Under normal circumstances, it would be unrealistic to expect truth in labeling standards to apply to a political event. Spin and self-interest are too much part of the mix.
When a church is involved, however, self-policing ought to be tighter. We refer to an event taking place in Washington this month: the fifth annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.
The nonprofit organization that sponsors this questionable affair contends in its mission statement that it is acting “in response to the call of Pope John Paul the Great for a ‘New Evangelization.’ ” The reality, though, is that the group is a thinly veiled political organization of Republican Catholics whose words and deeds suggest that one, they represent the whole of U.S. Catholicism, and two, that the Republican Party is, in effect, the Catholic Party.
Catholics United, a group that describes itself as a nonpartisan online community of Catholics, points out as much: “This event is organized by operatives of the Republican Party and Republican-affiliated organizations.”
