Robert Moynihan, editor and publisher of INSIDE THE VATICAN magazine, has started a biweekly column for ZENIT called 'Inside the colonnade' of which this is the first.
Mr. Moynihan is a truly veteran Vatican observer, and his journalism is always very personal, and given his age, also tends to meander and indulge himself. A column is, of course, first and foremost, and always, a vehicle for personal opinion.
In this case, I believe Mr. Moynihan's 25-year friendship with the OR's Vian prevails over what one senses to be his own personal reservations about Obama, leading him to stretch and strain in order to justify Vian's obvious and (to me, journalistically) objectionable advocacy of Obama in any way, shape or form - before the Pope so clearly put his foot down at the July 10 meeting in the Vatican.
Barack and Benedict XVI:
The Vatican's approach to
a problem like Obama
by Robert Moynihan
ROME, JULY 27, 2009 (Zenit.org).- I first walked through Bernini's colonnade in May 1984. I was going to the Vatican Library to do research for a dissertation in medieval history.
By chance, my topic was very similar to the topic Joseph Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, chose for his post-doctoral dissertation,
The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure, and this gave me material for conversation when I met with Ratzinger on several occasions in the 1980s and 1990s.
On my very first visit to the Vatican library, I met a young scholar named Paolo Vian, son of the renowned Italian Catholic scholar, Nello Vian. Paolo graciously "showed me the ropes" during that summer at the library, helping me enormously.
I soon met Paolo's older brother, Gian Maria Vian, then a young professor of patristics at the University of Rome, and also a Vaticanista, reporting for the daily paper of the Italian bishops' conference,
Avvenire -- the same Gian Maria Vian who today is the controversial editor of L'
Osservatore Romano, known as the "Pope's newspaper."
In the years that followed, I had many occasions to talk with Gian Maria, a man of wide culture and ready wit, and I occasionally dined at his home with him and his wife (she suffered a long, debilitating disease, and sadly passed away several years ago).
So I have known Gian Maria Vian for 25 years, and can call him my friend. Indeed, I saw him several times during July in Rome, and we were able to speak at length.
The editor's recent positive attitude toward Obama has put Vian at the center of several critical debates in Catholicism today, and has led many to question even the "Catholicity" of
L'Osservatore Romano.
In a series of articles this year, Vian and writers he chose have argued that Obama does not seem as much of a pro-abortion president as had been feared.
This has raised eyebrows among those active in the pro-life cause -- and sparked anger.
At the time of the emotionally charged debate over Obama's commencement address May 17 at Notre Dame, which was protested by over 80 U.S. bishops and boycotted by former U.S. Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon because of Obama's extreme pro-abortion record, Vian justified his more lenient position on the president: "We have noticed that his
(Obama's) entire program prior to his election was more radical than it is revealing itself to be now that he is president. So this is what I meant when I said he didn't sound like a pro-abortion president."
[Yeah, well, Vian should not confine his reading to the New York Times and Time magazine. He should at least read the equally reputable (if not much more reputable at this point) C]Wall Street Journal which is rock-solid on economic and financial reporting, and fair and balanced in its political reporting and commentary. Because he may then begin to see the real Obama and his relentless personal agenda that the media Obamaniacs in the press have been too besotted and self-blinded to see.]
U.S. Catholic theologian Michael Novak described Vian's pro-Obama position as "star struck" and "teenage," and said that Vian's political perspective seems "like a blind observer of faraway events -- completely ignorant."
Vian defends himself by saying that the paper is adopting a "waiting and seeing" policy.
[You can and should 'wait and see' without taking sides! Otherwise, what's to wait for if you've already decided to give him the benefit of the doubt against all doubtless evidence!]
He said, "We hope that Obama does not follow pro-choice politics; not because we want him to follow Catholic politics, but because we hope and want Obama to guide politics at the service of the weakest, and the weakest are the unborn, the embryos."
[The ultimate naivete is to believe that if you bend over backwards to be nice to a bigot, maybe he'll change his mind. Not for a person whose pro-abortion belief is bred in his bone!]
Have Vian, and the Vatican, been downplaying Obama's vehemently pro-abortion voting record and the pro-abortion record of his administration for "tactical" reasons? And, is such a position morally defensible?
Benedict XVI chose Vian to take over the editorship of
L'Osservatore Romano in 2007.
Until two years ago, the paper's relationship to the Vatican was like that of Pravda to the Kremlin in the old U.S.S.R.
I remember how I and the other Vatican journalists would always look eagerly for articles signed only by three asterisks -- that was the not-so-secret "code" that those articles were "authoritative," approved at the very highest level of the Vatican.
But the rest of the paper was -- sorry to say -- boring.
"When I took over the paper," Vian says, "the Pope wrote me a letter in which he said that
L'Osservatore had to be present in the cultural debate. The Pope asked me for more international coverage, more attention to the Christian East, and more space for women."
[He didn't ask him to take sides, did he? Especially not when the side taken is morally equivocal at the very least - and on an issue that the Church considers non-negotiable.!]
So, Vian hired L'Osservatore's first-ever female staffer.
[Moynihan is obviously lifting substantially from one of Vian's last interviews as a source for this part of his article, and perpetrating its factual mistakes - small ones, but factually wrong nonetheless. Vian hired the first female to be a regular contributor to the OR, who, more importantly, is also Jewish; the OR had female staffers before that, including the lady recently promoted to be the editor of the German edition.]
And he adds: "When the deputy editor and I were invited to see the Pope to talk a bit about the paper three weeks after we were appointed, he gave us to understand that he'd like to see a few more pictures in it."
Vian decided to use color photographs every day on the front and back. But the new editor's impact has been most significant in the paper's content.
A month before President Obama's scheduled visit to see the Pope on July 10, Vian published an editorial that took a positive view of Obama's first 100 days.
Conservative Catholics in the United States and elsewhere were appalled that, despite Obama's moves to provide greater access to abortion and stem-cell research, the paper was not denouncing Obama.
[Not to denounce in a blanket way, no, because that would be equally unfair. But specifically, at least not to have skewed the presentation as he did to give the impression that in fact, Obama had not carried out any anti-life measures when he so clearly has!] There were calls for Vian to resign.
When I spoke with Vian a few days ago, I asked him about this controversy. He told me that he still has the "full support" of the Vatican's Secretariat of State. (In fact, Vian is a personal friend of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Pope's secretary of state
.)[Who recommended him to the Pope].
What can explain Vian's position -- and, by implication, the position of the Secretariat of State, and, perhaps, of the Pope himself?
Vian told me that the "big picture" needs to be kept in mind, that the Holy See's agenda, while always and unswervingly pro-life, nevertheless includes many other issues, such as social justice, disarmament, the Middle East and Cuba. [
Yes, but pro-life is non-negotiable, whereas political issues that do not involve indiscriminate killing - in war and violence or by contraception, abortion, euthanasia - are subject to pragmatic considerations of Realpolitik.]
Vian's position illustrates the considerable differences between the European and American viewpoints on many critical issues of our time. The Europeans (like Vian) focus on points of agreement, and the Americans (like Vian's critics) focus on points of disagreement.
[DUH! If people agree, there is nothing to dispute. It's unrealistic and completely counter-productive to sweep points of disagreement - especially vital, pivotal issues such as the defense of life - under the rug!]
I do think Vian -- and even the Secretariat of State -- may be "naïve" about Obama and his intentions.
But I also believe that Americans can become so intent on one grave moral injustice (abortion and the manipulation of human embryos, both of which are always profoundly wrong) that they can ignore other areas of possible agreement.
[NO! Absolutely not. The American Catholics who were enraged that the OR was bending over backwards for Obama do not rule out cooperation and agreement in other areas at all.
What they were protesting is that the Vatican - until the Pope himself stepped in - seemed to be giving a pass to Obama's unmistakable, undeniable pro-abortion militancyto the point of not reporting at all on the opposition by US bishops, including the president of the USCCB, to Notre Dame giving an honorary degree to Obama.
The opposition was to the flagrant one-sidedness - on the wrong side - of the editorial position that Vian took. By any journalistic standard, that was wrong, and by plain standards of decency, blatantly unfair!
It is exactly the kind of advocacy journalism for the liberal side that the New York Times and other major American media have taken since Watergate and which is now killing their business and their credibility as they become more incapable of reporting both sides fairly and equitably.]
Is it possible to find a balanced solution, giving proper weight to both points of agreement and disagreement?
The best approach may be the one chosen by Benedict XVI himself in his meeting with Obama on July 10.
I was in the Vatican on that occasion. I saw Obama as he stepped out of his car, and I attended the press conference after the meeting was over.
And two points were clear: the Pope was receiving Obama with warm friendship, and yet, he was not compromising the truth of the Church's teaching about life.
In fact, he made it a special point to hand the president a Vatican document which explains in detail the reasoning behind the Church's teaching that abortion is always wrong, and experimentation on human embryos is always a violation of the dignity of human life.
The booklet,
Dignitas Personae (dignity of a person), condemns artificial fertilization and other techniques used by many couples, and also says human cloning, "designer babies" and embryonic stem-cell research are immoral.
The document defends life from conception to natural death, and a Vatican statement issued after the meeting said the topics discussed included "the defense and promotion of life and the right to abide by one's conscience."
The Pope's private secretary told reporters after the meeting: "This reading can help the president better understand the Church's position on these issues."
We do not know if Obama has read that booklet. (That is something I would like to know, because the arguments in that booklet are compelling.)
[What will you bet he didn't so much bother as to open it? Or perhaps he got around to flipping a few pages over, followed by a few choice remarks about the obscurantism of the Church?]
The point is,
the possibility of reaching Obama with a reasoned argument in defense of life was increased by the way Vian presented Obama's position during the spring.
[EXCUSE ME???? 'A reasoned argument in defense of life' with someone who advocates contraception and abortion as basic human rights???? And whose proposed healthcare reform bill would mandate 'counselling every five years for end-of-life choices' for all Americans over 65 - than which there is no more shameless way to mandate euthanasia???? Who's being naive here? Dr. Moynihan, read the US papers, please. Don't insulate yourself in Europe.]
Obama was entering the Vatican on July 10, not as an enemy, but as a human being, to whom the Pope could appeal as one man to another.
{EXCUSE ME ONCE AGAIN! But the Pope would have treated him in exactly the same way whether the OR had endorsed him or not! As he treated Hugo Chavez of Venezuela when he was at the Vatican. It's demeaning the Pope himself to even suggest that he could possibly treat a guest at the Vatican as an enemy. This is the worst and most irrelevant argument Moynihan could have thought of to justify Vian's obviously deliberate (self-admitted) choice to stack the cards for Obama in the newspaper he edits!]
Naïve? Perhaps. Time will tell. And the Church will be ready to defend her beliefs if Obama makes clear that he will persist on a course that is directly opposed to those teachings.
Interestingly, on July 23, it was reported that Obama's health care legislation may be held up due to the opposition of a group of conservative Democrats in the U.S. House who have vowed not to vote for any bill that doesn't include explicit language banning the use of federal funds for abortion.
They, as well as most Republicans, charge that abortions will otherwise increase if more women have insurance coverage that pays for the procedure.
Obama, when asked if he would favor federally subsidized insurance plans that covered abortion, said, "As you know, I'm pro-choice. But
I think we also have the tradition of, in this town, historically, of not financing abortions as part of government-funded health care."
[Of course, he would deny it. He's proven very good at talking out of both sides of his mouth these past two and a half years that he's been the 'center of the world'. But right there, in the statement Moynihan quotes is a barefaced lie!
How can he say that abortions have never been financed by government-funded health care when his very first executive action as president was to repeal George W. Bush's ban against using US government funds for any international program that promoted abortion for whatever reason - usually as part of healthcare packages and development aid? Ronald Reagan banned such funding, Democrat Clinton restored it, Bush banned it again, and now Democrat Obama has restored it back.
And let's not even talk about how the various versions of Obama's healthcare reform proposed by Congressional Democrats contain both hidden and overt references that would mandate health insurance plans to pay for all abortions, whether they are medically justified or not!
No, Mr. Moynihan, you have to be more rigorous in screening self-serving statements, especially when they are so obviously false!]
Hearing this, pro-choice activists are concerned. "We're certainly worried," says Marilyn Keefe, director of reproductive health programs at the National Partnership for Women and Families. "Abortion is basic healthcare for women. We're worried about the possibility that existing coverage will be rolled back."
[You really believe they are worried about that aspect? With solid Democratic pro-choice majorities in both houses, who can easily argue that because of Roe v. Wade, abortion is a human right and therefore should be covered by medical insurance?]
Perhaps the Pope's meeting with Obama had some good effect.
[Dear Mr. Moynihan, maybe you've lived outside the United States too long!]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 29/07/2009 05:15]