US President Barack Obama has managed to capture the imagination not only of US voters but of hundreds of millions around the world. People love him. They feel he is a fresh breeze of hope. They look forward to his presidency in the hope that things are going to be better.
Many know very little about his policies or beliefs. But that is almost completely beside the point in this TV-dominated culture where people make judgments based on images before making judgements based on content. People look at him and feel he is decent, credible and capable. We have moved from Obama the President to Obama the Vision.
Visions bring different reactions. Those who believe in them are transfixed by them. Those who don't believe in them repudiate them strongly. There are US Catholics who regard Obama as bad and voting for him as a sin. Others believe he can bring more justice.
Pope Benedict described Obama's election as a "historic occasion" while a journalist of L'Osservatore Romano described his inauguration as "a sort of liberation from the original sin of slavery". Richard W. Garnett, professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame, said on Vatican Radio that the new president's openness to religion would keep the US less secularist than many European nations. On the other hand, his pro-choice attitude understandably makes many worry.
Making a judgment is not easy as, for example, Obama is both pro-life and, at the same time, not pro-life. His openness to abortion puts him in the second category. His positive attitude towards the helping the poor and his attitude against war make him pro-life.
The Catholic agenda for Obama is quite long. Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travellers, and Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, expressed their hope that Obama would adopt more humane immigration policies. Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta, chairman of the US Bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, augured that the president would work to overcome poverty.
Cardinal Francis E. George, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, told the president that it would be "a terrible mistake" for him to reverse current policies on conscience protection and other life-related matters.
He said the president should continue supporting the policy which bars the use of US family planning funds to promote or perform abortions in developing nations, and the current embryonic stem-cell policy prohibiting federal funding of research involving embryonic stem-cell lines created after 2001.
The cardinal also called for a recognition of marriage as "a faithful, exclusive, lifelong union of a man and a woman" that "must remain such in law.
In a manner unlike any other relationship, marriage makes a unique and irreplaceable contribution to the common good of society, especially through the procreation and education of children. No other kinds of personal relationships can be justly made equivalent to the commitment of a man and a woman in marriage."
Like it or hate it, a vision brings with it many expectations. I think only time will tell whether Obama the vision will eventually morph into Obama the nightmare. I hope not.