Over the Top: Al Smith Dinner

Okay, I knew Obama had been invited to the Al Smith dinner/fundraiser thing, and I even signed the petition to disinvite him via the ChurchMilitant.TV page. Below is the Vortex episode that discusses this issue. Click here to sign the petition.

But in the meantime, now I see that, not only is Obama invited, he is the keynote speaker! (Okay, he’s one of two keynote speakers – the other being Mitt Romney.)

There is no way Obama should be given a platform to speak at this dinner. No way. It is wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

And I’m a little irate about it, too. 

The script:

We’d like to begin today with a section from the Church’s Code of Canon Law. It’s from Canon 212:

§2 The Christian faithful are free to make known to the pastors of the Church their needs, especially spiritual ones, and their desires.

§3 According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful…

Following on from this, we’d like to invite you to join a petition we are organizing for respectful submission to the Archdiocese of New York to request the leaders of the New

York Archdiocese to rescind their invitation to Obama to attend the annual Al Smith dinner. For Obama to be seen hobnobbing and glad-handing and all smiles and jokes and pats on the back with Cardinal Timothy Dolan will be a source of great scandal and confusion for untold numbers of Catholic faithful as well as many others of good will.

Therefore:

We the undersigned respectfully request that the invitation to Barack Obama to be a guest at this year’s annual Al Smith charity fundraising dinner be withdrawn immediately.

Barack Obama has proven himself to be an aggressive adversary of the Catholic Church with regard to numerous policies put forth under his administration.

These include, but are not limited to, his forceful efforts to advance the intrinsic evil of abortion on demand both domestically and internationally; his antagonistic and ruthless efforts to force the intrinsic evils of contraception and sterilization on poor nations through financial enticements and threats; his continued policy of directing US tax dollars to such organizations as Planned Parenthood which traffic in the currency of numerous intrinsic evils.

Moreover, Barack Obama has lied numerous times, including his controversial appearance at Notre Dame in 2009, about attempts to reach so-called common ground with the Catholic Church on matters including protection of conscience rights for health care workers.

His most recent legal efforts to force Catholic institutions to act against their consciences and pay for contraception and abortion inducing birth control products underscore his total belligerence toward the Catholic Church and Her teachings.

As such, the appearance of Barack Obama – such an openly hostile opponent of the

Church – at a Catholic gala attended by high-ranking Catholic clergy would be a massive insult to untold numbers of the faithful who have fought this man’s advancement of one intrinsic evil after another.

In addition to matters of life, Barack Obama has orchestrated a militant effort against the sacredness of marriage by supporting, promoting and advancing the intrinsic evil of same-sex so-called marriage at home and abroad. He has directed the full might and force of the federal government to impose its will on the Catholic Church in limiting and restricting Her rights and responsibilities to carry out the corporal works of mercy in the areas of adoption services, and ministering to US military personnel who are Catholic.

We therefore respectfully request that Barack Obama’s invitation be rescinded without delay and a sense of proper decorum restored.

Now, it’s very important to note that in 1996, Cardinal John O’Connor, the archbishop of New York at the time, would not allow then-President Bill Clinton to be extended an invitation to the Al Smith Dinner specifically because of his pro-abortion stance and policies.

So how is it that 16 years ago, a sitting president was denied an invitation to the dinner because he had the blood of pre-born children on his hands, but now that doesn’t seem to matter?

And recall that in 1996, Bill Clinton was exhibiting none of same intense anti-Catholic policies as Barack Obama is today. The bishops of the United States saw no need to sue their president. They saw no need to try and rally Catholics from coast to coast in a two-week effort of prayer and mobilization against the sitting president’s policies. They saw no need to launch an intense media blitz – writing articles and appearing on large numbers of TV and radio shows and newscasts.

The stakes were nowhere near as high 16 years ago as they are today. Yet in that relatively subdued environment, the then Cardinal of New York stood up and said, “NO, Mr. President, you cannot come to the dinner.”

Yet today, with seemingly everything on the line, and a president who has demonstrated nothing less than a thinly veiled disgust of the Catholic Church and Her teachings, who is actively involved in a lawsuit against Her – THIS man gets the red carpet rolled out for him. And yes, there is a red carpet at the dinner.

Obama is of course glad to mingle with those he considers his enemies because it fits perfectly well his political calculus. He gets the photo op he wants to shove in the face of those Catholic who oppose him, while at the same time giving him the perfect weapon to sow bewilderment among others.

In one fell swoop, Obama gets to make his opponents look like buffoons AND score political points by showing everyone the nice picture of him and Cardinal Dolan smiling and back-slapping.

Talk about killing two birds with one stone…and at least one of those birds will be a Cardinal.

Please sign the petition and encourage anyone and everyone else you know to sign it and pass in on as well.

We keep hearing from Church leaders today to reclaim our Catholic identity which has been stolen from us because THEIR predecessors did not pass on the faith. Well, here’s a very easy way to begin to assert that identity.

Just click on the link to sign.