Thursday, July 02, 2009
In an on the record meeting with Catholic reporters today, President Obama gave us some insight on some specific common ground areas he thinks may be possible on abortion. The Brody File has the transcription of his comments below. Read them carefully and I think you'll get a good sense of where he is going with this.
Q: I'm interested in the group you've organized to seek common ground on the abortion issue. There have been some reports, early reports about certain problems getting off the ground, with pro-life groups insisting that contraception be taken off the table, and abortion rights groups insisting that no language be used talking about reducing the actual number of abortions. And I was wondering, what are your realistic hopes for this group?
THE PRESIDENT: My understanding is that we've now received a range of perspectives, gathered up comments. The group has been working, has met, has been active. A memo is going to come to me sometime this summer --
MR. DuBOIS: Soon.
THE PRESIDENT: -- which describes where we think there's common ground, where there's some irreconcilable differences.
As I've said before, I've never been under the illusion that there are going to be -- that we were going to simply talk all our differences away on these issues. Again, I acknowledged this in the Notre Dame speech. I think there's a irreducible difference, conflict, on the abortion issue that the best we can do is suggest that people of goodwill can be on either side, but you can't wish those differences away.
So I don't yet have the recommendations. I can tell you, though, that on the idea of helping young people make smart choices so that they are not engaging in casual sexual activity that can lead to unwanted pregnancies, on the importance of adoption as a option, an alternative to abortion, on caring for pregnant women so that it is easier for them to support children, those are immediately three areas where I would be surprised if we don't have some pretty significant areas of agreement.
You identified the areas where things may be more difficult. I personally think that combining good sexual and -- or good sex and moral education needs to be combined with contraception in order to prevent unwanted pregnancies. I recognize that contradicts Catholic Church doctrine, so I would not expect someone who feels very strongly about this issue as a matter of religious faith to be able to agree with me on that, but that's my personal view. We may not be able to arrive at perfectly compatible language on that front.
I would be surprised if those who believe abortion should be legal would object to language that says we should try to reduce the circumstances in which women feel compelled to obtain an abortion. If they took that position, I would disagree with them. I don't know any circumstance in which abortion is a happy circumstance or decision, and to the extent that we can help women avoid being confronted with a circumstance in which that's even a consideration, I think that's a good thing. But again, that's my view. There may be politics involved in this that I'm not entirely aware of. I have not been involved with the actual meetings so far.
President Obama went a little farther today in saying that conscience clause protections on abortion coming from his White House will be strong and 'robust". He made the comments to Catholic reporters while discussing his upcoming meeting with the Pope next week in Italy. The Brody File has transcript. Read his comments below.
Q Many of the people who are providing aid through the church, both domestically and internationally, are very concerned about possible restrictions on churches' moral teachings in their work going away -- through the conscience clause -- I didn't articulate that very well. But they're very concerned about the conscience clauses that protect their ability to refuse to do certain kinds of services going away. And it's been a little unclear what direction this administration is going with some of those restrictions.
Can you talk a little bit about where you see the boundary lines between what -- how much the government can limit what happens according to people's consciences?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that the only reason that my position may appear unclear is because it came in the wake of a last-minute, 11th-hour change in conscience clause provisions that were pushed forward by the previous administration that we chose to reverse. But my underlying position has always been consistent, which is I'm a believer in conscience clauses. I was a supporter of a robust conscience clause in Illinois for Catholic hospitals and health care providers. I discussed this with Cardinal George when he was here in the Oval Office, and I reiterated my support for an effective conscience clause in my speech at Notre Dame.
So I think that there have been some who keep on anticipating the worst from us, and it's not based on anything I've said or done, but is rather just a perception somehow that we have some hard-line agenda that we're seeking to push.
We, as I said before, did reverse an 11th-hour change in the conscience clause, partly because it hadn't been properly reviewed and thought through and there were some concerns about how broad it might be and what its manifestations would be once implemented. We are in the process of reviewing the possibilities of any changes to what was then --
Q What existed before that.
THE PRESIDENT: -- what existed before those changes. We've solicited comments from a wide range of groups -- Joshua, if I'm not mistaken, you can probably tell us how many -- how many comments have we received at this point?
MR. DuBOIS: Hundreds of thousands.
THE PRESIDENT: Hundreds of thousands of comments, including from Catholic providers, the bishops have weighed in, et cetera. We will be coming out with I think more specific guidelines. But I can assure all of your readers that when this review is complete there will be a robust conscience clause in place. It may not meet the criteria of every possible critic of our approach, but it certainly will not be weaker than what existed before the changes were made.
Q Before the last 11th-hour one.
THE PRESIDENT: Exactly.
The President revealed today that he receives daily devotionals from White House Faith Office Director Joshua Dubois. The President met with Catholic reporters in advance of his trip to Italy next week where he'll meet with the Pope. The President also said he goes to Church every weekend that he's at Camp David. The Brody File has been given the transcription from the interview below:
Q Mr. President, have you chosen a home church? There's been some reports this week that Camp David is it. And are you feeling -- if not, are you feeling any pressure to join a predominantly African American church?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Michelle and I decided that we would wait a few months after arriving before we made a decision on this, partly -- let's be blunt: I mean, we were pretty affected by what happened at Trinity and the controversy surrounding Reverend Wright. That was deeply disturbing to us, and it was disappointing for us personally. It made us very sensitive to the fact that as President the church we attend can end up being interpreted as speaking for us at all times. We were also mindful of the fact that the times that we have attended church here, everybody who attends has to go through a mag -- (laughter) -- and it's a scene. I mean, it's just -- unfortunately, I am now very disruptive wherever I go. And so thinking about how to just manage the logistics of that was something that we spent some time talking about.
We have attended services at Camp David every weekend that we're there. I will tell you, by the way, that it is a wonderful little congregation; the members of Camp David who are up there consistently have their families there, they've got a Sunday school. The young chaplain there, Chaplain Cash, is terrific -- as good of a -- delivers as powerful a sermon as I've heard in a while. I really think he's excellent.
So we will continue to go to services there. How we handle church when we're here in D.C. is something that we're still figuring out. And I think that in the second half of the year we will have made a decision. We may choose, rather than to join just one church, to rotate and attend a number of different churches.
Obviously that takes away somewhat from the church experience of being part of a community and participating in the life of the church. But as I said, we are resigned now to the fact that we change the atmospherics wherever we go, and it may be more sensible for us to get in and out on any given Sunday and not try to create blockades around places where we attend.
I miss it, though. One of the things I also asked Joshua to do, though, is to -- we've had -- throughout the campaign we had a collection of pastors who were close friends and supporters who pray for us, a pretty eclectic group of people from the Catholic Church, people from mainstream Protestant, Evangelical. And so having some of those friends come in and pray with us is something that we're potentially looking forward to.
One last little note of sustenance, a little note is, is that Joshua does a wonderful service for me and he actually sends me a devotional on my BlackBerry every morning, which is actually something that he started doing I think when I was really having a tough time during the campaign.
MR. DUBOIS: It was a tough time.
THE PRESIDENT: And it was just such a wonderful practice that we've continued it ever since. So every morning I get something to reflect on, which I very much appreciate.
More on the President talking about Catholic issues here.
Hey Prop 8 haters...get a load of this. Rick Warren is taking his road show to a Muslim audience. Read below from The Christian Post.
“Purpose Driven” megachurch pastor Rick Warren will be spending his Fourth of July speaking to up to 40,000 Muslims in the nation’s capital.
Warren, whose network of pastors spans over 160 countries, is expected to speak during the main session of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)’s 46th annual convention, which has as its theme “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
“Considered the cornerstone of the convention, the Saturday Evening Main Session is not to be missed,” organizers state in the program for the four-day convention, which starts Friday.
“Prominent, sought after scholars will address the theme of the convention at large,” they add. “The session is both relevant and meaningful to Islam in North America.”
I know the gay community isn't thrilled with Rick Warren but maybe now you understand why some Evangelicals are skeptical of some of his moves too. What is he going to say to Muslims? Look, Rick warren is a bridge builder so I don't think you're going to hear him say that Jesus is the way to heaven.