The Obama Administration and the Concerns of U.S. Catholics

An evaluation of the first 5 months

A presentation by Msgr. Lorenzo ALBACETE, Theologian, Author, Columnist, Christopher BACICH, U.S. Coordinator of Communion and Liberation, and Ramesh PONNURU, Senior Editor for National Review

Presented by Crossroads Cultural Center

The reason for this event is that the first six months in office of a new president provide a reasonably good milestone at which to stop and try to assess what's going on. In fact, our specific theme, the President Obama administration and Catholic concerns, has been abundantly brought into focus a few weeks ago by the controversy surrounding the commencement ceremony at the University of Notre Dame. In our opinion, those events demonstrated very well the challenges that are faced today by the Catholic presence in the public life of our country.

On the one hand, we have a ruling political class and a cultural elite that are generally quite distant from the Catholic view of life, and sometimes even hostile to it. On the other hand, the Catholic presence itself appears divided and often unable to offer an original proposal. By and large, US Catholics seem to divide exactly along the same ideological lines as everybody else, which reveals how deeply we have been penetrated by the dominant cultural categories of the age.

The goal of tonight's discussion, however, is not to rehash the tired discussion about which political side fits better on the Catholic “laundry list” of social and political issues. For better or for worse, we have a new administration. We know how culturally foreign it is to Catholicism in some respects. The questions we want to ask our panelists are: in the context of an Obama presidency, how can we offer the country an original Catholic point of view? How is it possible not just to react to trends that come from outside, but to propose constructively what we hold most dear, also in the public arena? How can we bring to the political table the great Catholic themes: life, freedom, solidarity, subsidiarity, the family, education? If you wish, the question for the evening is: what is the task of a Catholic presence in the social, cultural and political life of the United States during the presidency of Barack Obama?

About this Event

Date: Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Time: 7pm
Location: Fordham University, Pope Auditorium
113 West 60th Street, New York

About the Speakers

Ramesh Ponnuru
Senior Editor for National Review

Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete
Theologian, Author, Columnist

Christopher Bacich
U.S. Coordinator of Communion and Liberation

Invitation

Download the Invitation here

Transcript

Read the transcript here

Report

Read the report here

Photos