CNA<\/a>).- The Obama campaign attempted to schedule a rally-like event on a Catholic university campus in the key swing state of Colorado before settling on a dialogue with a co-chair of Catholics for Obama.<\/p>\n\t\u201cTheir original intent was to have more of a rally element to it,\u201d said Paul Alexander, director of Regis University's Institute for the Common Good, which hosted the event.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe just felt we couldn\u2019t do a rally, but we felt a healthy dialogue among Catholics was important.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAbout 45 people attended the Oct. 25 dialogue and small group discussion with Catholics for Obama national co-chair Nicholas P. Cafardi, a law professor and dean emeritus of Duquesne University School of Law.<\/p>\n
\tThe event was titled \u201cCatholic Social Teaching: The Intersection of Faith and Politics.\u201d Although it was hosted by the Jesuit university\u2019s institute, it took place because of outreach from the Obama campaign.<\/p>\n
\tAlexander told CNA Oct 26 that another Catholics for Obama national co-chair by the name of Victoria Kovari, the \u201cmain point of contact,\u201d had sought out the university and asked if it would be willing to host an event.<\/p>\n
\tKovari is a former national field director and former interim president of the Democrat-leaning group Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.<\/p>\n
\tShe attended the Denver event along with Broderick Johnson, a senior advisor to the Obama campaign.<\/p>\n
\tAt the Thursday evening gathering, Alexander said that the campaign had reached out to schedule the event, but had set no conditions on the talk.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThere was a strict adherence to bring a message that is totally non-political,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\tCafardi\u2019s remarks examined moral judgment in public life, saying that the Church must leave solutions to political problems to \u201cthe informed consciences and prudential judgment of the laity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tHe had pointed criticisms of Catholic bishops\u2019 actions on political matters.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cOur sacred pastors will tell us the ethical and moral principles that should govern human behavior. They can tell us the values that should be defended,\u201d he said. \u201cNo bishop, no priest, can tell you how to vote, ever. They don\u2019t have that right. That right belongs to you, and your informed conscience.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThey don\u2019t even have the right to hint how you\u2019re supposed to vote, as a number of them have been doing lately in their non-endorsement endorsements,\u201d he said, adding that no one can question the decision of an informed conscience.<\/p>\n
\tCafardi, who rejects the criminalization of abortion, said the Catholic Church\u2019s advocacy for the legal prohibition of abortion as the only way to address life issues ignores the need to use prudential judgment to decide the best way to protect human life.<\/p>\n
\tHe defended the Obama administration\u2019s controversial mandate which requires most employers of 50 or more employees to provide no co-pay insurance coverage for sterilization and contraception, including some abortion-causing drugs.<\/p>\n
\tCafardi argued that the Obama administration\u2019s proposed conscience accommodation, whose details are unclear, is adequate. He also said that the mandate was justified under the same logic as the cost segregation practice which allows the government to fund the non-religious activities of religious employers.<\/p>\n
\tHe ridiculed broad exemptions for objecting private employers as the \u201cTaco Bell exemption.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAt least one other Catholic college has hosted Catholics for Obama speakers. Last month in Ohio, another politically key state for the presidential elections, the Xavier University College Democrats hosted Johnson, Kovari and other speakers who presented a Catholic case for voting for President Obama.<\/p>\n
\tCNA contacted the Romney campaign to determine whether it has engaged in similar outreach to Catholic colleges and universities but did not receive a response by deadline.<\/p>\n
\tMichael Hernon, a former president of the Republican-leaning group The Catholic Association, told CNA he has not heard of any Catholics for Romney outreach to Catholic colleges and universities.<\/p>\n
\tHernon, who is also a vice president of advancement at Franciscan University, said that Franciscan University of Steubenville has many faculty and students who support the Romney campaign in a personal capacity, but the university has not had any partisan events on campus.<\/p>\n
\tAmong the attendees at Regis University event were Catholics United Colorado State Chairman Anthony DeMattee. The organization expanded into Colorado with its first Denver event on Oct. 22, holding a debate watching party with Catholics United Executive Director James Salt.<\/p>\n
\tUntil recently, Catholics United avoided directly contradicting Catholic teaching. On Oct. 18, it denounced Catholic efforts to defend traditional marriage as a \u201cfar right-wing\u201d social issue. The group also attacked the Knights of Columbus for giving financial support to the Catholic bishops\u2019 marriage defense efforts and to marriage amendment ballot initiatives.<\/p>\n
\tIn April, the national organization protested the withdrawal of a Catholic grant to the Pueblo, Colorado-based immigrant aid group Companeros over its membership in a coalition that supports the legal recognition of homosexual relationships.<\/p>\n
\tAlexander acknowledged that political opponents of President Obama would have a \u201chealthy skepticism\u201d towards the Regis University event. The institute had tried to reach out to the Romney campaign, but the \u201clast-minute\u201d nature of the event made that difficult.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt\u2019s the intent of the institute, and really the university, to have a dialogue,\u201d he told CNA.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe need to learn how to encounter the other,\u201d he added, citing the teaching of the Second Vatican Council document \u201cGaudium et Spes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean giving up the tenets of the Church or compromising the beliefs of the Church. But it does mean meeting each other as human beings, and the best tool for that is dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tHe said people who are skeptical of the Cafardi speech should \u201ccome join us and help us design some dialogues.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe\u2019d love to engage with people to do that,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\n
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Denver, Colo., Nov 1, 2012 \/ 04:03 am (CNA).- The Obama campaign attempted to schedule a rally-like event on a Catholic university campus in the key swing state of Colorado before settling on a dialogue with a co-chair of Catholics for Obama.<\/p>\n
\t&ldquo…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\n
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