"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
Wednesday, April 09, 2003 Bush & God: A Puzzle for the Church in Europe:L'Espresso's Sandro Magister reports on continental Catholics who condemn President Bush for impiety in allegedly presuming God's blessing on US warmaking. He observes:
Another curious thing about the anathemas hurled at Bush by many Catholics is the disdain they show for him when he -- though he does not belong to the Church of Rome -- echoes central elements of Catholic orthodoxy.
These typically Catholic elements include the idea of vocation as a personal call from God, faith in providence, the struggle against evil within oneself and in the world, the knowledge of having been saved and converted by God, and freedom as a gift from God.
All these themes are present in Bush’s speeches. And, somehow, they are transformed into the proof of his warmongering in the name of God.
On the other hand, John Paul II's judgment of the war for Poland's independence as one of history's "holy" wars passes without comment. He also gets away with attributing "to the intercession of the Mother of God" the victory against the Swedish army at the convent of Jasna Gora in 1655 (it's easy enough to find confirmation of this in the Pope's speeches).
So why can't Bush speak, think, or live in a way that is legitimate in a Catholic context? Why is this instead taken as the proof of his guilt?