Bogus Claim of War Against Catholics

I'm not sure where he is getting his information from, but Michael Gerson has a whiny column in the Washington Post alleging that Barack Obama has "declared war" on Catholics. It seems that Gerson must be listening too much to nutcase William Donohue of the Catholic League and members of the morally bankrupt Church hierarchy rather than rank and file Catholics who, according to a new Gallup survey do not support the Vatican's take on many issues to the extent some would have you believe. Much of the noise seems to derive from Obama's scheduled visit to Notre Dame to give the commencement address. It would seem to me that the outrage - both real and feigned - would be better directed towards demanding mass resignations of the bishops, cardinals and the Pope who enabled or covered up for sexual predator priests. But that would require independent thinking - something that is abhorrent to traditionalist Catholics. First some highlights from Gerson's column:
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Some friends who are loyal alumni of Notre Dame are distressed that God's alma mater is hosting a pro-choice president at commencement. For decades, they argue, Notre Dame has accommodated, legitimated and enabled pro-choice views, compromising its identity as a Catholic institution. They question the wisdom of the Obama invitation, which they believe adds to that confusion. But some critics go further, calling President Obama's appearance "an outrage and a scandal." And that goes too far.
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A number of Catholic thinkers set out a "pro-life, pro-Obama" position -- disagreeing with Obama's pro-choice views but trusting in his moderate instincts and conciliatory temperament.So far, Obama has done little to justify this faith. His initial actions on life issues -- funding overseas abortion providers, removing restrictions from federally funded medical experimentation on human embryos, revisiting conscience protections for pro-life health-care professionals -- have ranged from conventional to radical.
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Catholics are having second thoughts, but it could get much worse. If the president and Congress are not careful on several issues, these concerns could open a major rift between the Catholic Church and the Democratic Party. First, Obama has raised deep concerns among Catholic leaders by signaling that he will overturn Bush's executive order protecting health workers from firing and discrimination if they refuse to perform actions they consider morally objectionable.
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I think the key words in Gerson's column is "Catholic leaders" which most likely means the hierarchy and the William Donohue style of Catholics who seem to think they are always being persecuted even when they are the ones doing the persecution. I suspect that Gerson needs to stop listening to the same Church officials who claimed they knew nothing about the rampant sex abuse problem within the church. They lied about that and they are lying now. Here are some findings from Gallup:
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PRINCETON, NJ -- Despite the Roman Catholic Church's official opposition to abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, a Gallup analysis finds almost no difference between rank-and-file American Catholics and American non-Catholics in terms of finding the two issues morally acceptable.
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The argument of those who protest the extension of the invitation to Obama [to speak at Notre Dame] is that Catholics have a distinctly conservative position on these moral issues. That is certainly the case as far as official church doctrine is concerned, but not when it comes to average American Catholics. The new Gallup analysis, based on aggregated data from Gallup's 2006-2008 Values and Beliefs surveys, indicates that Catholics in the United States today are actually more liberal than the non-Catholic population on a number of moral issues, and on others, Catholics have generally the same attitudes.
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Catholics are at least slightly more liberal than non-Catholics on the issues of gambling (an issue to which the Catholic church is not totally opposed), sex between an unmarried man and woman, homosexual relations, and having a baby out of wedlock. Catholics are essentially tied with non-Catholics on the moral acceptability of abortion, divorce, and stem-cell research using human embryos.