The Election as Viewed From the Vatican

John Allen's on-line report, The Word from Rome, which is part of a regular series on events in the Vatican for the National Catholic Reporter, describes the Vaticans informal talk-around-the-water-cooler reaction to the results of the American presidential election.

First, the election of President Bush, which was brought about at least in part by the approval of voters in key states for his endorsement of moral views that comport with orthodox Christian teaching (i.e., opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion) as sharply (and positively) was viewed by Vatican insiders as standing in sharp and favorable contrast with the apparent European antipathy toward permitting individuals with traditional religious beliefs to hold governmental office. In a recent posting, Rick Garnett noted the recent episode in which Italys minister of European affairs, Rocco Buttiglione, a faithful Catholic who agrees with the Churchs teachings on homosexual conduct as being disordered (while eschewing any legal sanction against it), was excluded from his anticipated appointment to justice minister of the European Union.

Second, Vatican leaders are relieved that the Church will not constantly be confronted by the problems attendant to having a professing Catholic president who by his policies and pronouncements regularly contradicts Church teaching on abortion, stem-cell research, etc. (To the extent that the Vaticans relief is because the Church has been spared the scandal of a pro-abortion Catholic in the White House, I certainly share that sentiment. But the Church is not thereby spared from the difficult work of determining how better to engage with and challenge those politicians who claim communion on Sunday but reject it during the week when faced with sanctity-of-life questions. To be sure, we all now can move forward on those questions with careful deliberation and with somewhat lessened urgency, but the questions cannot be evaded nor in the end are they any less difficult.)

Greg Sisk