The University of Notre Dame invited President Barack Obama and Catholics were stunned. Georgetown honored HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Catholics everywhere were horrified.
Meghan Myers, the Executive Director of the annual fundraiser for Catholic Charities, told LifeSiteNews that U.S. President Barack Obama was invited to keynote the Al Smith dinner by New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
And for the life of me I can’t see why Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s invitation to President Obama to the Al Smith dinner is any different. I know the Church isn’t honoring Obama but come on. Right on the home page of the Al Smith event is this picture:
Horrifyingly, you can go to the Al Smith foundation right from the Archdiocesan website
and then just click on “dinner” and you’ll see this pic.
Why is this invitation different than Notre Dame or Georgetown’s invitations? You can say that it has nothing to do with politics and that it’s a fundraiser for children but didn’t Georgetown and Notre Dame say that it wasn’t about politics and that it was all about the students?
I’ve been to two religious freedom rallies with my kids in Philadelphia. I traveled down to Baltimore for the kickoff Mass of The Fortnight for Freedom with Archbishop Lori. And yeah, this ticks me off.
When millions of Catholics who prayed and protested for religious freedom see the pictures that will surely surface from the event with Cardinal Dolan and Obama how will they feel? Pray tell what will that do to the morale of millions of Catholics? What will that do to the pit of their stomachs?
It’s just unserious. We can say it’s all for a good cause. But its just unserious. Either those 50 million babies count as human beings or they don’t. Either marriage is worth fighting for or it’s not. Either religious freedom must be preserved or not. To say we’re taking a “time out” from politics a few weeks before election day is just unserious. And it says to millions of Catholics that we can take a time out from those important issues to yuck it up. I hope and pray that this invitation is rescinded. I’m serious.
August 11, 2012 at 2:08 pm
I am a Catholic Charities volunteer of ten years.
Pregnancy center work; I've had long-standing concerns about CC's federal funding. Very little support comes from the diocesan level. We've been compromised for years.
The "two masters" problem.
The dinner should be canceled. Else anymore talk from the church about "conscience" and "liberty" is hot air and will stink like a dog's breath.
I,too, participated in the Fortnight for Freedom events and I, too, feel like a fool, as another commenter here indicated he did also.
August 12, 2012 at 12:51 am
Were you all this upset four years ago when Obama and McCain both attended the 2008 Al Smith Dinner? How about when Al Gore and George W. Bush attended in 2000?
August 12, 2012 at 6:01 am
@ Shirley- thanks for shedding a true light on the situation. There is a prophecy that says that when the Church and the world are one then those days are upon us. I think it was a catholic monk from way back who made the prophecy. He said God put a barrier between the two for a reason.
As far as Christ dining with sinners…THEY REPENTED. Quite the opposite is going on here with faux Catholic liberals like Biden, Pelosi, et al…
As far as our Muslim sympathizing president, Jesus also said to shake the dust from your feet after leaving the place of a person who won't hear the Gospel. The 'president' has never heard or accepted this message of truth and is utterly and demonically hostile to it. Any Alfred E Smith dinner should only be given to him in a to go bag
August 12, 2012 at 5:39 pm
Imagine yourself back in 1961. Kennedy is President and the leading board member of USAID (the UN nonprofit agency which helps refugees). Now, USAID has a fund-raiser banquet in Switzerland and invites Mao Tse-Tungt and Khrushchev. The President will be there along with many communists and free thinkers from every nation of the world. All there to roast each other and have a laugh and a nice dinner with a cigar afterwards. It was confirmed by the White house press secretary, and everyone there is perplexed asking the question "Why are all the VFW's and the families and survivors of WW2 and the Korean War soldiers so upset? This is not an American dinner held in American, it has more than just Americans invited and after all, it is a night of jokes and fun. We are doing this as a fund raiser for the poor refugees. What is the big deal, let us show everyone in the world that we all love one another with Christian love because that is what it is all about. because “It gives us an opportunity to act as Christians, and show some love to our adversaries, and even those whose policies we consider to be immoral and oppressive.” yeah right!
August 13, 2012 at 4:36 am
I AM NOT GOING TO "Chill either. CANCEL THE DINNER. I cannot believe i wrote the below statement earlier, but i am just that mad and sick of the female faithful being silenced (or told to "chill" by men). I wrote it (though they did not allow it to be posted) in response to a CNA article on Archbishop Lori's 'explanation' of why it was 'okay' to have the dinner:
Et tu, Brute?
Archbishop Lori, you of all people? Please Archbishop Lori, I know you are a good man, but please see that others are not, and I am closer to believing that C. Dolan is not. His inviting Obama is just another display of his flippant attitude towards women, he is a borderline misogynist! He is certainly no scholar, a poor speaker, and when in his presence, there is nothing genuine about him. (Unlike you!)
Please see this brilliant discussion by Gloria Purvis on the mandate and how demeaning it is to women (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvoBPVsjdog&feature=related) and please start to see how the young, faithful women feel. They are out there, tens of thousands of them, but they are silenced by the ugly pervasive shadow of BITTER OLD SPINSTER ACADEMICS and OLD LIBERAL CONFUSED 'Nuns'.
@Freda
“It is a matter of real fear and concern.. The institutional c[h]urch has a year — but not the laity.”
Freda – thank you for stating this. C. Dolan has NO IDEA (whether he intentionally ignores faithful women’s concerns or is just so out of touch with reality here on the ground for faithful women) how the young, gifted, educated women are faced with leaving professions in health care after years invested in their education and residency now knowing it is not long before they are forced out by old white women and old white men bent on making them perform abortions (not to mention provide abortifacients) and now their OWN CHURCH hierarchy is expediting the process? SHAME on you C. Dolan! CANCEL THE DINNER, please!
@joxxer
“Actions speak louder than words. The message that this invitation will send to Catholics ignorant of Obama’s policies— is a message of approval”
-I submit to you that THIS IS C. Dolan’s sole intention! If R&R win, his limelight FADES A BIT, doesn’t it? Think about it.
The only other explanation that flies is they have something on him, and if this is so, please C. Dolan, just set us free and leave, and go preach in a country like Syria where your presence can’t hurt young women any more than they are already being hurt there.
I pray that through the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe that the true, good shepherds are strengthened, and that she assist in exposing those that are not. Archbishop Lori, I know you are one of the good ones. While I apologize for the intensity and crudeness of the above statements, I urge you to please, please, consider them, and reconsider your approval of this repugnant affront to women and the faithful laity. Please.
For the love of God and His Church, CANCEL THE DINNER. You have already lost the lefty women (buh-bye anyhow) but now you want to drive a wedge between the young women faithful and the USCCB? Really?
August 13, 2012 at 10:05 am
What this says to me is that Tim Dolan understands that just because someone is a political opponent does not make him your enemy. There was a time when members of different political parties could excoriate each other in the legislative chamber and then walk to the bar across the street and have a beer together. The Cardinal is sane enough to realize that disagreement does not have to mean hatred. If Romney were not invited too there would be grounds for concern, but that is not the case. If there were some honor attached I might understand the hoopla. This is a social occasion where the speeches are supposed to be funny. Obama played by those understood rules in 2008 and there is no reason to believe he will not this time. I will gladly join you in the fight against President Obama's policies but I am not going to pretend that I am so pure or he is so horrible that he is beneath my dignity and refuse to eat with the man. This is a light hearted social event, not the Notre Dame commencement.
By the standards being applied to Obama, I am not sure Al Smith could get invited to the Al Smith dinner. He was quite the Progressive in his day and he could as easily be a Pelosi Catholic not a Boehner Catholic if he were alive now.
August 13, 2012 at 10:24 am
My head is getting ready to explode!!
I am beyond angry or disappointed. I am ENRAGED.
Ann Barnhardt (http://barnhardt.biz) is right: The Catholic Church in America has been deeply, heavily infiltrated by Marxists. It is our duty as faithful Catholics to expose the wolves amongst the flock. Cardinal Dolan may well be one of them. Pray for him, yes, but rebuke him, as the Bible instructs us to do. Dolan is ENDANGERING SOULS. There is no excuse for that, and it is not "Christian" or "charitable" on our part to overlook it.
St. Catherine of Siena, pray for us, strengthen us to confront the bad shepherds in our midst and defend Jesus' Holy Church against their smooth glib words, seductive false arguments, and cowardly infidelities!
August 14, 2012 at 2:01 am
"What does Cdl. Dolan's invitation to Obama say to you?"
Uh, that he's a dumbass?
Then again, I knew that beforehand… 😉