GRAND FORKS - President Barack Obama must need the Catholic vote again, given that he’s planning to meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican in March.
As an American Catholic, I wonder what I would tell my pope of this American president.
Would I suggest that the pope call the president of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., and ask him why his university now has filed a lawsuit against Obama’s health care bill - even though Obama had come to the university and said, “We can find a middle ground”? Sounds political.
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Or, I could advise Pope Francis to call the head of the Catholic Bishops Council, and the pope could ask this Catholic leader if he knows why Obama “changed his mind” and “tore up” the agreement that Obama had signed on national television the day after the health care bill’s passage. The agreement would have allowed exceptions to be made for religious institutions regarding certain parts of Obamacare, such as abortion and euthanasia.
No, that sounds like the usual “dropping of a card from the bottom of the deck” gimmick.
I know what I would tell the head of my church: Follow Catholic youth. When we lived in Great Falls, Mont., the Blessed Trinity Catholic grade school (now Holy Spirit Catholic grade school) took as its theme for the year, WWJD.
I’d suggest that the pope take WWJD as his guide when he meets with Obama in March. Think WWJD: What Would Jesus Do.
Larry Yurkovich
