SERIOUS CATHOLIC WORDS AT THAT FUNNY POLITICAL DINNER

By Terry Mattingly

Polit­i­cal insid­ers know that the Alfred E. Smith Din­ner strives to honor decades of civic and reli­gious traditions.

In elec­tion years, it’s a tra­di­tion that the pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates appear — wear­ing for­mal, white-tie attire — and sat­i­rize their own pub­lic images, while also aim­ing a few gen­tle shots at their oppo­nent and the ranks of elite jour­nal­ists in attendance.

Thus, Repub­li­can standard-bearer Mitt Rom­ney, with a nod to his Mor­mon fuddy-duddy rep­u­ta­tion, reminded the audi­ence of wine-sipping socialites that, “Usu­ally when I get invited to gath­er­ings like this, it’s just to be the des­ig­nated driver.”

Not­ing that this cam­paign has not, jour­nal­is­ti­cally speak­ing, unfolded on a level play­ing field, he added: “I’ve already seen early reports from tonight’s din­ner. Head­line — ‘Obama Embraced by Catholics. Rom­ney Dines with Rich People.’”

In response, the pres­i­dent poked fun at his own com­plex and, for some, con­tro­ver­sial reli­gious and fam­ily back­ground by not­ing that, like Rom­ney, he has a rather unusual name. “Actu­ally, Mitt is his mid­dle name. I wish I could use my mid­dle name,” said Barack Hus­sein Obama.

But, yes, there is the issue of the Rom­ney family’s wealth. “Ear­lier today, I went shop­ping at some stores in Mid­town,” quipped Obama. “I under­stand Gov­er­nor Rom­ney went shop­ping FOR some stores in Midtown.”

It is a tra­di­tion, of course, that the jokes grab the head­lines after this unique, YouTube-friendly scene at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue.

But it is also a tra­di­tion that this din­ner has, through­out its 67-year his­tory, been a cru­cial fundraiser for char­i­ties linked to the Catholic Arch­dio­cese of New York, net­ting about $5 mil­lion this year. Thus, the Catholic shep­herd of New York City speaks last and, lit­er­ally, offers his bene­dic­tion on this salute to light­hearted, gen­er­ous pub­lic dis­course in the tense bat­tle­field that is national politics.

The stakes were espe­cially high this year since Car­di­nal Tim­o­thy Dolan faced with­er­ing crit­i­cism from Catholic con­ser­v­a­tives for extend­ing the tra­di­tional invi­ta­tion to the pres­i­dent — since Obama has repeat­edly clashed with the church over issues related to abor­tion, same-sex mar­riage and reli­gious freedom.

The car­di­nal joined in the humor­ous repar­tee — at one point not­ing that he couldn’t read the greet­ing sent by Pope Bene­dict XVI because it was writ­ten in Latin — but turned seri­ous in his final prayer. He reminded the audi­ence that the din­ner hon­ored Smith as the first Catholic selected as the pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee of a major party, but also as the “happy war­rior” who tire­lessly fought to help the poor, the pow­er­less and other for­got­ten Americans.

“Here we are, in an atmos­phere of civil­ity and humor … lov­ing a coun­try which con­sid­ers reli­gious lib­erty our first and most cher­ished free­dom, con­vinced that faith is not just lim­ited to an hour of Sab­bath wor­ship, but affects every­thing we do and dream,” said Dolan, who also serves as pres­i­dent of the U.S. Con­fer­ence of Catholic Bishops.

The pur­pose of the event, he added, was to “rev­er­ently” recall a “man of deep Catholic faith and ring­ing patri­o­tism, who had a tear in his Irish eyes for what we would call, the ‘uns’ — the un-employed, the un-insured, the un-wanted, the un-wed mother and her inno­cent, frag­ile un-born baby in her womb, the un-documented, the un-housed, the un-healthy, the un-fed, the under-educated.

“Gov­ern­ment, Al Smith believed, should be on the side of these ‘uns,’ but a gov­ern­ment part­ner­ing with fam­ily, church, parish, neigh­bor­hood, orga­ni­za­tions and com­mu­nity, never intrud­ing or oppos­ing, since, when all is said and done, it’s in God we trust, not, ulti­mately, in gov­ern­ment or politics.”

While Dolan is known for his bois­ter­ous wit, this final litany was clearly the big idea he wanted to com­mu­ni­cate to both can­di­dates and to all who were present, said Father James Mar­tin, author of “Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laugh­ter Are at the Heart of the Spir­i­tual Life.”

“It was very mov­ing, and very Catholic, because he refused to nar­row the Gospel down to one or two issues,” said Mar­tin, who attended the din­ner. “He reminded every­one of the sacred dig­nity of all human life, not just in the womb, but also not just in the slums. …

“There are Catholics these days, on the left and on the right, who don’t want to be reminded of both sides of that equa­tion. What the car­di­nal did was honor our Catholic tra­di­tion — all of it.”

(Terry Mat­tingly is the direc­tor of the Wash­ing­ton Jour­nal­ism Cen­ter at the Coun­cil for Chris­t­ian Col­leges and Uni­ver­si­ties and leads the GetReligion.org project to study reli­gion and the news.)

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(EDITORS: For edi­to­r­ial ques­tions, please con­tact Kendra Phipps at kphipps@amuniversal.com.)

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