According to the President of the United States of America–a nation which was founded on the principle of religious liberty–religious schools encourage division, fear, and resentment.
In Northern Ireland for the G8 Summit, President Obama sent a clear message to the Catholic Church and people of faith everywhere. During a speech to 2,000 young people, Obama said: “If towns remain divided, if Catholics have their schools and buildings and Protestants have theirs, if we can’t see ourselves in one another, if fear or resentment are allowed to harden, that encourages division, it discourages co-operation.”
Just two days before Obama made his comments, Archbishop Gerhard Mueller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, spoke to a crowd in Glasgow, Scotland. Mueller told his listeners that religious education upholds the dignity of the human person, and Catholic schools should promote “all that is good in the philosophies of societies and human culture.” Mueller said that Catholic education is “a critical component of the Church.”
In addition, Mueller advocated for an understanding of “Catholic” which includes the breadth of “all that is good in the philosophies of societies and human culture.” The archbishop spoke of relativism as a threat to education because the objects of education–the true and the good–“stand in some way outside the person” and are transcendent.
“A danger in the relativism of modern society is the assumption that human freedom essentially entails creating one’s own truth and moral good.”
Mueller said that the implications of relativism “would lead to the breakdown of society… if pursued to their logical conclusion.”
How ironic–and perhaps providential–that Archbishop Mueller spoke his faith-filled words in Scotland at about the same time President Obama spoke his words of sabotage in Ireland.
As is often the case, Obama begins his process of undermining faith, the Constitution–whatever–by speaking to young people, hoping to divide them from those who will hand down the traditions and the culture to them. In truth, it is Obama–not faith or the Church–who is the Great Divider, the promoter of class warfare, envy, racism, etc.
It is sometimes very striking that we see a President who is so blinded by his ideology that he is simply unable to see the truth. His is on a mission to dismantle and undercut what is important to human life and existence. His sense of well-being is dependent on this power to divide and undermine.
The contrast of these two speeches characterizes the battle that is being fought in America under the Obama administration. The question remains whether Americans and the Church are willing to fight it.