Church in the World

Obama chooses ‘liberal’ Catholic for Supreme Court

The relationship between the Catholic hierarchy in America and President Barack Obama was further complicated this week by the nomination of a liberal Catholic for the Supreme Court, just days after the head of the bishops' conference appeared to have made a U-turn away from earlier criticism he had made of the president.

On Tuesday Judge Sonia Sotomayor was named to the Supreme Court. She will be the sixth Catholic on the court, but the others constitute the court's conservative majority, and she is expected to be a more liberal jurist. She has no judicial track record on the most contentious issue, the Supreme Court's 1973 decision legalising abortion.

Cardinal Francis George, the president of the bishops' conference, had four days earlier issued a statement praising Mr Obama's call for new conscience regulations for health care providers. "I am grateful for President Obama's statement on May 17 that we should all ‘honour the conscience of those who disagree with abortion', and his support for conscience clauses advancing this goal," the cardinal wrote last week on the bishops' conference website. He added: "As this discussion continues we look forward to working with the administration and other policy makers to advance this goal."
Mr Obama made his remarks endorsing a new conscience regulation during his controversial appearance at the University of Notre Dame. Cardinal George was among many Catholics - including bishops - who had voiced their disagreement with the university's decision to confer an honorary degree on the president, objecting to his pro-choice stance on abortion and his decision in February to revoke a conscience regulation adopted in the closing weeks of the Bush administration. The regulation allowed health care workers to decline to provide a service that violated their beliefs. In March, Cardinal George said Notre Dame's decision to honour the president was an "extreme embarrassment".

Some analysts see Cardinal George's new stance as opening up possibilities for co-operation between the hierarchy and the Government.

Stephen Schneck, Director of the Life Cycle Institute at the Catholic University of America, said: "If by working with the Obama administration substantive steps toward conscience protections for health care workers can be achieved, then similar common ground efforts might advance other pro-life policies. The way forward is not through confrontation, but practical engagement."