Does Obama Have a Friend in the Vatican?

President Obama received a warm welcome at the Vatican on Friday in his first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI. Indeed, the Vatican has generally seemed more eager to form a relationship with Mr. Obama than many American bishops, who have been cooler because he differs from the church on abortion and other reproductive issues. The invitation Mr. Obama received to deliver the commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame, for instance, triggered strong public condemnation from conservative bishops.

Why does the American Catholic leadership seem to be focused on abortion, while the Vatican appears willing to view that issue as merely one among many on which to judge a political leader?

A Difference in Catholic Cultures

John L. Allen Jr. is the senior correspondent for The National Catholic Reporter and author of “The Rise of Benedict XVI.”

Pope Benedict XVI today used his first-ever meeting with President Barack Obama to deliver a strong pro-life message, even pointedly offering President Obama a copy of a recent Vatican document on bioethics. In effect, Benedict made clear that he backs the American bishops in their challenge to President Obama over matters like abortion and embryonic stem cell research.

That said, it remains the case that many senior Vatican officials have long been intrigued by Barack Obama, and they often seem warmer toward him than some commentary from leading American Catholics. Explaining that contrast pivots on a key difference in the Catholic cultures on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the U.S., the abortion debate remains open, in part because the current national policy was established by a Supreme Court decision rather than popular vote. Many Catholics have come to see abortion as the towering moral issue of the day in the stark choice it poses: Yes or no to the idea that all human life is sacred?

In most European nations, meanwhile, the abortion debate is basically closed. In Italy, for example, legalization of abortion was approved by national referenda in 1978 and 1981 despite bitter Catholic opposition. Today, even the most conservative Catholics therefore tend to invest their energies elsewhere, such as anti-European Union activism and alarm over rising Muslim immigration.

As a result, it doesn’t come naturally for many European Catholics, including many Vatican officials, to evaluate politicians exclusively on the basis of their abortion policies. That doesn’t make those Catholics any less pro-life, but it can make them less instinctively leery of pro-choice figures like President Obama.

Friday’s meeting, however, makes one thing clear: However real this cultural difference may be, it doesn’t imply a free pass from the Pope.

From Charlemagne to Obama

Father James Martin is a Jesuit priest and author of “My Life with the Saints.”

In the past few decades, the U.S. Catholic bishops have focused increasingly on what are called pro-life issues. In 1980s, Catholic leaders like Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago proposed a “seamless garment” or “consistent ethic of life” approach that linked together a wide variety of life issues, including contraception, abortion, war, peace, euthanasia and an emphasis on poverty issues as they related to human dignity.

Recently, however, U.S. bishops, in light of increasing support among the American electorate for abortion, have focused more and more on that single issue — abortion. Today most bishops see that as the “preeminent” life issue in the church. In the last election, some bishops went as far as to say that voting for Barack Obama would be a form of sinful behavior, because of what the bishops perceived as an approach to abortion that did not square with their pro-life goals. This is a reflection of the general narrowing of life issues into the single issue of abortion. Most American Catholics are familiar with that approach today, and many support it.

This is one reason why many observers are probably surprised at the warm welcome given to President Obama at the Vatican by Pope Benedict. Why is this?

One obvious reason is that the Vatican has centuries of experience in dealing with politicians and political leaders with whom it disagrees on fundamental issues. Perhaps more than many American Catholics, the Vatican understands that politics is often the art of the possible and that any real political dialogue means working with political figures with whom you disagree even on the most fundamental issues regarding human life.

This is not say that the Vatican is “soft” on abortion. “By no means!” as Saint Paul would say. But for the Vatican, single issue politics makes no more sense with Barack Obama than it did with Charlemagne.

Points of Agreement

M. Cathleen Kaveny is John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law and professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. She is currently completing a book entitled “Prophetic Rhetoric in the Public Square: An Ethics of Discourse.”

Pope Benedict XVI gave President Obama a cordial welcome at the Vatican on Friday — a welcome that seemed sharply to contrast with the cooler reception he received from some American Catholics since his election. Most recently, almost 80 bishops, about one-third of the episcopacy, argued that the University of Notre Dame ought not to have invited Mr. Obama to deliver its 2009 commencement address and receive an honorary degree, because he is pro-choice. Pope Benedict, of course, is not pro-choice. So why the warm welcome? Despite their differences, the two men actually have a lot in common, as you can see if you compare the Pope’s recent encyclical on social issues, Caritas in Veritate (Love in Truth) with the President Obama’s commencement address at Notre Dame.

From different vantage points, they are both grappling with the same challenge: how to protect and promote human dignity in an era of increased globalization, how to work together to solve the problems like the worldwide economic crisis, global warming, and food insecurity.

Moreover, the Pope and the president agree that solving the problems is going to require both technical competence and moral wisdom: we need the contributions of both head and heart. Recognizing human dignity means that we can’t simply fix problems for other people - or other nations - without treating them as morally responsible agents. Third, both men emphasize finding common ground without shying away from the expression of clashing moral convictions.

In a recent article, Cardinal Georges Cottier, O.P., for many years the theologian of the papal househhold, approvingly observed that Mr. Obama refused to take a “clash of civilizations” approach in his relations with the Muslim world. Instead, he respectfully challenged all parties “to rediscover the core values and shared interests on which to build mutual respect and peace.” He noted that Obama clearly condemned terrorism, but also opened the way for a positive relationship with Islamic peoples and nations.

The Chasm Is There

Colleen Carroll Campbell is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the author of “The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy” and host of “Faith & Culture,” a TV and radio show that airs on EWTN.

Given President Barack Obama’s recent clashes with American bishops and pro-life Catholics, it’s understandable that his administration has sought to cast today’s meeting with Pope Benedict XVI as evidence of a papal endorsement. In reality, Benedict’s decision to welcome President Obama for a 25-minute encounter in the papal library is hardly remarkable.

It’s unsurprising that Benedict would welcome an opportunity to chat face-to-face with the leader of the world’s sole remaining superpower. He did the same with President George W. Bush three times, most recently in 2008, when Benedict took the unusual step of welcoming Mr. Bush to the Vatican Gardens, a site traditionally reserved for intimate meetings with friends.

As with George W. Bush, Benedict can find points of convergence between his priorities and those of President Obama. But the points of divergence between the two men — namely, on the “life issues” of abortion, embryonic research and euthanasia — are more fundamental than his differences with George Bush.

As the future pope explained in a letter to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick during the 2004 election, the defense of innocent human life from conception to natural death is a non-negotiable moral imperative in the eyes of the Church. “Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia,” he wrote. “There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.”

Anyone who regards focus on the life issues as a peculiar concern of American bishops should read Benedict’s new encyclical, “Charity in Truth,” which he presented to President Obama on Friday, along with a Vatican document on bioethics. Although intended to address the global economic crisis, the encyclical includes nearly a dozen passages reiterating Catholic teaching that the right to life of the innocent human person — both born and unborn — is the foundational principle upon which all other social policy must rest.

Benedict’s meeting with President Obama cannot erase the deep chasm that exists between them on the question of which human lives deserve protection. That chasm was not created by the American bishops, and it cannot be repaired by mere photo ops or facile talk of “common ground.”