The "Catholic influence" on Obama

Cardinal Bernadine constructed his precious "seamless garment" in order to diminish the importance of abortion by making it equivalent to social-justice issues. It did its job: now it can be invoked without any reference, explicit or implicit, to abortion.

The following is a reply from Denis McDonough, deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications, to a question from Jake Tapper about how Obama has been influenced by Catholic teachings:

I've also heard the president speak very movingly about what Cardinal Bernadine called the seamless garment of Catholic teaching. That garment speaks to not only taking care of the poor and the needy but also investing in the kind of healthcare infrastructure that would ensure that people like those on the South side of Chicago, who the president is very familiar with, are often times finding their health care not in publicly funded hospitals but in Catholic hospitals, for example. So, the president, I think, has been very impacted not just as he's talked publicly about his time on the South side when he was funded partly as a community organizer by the Catholic Church Campaign for Human Development funding, but also as a younger person when his mother was doing so many things consistent with that tradition as somebody focused on economic development and issues similar to that in poor communities overseas.

Just shoot me now. What a bunch of blather. How perfect that the notorious Campaign for Human Development funded Obama's "community organizing."

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