Al Smith Dinner: A Catholic Sensibility?

I scratch my head in puzzlement: "Did he really invite him? Did Cardinal Dolan really invite our President to the Al Smith dinner? Why would he want to break bread, drink wine, and share jokes with the one who deprives us of religious liberty, would destroy all our institutions of corporal mercy, decimates innocent unborn life, and deconstructs sexuality and marriage? Why honor our worst enemy? " Is it because the Cardinal is, deep down, an unrepentant New Deal, liberal, big-government Democrat, like most of our bishops of the last 80 years? Is it because he is by nature jovial but naive, clueless as to the toxic political consequences of honoring this incumbent candidate in the midst of a campaign? Is it because he is a compulsively irenic reconciliator, like Cardninals Bernadine and McCarrick before him, who wants to be friends with everyone? Is he afflicted with the classic "Hesburg" Catholic inferiority complex, with a desperate need to be approved by the pretigious and powerful? Or worst of all, is he another tolerant cleric, lacking in guts and fortitude, turning a blind eye to evil and thereby enabling it, as so many bishops did in the priest sex scandal? Is it all of the above? It is, in any case, a disappointment for those of us who treasure religious liberty, value defenseless human life, and honor marriage and family. Nevertheless, there is another, more positive way to look at the invitation. It reflects a Catholic sensibility in regard to civility, love of the enemy, and the non-ultimacy of politics. First, regarding civility: our politics has become sadly polarized as left and right increasingly demonize each other. It is a good thing, a Catholic and catholic and inclusive thing for political enemies to sit down, joke and enjoy each other. Even if we must return to warfare the next morning. Secondly, we are told to love our enemies. For a Catholic in 2012, President Obama is clearly the enemy: therefore, we invite him to dinner and honor him and love him. This is a very Catholic and catholic thing to do. Finally, for the Catholic, politics is not of ultimate importance. It has significance, but not absolutely. More important for each of us is our concrete, immediate opportunity to love our neighbor. You can tax me to death, take away my religious liberty, close down my institutions, and install a regime of sexual license and annihilation of the innocent, but you cannot deprive me of my interior freedom, my life of faith hope and love. Whatever your politics, I will still love and honor, you, beloved enemy Obama, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. In this regard, it is a Catholic thing to honor an Obama. Would we do the same for Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Hussein or Bin Laden? The Al Smith dinner this year is a richly ambiguous event. I am myself very much of two minds about it. We are exhorted to always speak truth in love. We see here that love is present. Is truth? St. Ignatius of Loyola directed us to always put the best possible interpretation on the actions of others. This goes doubly in the case of bishops. In that light, I am working very hard to appreciate the Catholic sensibility of Cardinal Dolan.Cardinal Dolan is intelligent and articulate, he is fierce in defense of our values, he has a sense of humor and a Catholic sensibility about what is of ultimate importance: That we love each other! My hope is that he has the guts and intelligence to use the moment to issue a stern message to our President and our country. I imagine him echoing the spirit of another leader who faced such a threat to liberty: We love and honor you Mr. President, but we will fight, for our liberty, for our defenseless, for our youth and families...relentlessly and tirelessly, unto the spilling of our blood...we will fight you..."by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy...We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." Now that is a Catholic sensibility: a blend of civility, humor, agapic love for the enemy, and Godly, militant zeal!