation from conservative bishops.
Why does the American Catholic leadership seem to be focused on abortion, while the Vatican appears willing to view that issue as merely one among many on which to judge a political leader?
The Chasm Is There
Colleen Carroll Campbell is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the author of “The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy” and host of “Faith & Culture,” a TV and radio show that airs on EWTN.
Given President Barack Obama’s recent clashes with American bishops and pro-life Catholics, it’s understandable that his administration has sought to cast today’s meeting with Pope Benedict XVI as evidence of a papal endorsement. In reality, Benedict’s decision to welcome President Obama for a 25-minute encounter in the papal library is hardly remarkable.
It’s unsurprising that Benedict would welcome an opportunity to chat face-to-face with the leader of the world’s sole remaining superpower. He did the same with President George W. Bush three times, most recently in 2008, when Benedict took the unusual step of welcoming Mr. Bush to the Vatican Gardens, a site traditionally reserved for intimate meetings with friends.
As with George W. Bush, Benedict can find points of convergence between his priorities and those of President Obama. But the points of divergence between the two men — namely, on the “life issues” of abortion, embryonic research and euthanasia — are more fundamental than his differences with George Bush.
As the future pope explained in a letter to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick during the 2004 election, the defense of innocent human life from conception to natural death is a non-negotiable moral imperative in the eyes of the Church. “Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia,” he wrote. “There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.”
Anyone who regards focus on the life issues as a peculiar concern of American bishops should read Benedict’s new encyclical, “Charity in Truth,” which he presented to President Obama on Friday, along with a Vatican document on bioethics. Although intended to address the global economic crisis, the encyclical includes nearly a dozen passages reiterating Catholic teaching that the right to life of the innocent human person — both born and unborn — is the foundational principle upon which all other social policy must rest.
Benedict’s meeting with President Obama cannot erase the deep chasm that exists between them on the question of which human lives deserve protection. That chasm was not created by the American bishops, and it cannot be repaired by mere photo ops or facile talk of “common ground.”