The majority speaks

This just in, from the Dept. of Things We’ve Been Waiting to Hear (But Haven’t) for Months … You all remember the dust-up in May over President Obama’s honorary degree from Notre Dame. Some 75 or 80 U.S. bishops publicly blasted Notre Dame for the honor, saying a pro-choice president has no business get a […]

This just in, from the Dept. of Things We’ve Been Waiting to Hear (But Haven’t) for Months …

You all remember the dust-up in May over President Obama’s honorary degree from Notre Dame. Some 75 or 80 U.S. bishops publicly blasted Notre Dame for the honor, saying a pro-choice president has no business get a degree of any kind of a Catholic institution.

But there’s something like 300 or so bishops in the U.S., and many wondered where the other 225 bishops were. Turns out, according to Tom Roberts at National Catholic Reporter, they were seething at the public display of their fellow bishops.


Roberts sat down with Archbishop Michael Sheehan of Santa Fe, N.M. — as wise, thoughtful and kind a bishop as I’ve ever encountered — for the back story. From Tom’s report:

Asked if there were any other bishops who agreed with him, (Sheehan) said, “Of course, the majority.”

He was asked why none of the bishops who disagreed with the protests that dominated the news for weeks had spoken up.

“The bishops don’t want to have a battle in public with each other, but I think the majority of bishops in the country didn’t join in with that, would not be in agreement with that approach. It’s well intentioned, but we don’t lose our dignity by being strong in the belief that we have but also talking to others that don’t have our belief. We don’t lose our dignity by that,” he said.

“We’d be like the Amish, you know, kind of isolated from society, if we kept pulling back because of a single issue.”

And then there’s this, revisting the so-called “wafer wars” of 2004 when the church tied itself into knots on whether to deny Communion to (pro-choice) Sen. John Kerry and other Democrats:


“I seek to teach, to teach, and not to use sanctions. To teach, to talk to people. Like I say, we got more done this year with the state legislature by connecting with people and by saying our piece in a hopefully reasonable, and not an emotional and hysterical, way. Hysterical activity doesn’t bear fruit, and there’s been some hysteria in these areas.”

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