"O Jesu, O Jesu, give me patience with that boy."

[CBHagman]

That's one of the thoughts that went through my head today when I heard part of Bush's remarks at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.

First, an explanation. Back in parochial school in the 1960s, I remember one nun shutting her eyes and intoning the prayer above when confronted with a troublesome student. I should also add that the nun in question was definitely one of the tough types, and one could guarantee, patience or no patience, she would rule the classroom.

Anyway, I utter that prayer in response to Bush's latest effort to affiliate himself with a "culture of life" and the principle that the strong should protect the weak. It disturbs me greatly that people take his pandering to the Catholic community for a sincere effort at promoting social justice. I can't reconcile his warlike attitude, refusal to admit mistakes, and tendency to afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable with his professed desire for a "culture of life."

Worse yet, some in the media do not view him with enough skepticism. Worst of all, I've heard that the administration has sought to cozy up to the Archdiocese of Washington.

[elshiva]

1. That is true about the Archdiocese, I fear

[CBHagman]

2. I can't recall where I read it.

My recollection is that Rove has arranged regular meetings with White House staff and representatives from the archdiocese. I'll have to find a source on that.

By the way, it's interesting that before going to war in Iraq, Bush administration officials received representatives from the Vatican (antiwar, of course), but not from the equally antiwar National Council of Churches, the Congressional Black Caucus, or even the Methodist Church! That courting of the Catholic vote is painfully obvious.

[DemBones DemBones]

3. I just posted in two different GD threads about how Bush is

using the phrase "culture of life" because Karl Rove told him to, not because he believes in it, or even understands it. Most people apparently don't know it's a Catholic term or, of course, what it means, since they're asking how you can be a warmonger and claim to believe in a culture of life.

[elshiva]

4. Thanks! Link, please!

[AngryOldDem]

5. Or, for that matter,

how you can send so many people to their deaths through capital punishment, and in one case, even mock the very people so condemned (Karla Fay Tucker)? Even if you can morally reconcile yourself to the penalty, that should in no way lessen its gravity and the place that it should have in your conscience (assuming you have one, which, as it concerns Bush, is open to debate at times).

Bush has no clue about what the culture of life really means, and it's insulting to those of us who do that he uses it as such a political pander. To me it's close to blasphemy.