Father Michael Pfleger and the Presidential Campaign

The effects of the remarks of Chicago Catholic Priest, Father Michael Pfleger, have not ended with an apology. Will the Cardinal's cautions help?

LOS ANGELES (Catholic Online) - Father Michael Pfleger is the Pastor of an inner city Parish, St. Sabina's Catholic Church at 1210 West 78th Place in Chicago, Illinois.

He is known to be a fiery preacher with a particular penchant for the use of dramatic gestures, in and out of the Church. He is an advocate for the poor and the downtrodden

Saint Sabina is a predominately African American Church which is deeply involved in economic and social justice issues. It speaks of its mission on its own web site with these words:

"St. Sabina is a Word-based, Bible teaching African-American Catholic Church that believes in the power of praise and worship. We are a spiritual hospital where all are welcome and invited to "taste and see the goodness of the Lord."

"Our purpose is to nurture and develop spiritually mature Christians who are not confined by the walls of the sanctuary, but can penetrate the world in order to present God's way of living as a divine option."

There is nothing about Saint Sabina's commitment to Social Justice which is not supposed to be present within other Catholic Parishes. Care for the poor and the marginalized is a tenet of Catholic Social teaching.

What now makes this Parish unique is not the intensity of its care for the poor and marginalized but the vocal and active support of its Pastor, Father Michael Pfleger for the candidacy of Senator Barack Obama for President and the outlandish remarks he recently made in the pulpit of a Protestant Church.

Priests cannot run for political office under Canon law. However, they are citizens and have the right to personally support candidates. It is clear, they are not to do so from the ambo, or what is also called a pulpit. Nor are they to make partisan politics the focus of their ministry. They are shepherds, teachers and pastors of souls.

Last Sunday, Father Pfleger spoke from someone else's pulpit. He also violated these norms of behavior.

It was not just any pulpit. This was the pulpit once occupied by the now retired and controversial Pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ. This was the Church where Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama became a Christian and where he, his wife and his children attended for years.

There, in that now famous venue, this Chicago Catholic Priest stepped into a controversy that will not die down.

He made mocking, belittling statements and gestures about a Democratic candidate, Senator Hillary Clinton. The remarks were provocative, divisive, racially tinged and shocking.

Father Pfleger, with a tone of arrogance, intimated that when the Senator from New York began to cry during an interview in the New Hampshire Primary, she was not experiencing authentic emotion but rather was experiencing some kind of regret that she had to experience opposition at all.

In his own words:

"I really believe that she just always thought, 'This is mine! I'm Bill's wife, I'm white, and this is mine! I just gotta get up and step into the plate....And then out of nowhere came, 'Hey, I'm Barack Obama and she said, 'Oh, damn! Where did you come from? I'm white! I'm entitled! There's a black man stealing my show!'

"She wasn't the only one crying," he shouted as he mockingly pretended to cry, "There was a whole lot of white people crying...... "I'm white! I'm entitled! There's a black man stealing my show."

Senator Obama, who has publicly disavowed Rev. Wright's controversial comments, soon found himself having to disavow this Catholic Priest. He did so from the campaign trail this week with these words:

"As I have traveled this country, I've been impressed not by what divides us, but by all that unites us.... That is why I am deeply disappointed in Father Pfleger's divisive, backward-looking rhetoric, which doesn't reflect the country I see or the desire of people across America to come together."

Father Fleger apologized this week for his words. He said "I regret the words I chose on Sunday. These words are inconsistent with Sen. Obama's life and message, and I am deeply sorry if they offended Sen. Clinton or anyone else who saw them."

However, the controversy has not subsided in a Democratic Presidential campaign which may not end even with the end of the Democratic Primaries.

The President of the Catholic League, the Nations' premier defender against anti-Catholic bigotry and defamation, is Bill Donohue. In published remarks he addressed these inappropriate, divisive and racially tainted remarks. He also indicated why their impact may not go away with his apology:

"Most commentators are already focusing on the inappropriateness of the race-baiting comments by Father Pfleger. More serious is the venue in which he delivered his diatribe and his long-standing ties to Sen. Obama.

"Father Pfleger's tirade would be inexcusable anywhere, but it is even more offensive when it happens in a church. It does not matter that it was not his own, nor does it matter that it happened in a church that has a record of allowing demagogues to exploit it. When churches become forums for political rallies, both religion and the First Amendment are corrupted.

"Obama and Pfleger are no strangers. Indeed, when Obama was in the state senate in Illinois, he conveniently arranged for Father Pfleger's St. Sabina's Church to receive state monies for its social programs. Of course, the guardians of church and state separation said nothing then and they are saying nothing now.

"That's because they're all in the tank for Obama. Just as important, why is it that of all the wonderful Catholic priests in the Chicago Archdiocese, Obama long ago chose Pfleger to hang with?

"Truth be known, Pfleger has a very troubling history: he has welcomed the anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan to preach in his church; he has hired prostitutes to worship there; he has been arrested for defacing billboards; and he once urged the crowd at an anti-gun rally to hunt down a gun store owner 'like a rat' and 'snuff' him.

"Senator Obama says he wants to bring people together. Then why does he choose as his clerical friends people like Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Father Pfleger? They are two peas in a pod, both equally divisive, separated only by the color of their skin."

Now, the highly respected Catholic Cardinal, Francis George of Chicago, has issued a statement on the continuing controversy.

In this statement Cardinal George affirmed that the Catholic Church does not endorse specific candidates. He also affirmed that, though priests may address political issues of a moral nature, they are not to endorse candidates either.

Cardinal George also seems to have put a damper on this priests continued high profile political activity:

"Racial issues are both political and moral and are also highly charged. Words can be differently interpreted, but Fr. Pfleger's remarks about Senator Clinton are both partisan and amount to a personal attack, I regret that deeply."

"To avoid months of turmoil in the church, Fr. Pfleger has promised me that he will not enter into campaigning, will not publicly mention any candidate by name and will abide by the discipline common to all Catholic priests."

Where this controversy goes next is anyone's guess.

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