Catholic author David Gibson has an insightful article in today's WaPo, "Who is a Real Catholic." In it, Gibson uses today's address by President Obama at Notre Dame as a launching pad for exploring how "conservatives have made politics the eighth sacrament, with one's position on abortion and gay marriage becoming the litmus test of whether one is a 'good Catholic' or a Catholic at all." Following much the same argument as the Post's E.J. Dionne earlier this month, Gibson shows how a minority bloc of Catholics, including some Cardinals and bishops, are motivated more -- or have been co-opted -- by a political (read "hard right-wing") agenda rather than by the "inclusive, forgiving, big-church" Catholicism of St. Augustine and the Second Vatican Council.
Gibson has a marvelous quote from the penultimate Pope Benedict - the XV (in 1914!!) - who declared that "no one should consider himself entitled to affix on those who merely do not agree with his ideas the stigma of disloyalty to faith."
