E.J. Dionne (click) has an excellent article about the Obama Notre Dame address. I've been telling people that Obama's Notre Dame speech made me proud to be a Catholic and proud to be an American, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why. Dionne helps make it clear. Here are some excerpts from his column:

Obama's opponents seek to reignite the culture wars. He doesn't. They would reduce religious faith to a narrow set of issues. He refused to join them. They often see theological arguments as leading to certainty. He opted for humility.
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Yet his argument drew on very old ideas, notably original sin and the common good. Obama was as explicit in talking about his faith as George W. Bush ever was about his own but with distinctly different inflections and conclusions.
The former president often emphasized the comfort and certainty he drew from his religious beliefs. Obama said that "the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt."
"This doubt should not push away our faith," Obama preached. "But it should humble us. It should temper our passions, cause us to be wary of too much self-righteousness." It was a quietly pointed response to his critics.

Obama made it clear that he understands what it is to be what I call a "mainstream Catholic," a Catholic who accepts the teachings and reforms of the Second Vatican Council. The neoconservative Catholics, just like evangelical Christians, are the ones who shout the loudest and get the most attention, but I don't think they're really the mainstream of Christianity that they think they are. Real Christians and real Catholics have a deep, open-minded, gospel-rooted spirituality and a strong concern for social justice.

Since the 1960's, there has been a cleansing and renewal of the Catholic and mainline Protestant churches. Society no longer has a social requirement that people attend church; so the people who don't want to be in church, don't go any more. What's left are people who take their faith very seriously. The Protestant churches have divided into "mainline" and "evangelical" denominations, and the evangelicals tend to be conservative.

Many conservative Catholics have left for the evangelical churches, but many others have formed a strong and vocal conservative minority within the Catholic Church. They have been very successful in recruiting new priests and nuns and religious orders, to the point where I have a hard time trusting a priest, nun, or religious order that's under forty years old. Many of the most vocal neoconservative Catholics are recent converts from evangelical churches, and there are a number of formerly Protestant radio evangelists now on the Catholic radio networks and EWTN television (the neocons spend a lot of money on media, not much on feeding the poor). During his lengthy reign, Pope John Paul II appointed many neoconservative bishops, so most bishops are to the right of older priests and nuns. Benedict XVI is not as conservative as JPII, so there is now somewhat less Vatican support for American neoconservative Catholics. As many of you know, I was a student in a Catholic seminary for eight years, and I associate with a lot of priest and nuns. I've even applied to become an associate member of the Sisters of Mercy. Most of the priests and nuns I know were thrilled when Obama was elected President. - I bet that will be a surprise to some of you. I had to make a special trip to Sacramento in January to set up a television for some 80-yr-old nuns, because they wanted to be able to watch the inauguration on high-definition television.

There was a strong American Catholic protest against Notre Dame's invitation to Obama to give the 2009 commencement address. 70 of the 300 U.S. Catholic bishops spoke out against the invitation, and there were protests and daily FoxNews articles and letter-writing campaigns. It sounded like all of Catholicism was outraged by the thought of Obama speaking at a Catholic university, but the older priests and nuns and religious orders quietly but firmly supported the invitation. Interestingly, despite all the rhetoric from right-wing American Catholics against Obama, the Pope's office hasn't said a word against him, and has been very complimentary on many occasions.

So then Obama gave his speech, which was even better than I hoped for, and I can't begin to tell you how thrilled I am about it. His speech gave voice to us quiet Christians, the ones who work in the soup kitchens and promote pacifism and fight the death penalty - and believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ that insist on the primacy of love and justice over self-righteousness.

There's one more thing that was implied in Obama's speech. Since John F. Kennedy, Catholic Democrats have said that they would not allow their faith to affect their performance of their duties in government, implying that they would be Catholic on Sunday morning and secular the rest of the week. John Kerry, a Catholic Democrat, said more-or-less the same thing when he ran for President in 2004. That's always bothered me, because I think that my faith is an integral part of who I am, not something that I can leave behind when I leave church on Sunday morning. My faith is a major part of what motivates me to serve the poor and oppose war and the death penalty - and, yes, to oppose abortion although I don't think it should be outlawed. My faith also motivates me to be open to the beliefs and ideas of others. President Obama made it clear that there is room in the political process for people of faith, and I'm very happy about that. Indeed, he claims to have a faith perspective that is very similar to mine.

I'm very proud of our President, and I'm proud of Notre Dame for inviting him and upholding the true ideal of a Catholic university - promoting open-minded, critical thinking.

-Joe Offer-