Obama Moves Rankle Even Moderate Catholics

(NEWSER) - President Obama told Pope Benedict XVI yesterday that he would make every effort to reduce the number of abortions in the US, according to a Vatican spokesman. Bioethics and life issues were the focus of the men's 40-minute talk yesterday. The pontiff gave the president a booklet explaining the church's opposition to abortion and stem cell research, Reuters reports. More»

President's Notre Dame speech was radical and conservative: Dionne

(NEWSER) - Abortion opponents protested and pro-life students skipped, but Barack Obama's Notre Dame commencement address was at once "the most radical and the most conservative speech of his presidency," writes Washington Post columnist EJ Dionne. The president refused to indulge the protesters' desire to "reignite the culture wars," opting for humility and compromise—but he showed a comfort with the language of faith equal to George Bush. More»

Biden doing little good for Obama in Pa., other swing states

(NEWSER) - Though progressive Catholics have worked hard to convince churchgoers that the Democrats share the church's views on the Iraq war, immigration, and health care, abortion is again turning Catholic voters away from the party, the New York Times reports. As conservative bishops have scolded Catholics like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden for contradicting the church's teachings, liberals are facing a setback. More»

It's more than just Catholic church leaders who are irked

(NEWSER) - President Obama's decision to require Catholic hospitals and universities to include birth control in employee health plans was bound to anger the church . But the backlash has gone beyond church leaders, Politico notes—even Washington Post columnist EJ Dionne, a liberal Catholic who typically backs Obama, accused the president of throwing "Catholic allies under the bus" in a column this week. And Marco Rubio thinks the decision will hurt Obama not just among religious people, but in general, "because it reflects a pattern of overreach," he says. More»

(NEWSER) - Speaking amid the swirl of controversy as his pro-choice views and the pro-life values of a Catholic university collided, President Obama today called for "open minds" and "fair-minded words" in Notre Dame's debate surrounding abortion, reports the AP. Amid heckles and students booing hecklers, Obama faced the treacherous issue head-on, conceding that while the two sides are "irreconcilable," open discourse could bring "at least the possibility of common ground." More»