Criticism of Barack Obama
The on-line version of the National Catholic Reporter reported on November 19, 2008 that Cardinal Stafford harshly criticized President-elect Barack Obama, saying he has "an agenda and vision that are aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic."
The story was first reported by The Tower, the student newspaper of the Catholic University of America, where Stafford made those remarks.
Saying that the United States experienced a "cultural earthquake" when Obama was elected president November 4, 2008, Cardinal Stafford said the president-elect "appears to be a relaxed, smiling man" with rhetorical skills that are "very highly developed." "But under all that grace and charm, there is a tautness of will, a state of constant alertness, to attack and resist any external influence that might affect his will," he added. The cardinal compared the upcoming years of the Obama administration to "Jesus' agony in the Garden of Gethsemane."
The Catholic News Agency revealed more details about the highly controversial words of the Cardinal on November 17, 2008: "If 1968 was the year of America’s ‘suicide attempt,’ 2008 is the year of America’s exhaustion,” he said, contrasting the year of Humanae Vitae’s promulgation with this election year. “For the next few years, Gethsemane will not be marginal. We will know that garden,” Cardinal Stafford told his audience. Catholics who weep the “hot, angry tears of betrayal” should try to identify with Jesus, who during his agony in the garden was “sick because of love.” The Cardinal also attributed America’s decline to the Supreme Court’s decisions such as the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, which imposed "permissive abortion laws nationwide."
Read more about this topic: James Stafford
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