In the immediate future, Stevens is more likely to go. He’s served since 1975, turns 90 in April, and is said to be visibly slowed. The best indication of his intentions may be that he’s hired only one clerk for next year. That’s the number allowed to retired justices, whereas active justices get four.

Ginsburg, 77, is less likely to step down right now. Although she’s been treated twice for cancer, she apparently enjoys her work and is in no hurry to quit. One scenario  has her staying through the court’s current term and the one after it, then stepping down well before the 2012 presidential election to make sure that it’s Obama, not somebody else, who proposes her successor.

If Obama does get to make new picks for the Supreme Court, it goes without saying that he will select liberals. It’s a bit soon to be absolutely certain, yet already it seems reasonably clear, that his 2009 choice, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, falls in that category. We should know more about that before the present term ends in June.

Sotomayor replaced David Souter—a liberal for a liberal, it appears. If new Obama nominees replace Stevens and Ginsburg, that will be liberals replacing liberals again. The obvious effect of these changes will be that the president has made the court younger than it was when he came to office but, up to that point at least, not accomplished ideological change.

To be sure, words like “liberal” and “conservative” often prove not to be comfortable fits for labeling Supreme Court justices. Bearing that in mind, it’s nonetheless not unfair to say that, as presently constituted, the court breaks down 4-4-1—four conservatives, four liberals, and one swing vote.

The conservatives are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito. The liberals are Stevens, Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and, apparently, Sotomayor. The swing voter is Anthony Kennedy. It is a remarkable and unprecedented fact that six of these—Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor, and Kennedy—are Catholics. But, as their voting records suggest, religion has no visible bearing on how they decide cases.

The ideological makeup of the Supreme Court does, however, have a very strong bearing on the way it’s likely to deal with social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. As matters now stand, the four liberals are solid votes in favor of legalized abortion and the four conservatives are no less solidly in favor of at least some restrictions on the practice. The justices have not been tested on same-sex marriage but would probably split the same way on that question.

This leaves Kennedy. He’s a supporter of the 1973 abortion decision, Roe v. Wade, but in 2007 wrote the majority opinion upholding the federal ban on partial-birth abortion. As for same-sex marriage, in 2003 he wrote the court’s opinion striking down state anti-sodomy laws yet at the same time made the improbable assertion that the ruling wasn’t relevant to the marriage question.

Like the flowing river of ancient Greek philosophy, the Supreme Court is always the same and always changing. Keep your eye out for what floats by next.

In general terms, judicial minimalism means deciding cases on the narrowest reasonable grounds instead of the most broad and expansive. And despite the recent hubbub, I strongly suspect it remains the fundamental judicial stance of a majority of the court’s present members.

If so, it would be rash to predict the court’s current term will be a banner year for landmark church-state jurisprudence. Yet two pending cases make that at least a possibility.

Sometime before the Supreme Court wraps up its work early next summer, it’s likely to decide: whether the presence of a large cross on national park property in California is a form of government endorsement of religion contrary to the First Amendment’s ban on the “establishment” of religion; and whether a Christian student group at a public law school in California violates anti-discrimination law or simply exercises its constitutional right of free exercise in barring homosexuals and non-believers from having leadership roles.

As often happens in Supreme Court litigation, including disputes about religion, the facts in these two cases little immediate impact on most people, but — given that constitutional provisions are at stake — their potential impact is extremely broad.

The first case (Salazar v. Buono) was orally argued before the court last October 7, third day of its term. A decision could be forthcoming at any time. It involves a cross situated in San Bernardino County California’s Mojave National Preserve first place there in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars to honor veterans of World War I.

The cross went uncontested for 65 years, but trouble began in 1999 when the National Park Service refused to allow a Buddhist memorial while announcing it would get rid of the cross. Since then, Congress, two lower federal courts, the Department of the Interior, and the American Civil Liberties Union have all gotten into the act, with the lower courts seeing a constitutional violation involved.

In the second case, Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, a part of the University of California system, withdrew recognition from a student group called the Christian Legal Society for refusing to accept its non-discrimination policy in the matters indicated above. Withdrawal of recognition meant the loss of meeting space, use of bulletin boards, things like that.

Last March the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco,  agreed with the law school. Three years before, however, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, in Chicago, upheld the Christian Legal Society in a dispute with a law school there.

Different as these cases may appear, there is a discernible link between them. Each involves an effort to deny religion a modest form of public entitlement, involving neither coercion of others nor unprecedented favoritism to itself, for violating secularist notions of what is allowable in a public setting. At bottom, this is a part of the ongoing campaign for the privatization of religion.

One recalls the principle identified a century ago by philosopher William James. “In this age of toleration,” that tolerant and ironic man remarked, “no one will ever try to actively interfere with our religious faith, provided we enjoy it quietly with our friends and do not make a public nuisance of it.”

The first and most important thing to understand about the gays in the military debate is that it isn’t really about gays in the military. Not at bottom, at least. The fundamental issue in this argument is about the societal acceptance of homosexuals and, especially, of the homosexual lifestyle. Gays in the military is only a chapter in a much longer story.

Most people, including most moral conservatives, are today quite prepared to extend acceptance to homosexuals and lesbians as individuals-as neighbors, fellow workers, classmates, parishioners, and indeed as friends. The issue, then, boils down to publicly declaring one’s homosexuality and acting out the lifestyle associated with it. Is this also something that must be accepted? That’s what we’re arguing about.

Take the military as a case in point. This debate often gets confused because of a confused way of formulating the issue. According to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen-and many others and the media too-the question is “allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly” in the military. But that isn’t so. Gays and lesbians serve openly in the military now and always have. After all, anyone who serves in the military serves openly, regardless of sexual orientation.

The accurate way of stating the issue would be to say “allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military as gays and lesbians.” In other words: declare their sexual orientation openly and openly act it out. Here of course is where the question of societal acceptance arises, along with the problems.

Considered in this light, the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy strikes me as a reasonable solution and President Obama’s push to get rid of it as a mistake. The policy lets gays and lesbians serve in the military just as they’ve always done. It merely specifies as a condition that they not broadcast the fact of their sexual orientation. The policy may need some touching up to rule out abuses, such as the spiteful outing of gays by third parties, but in principle it can stand as it is.

That isn’t acceptable to homosexuals. Why? Because it sets a condition, and unconditional acceptance is their goal. But although the yearning for unconditional acceptance is understandable, in human affairs generally it’s asking too much.

Society sets many conditions on people-to vote you have to be a citizen, to drive a car your eyesight must be pretty good. It also, necessarily, sets conditions on service in the military, including-up to now-the condition that gays and lesbians not call attention to their sexuality. The reasonable grounds for this particular condition reside in the fear that doing so could be disruptive. There is nothing unfair or unreasonable about that.

But of course it looks highly unfair and unreasonable to someone for whom the unconditional, across-the-board acceptance of homosexuals and their lifestyle, not only in the military but in all social contexts, is the ultimate objective of an emotionally charged drive for “rights.” In that ongoing effort, legal recognition of same-sex marriage is by far the biggest prize. But the unconditional acceptance of gays and lesbians and the lifestyle associated with them in the context of military service is considered a worthwhile intermediate step.

To say these things in the face of today’s pro-gay secular culture is to risk being smeared as a homophobe. To say them also is to repeat the tested wisdom of many centuries. Let’s stick with don’t ask, don’t tell. It makes good sense.

‘Anger’ has of course become every pundit’s favorite explanation for what happened in Massachusetts, where voters handed a Senate seat occupied during most of the half-century past by John and Edward Kennedy to a Republican, Scott Brown. But anger about what?

President Obama says it was residual anger at George W. Bush. Others, noting that Obama has been president for a year, say it’s anger at him. There’s probably truth in both explanations.

Obama was elected in 2008 because he promised change. So far he’s failed to deliver-at least, to many people’s satisfaction. Whether that reflects a failure of policy, of procedure, or of personal temperament, or the machinations of a vast right-wing conspiracy directed by Rush Limbaugh, is an interesting question but one that needn’t detain us here. What matters is that although Obama promised change, to many people things look much as they did before-and they don’t like it. Taking matters into their own hands, it seems, Massachusetts voters produced a change named Scott Brown.

So what is going on here? What’s really bugging Americans in large numbers these days?

A great deal of the answer is found in the history of the last two decades.

After the fall of communism and the end of the cold war, Americans were promised the “end of history,” a happy ending to end all happy endings. The country still had a few little problems of course, but none of them too serious. After half a century of international anxiety and nuclear threat, Americans could finally put their feet up and relax.

One predictable result of this was the onset of an era of national self-indulgence and self-deception. Its most visible symptom was an economic boom in which greed and risk-taking became the norm.

Complacency was shattered on September 11, 2001. Suddenly the nation was on  virtual wartime footing. Americans accepted it at the time. But now, going on nine years later, the strain is starting to show. Iraq was excruciating. Afghanistan looks the same. A man fingered to U.S. intelligence as a threat nevertheless got a shot at blowing up a U.S. airliner last Christmas Day. Add to that the economic crisis of the last two years. Now do you wonder why people want change?

But the roots of the national mood go deeper. It’s been clear for years that the consensus on moral values holding the country together is badly frayed. The rights and wrongs of fundamental issues are bitterly disputed. That’s what the culture war is about. And the efforts of courts to impose solutions are deeply resented.

The United States today unquestionably does need change. And on a fundamental level-the level of values and beliefs. When and if a leader emerges who can satisfy that desire and bring Americans together again on things like abortion and gay rights, as well as less sharply defined issues like illegal immigration, environmental policy, and health care reform, he or she will be welcomed. But given the ideological polarization of the values debate, that won’t happen any time soon, and the nation’s current angry and unsettled mood seems likely to persist into the indefinite future.

It’s hardly news that politicians sometimes say things to particular audiences simply in hopes of pleasing them, without necessarily meaning to follow through on what they seem to have promised. Perhaps that explains President Barack Obama’s odd performance on funding for elective abortions in health care reform. Perhaps. But I suspect something more basic is at work.

The fundamental concern driving prolife Americans in the abortion debate — to protect unborn human life — appears simply not to matter much to our pro-choice president. This is not to say he’s an evil man. But on the record it is fair to suppose that in his moral universe the unborn possess negligible moral weight, while the right to choose abortion and act on that choice is a matter of very high priority.

If that is correct, then soothing words directed now and then by Obama to an audience like the one at the Notre Dame commencement last spring are best understood as verbal counters in a political game aimed at advancing the right to choose while simultaneously jollying the gullible.

Passing over Obama’s well documented promises to pro-abortion audiences, the statements he’s presumably intended for prolife ears during the last eight months reflect something like that. And so we get the following.

At Notre Dame on May 17 the president said in part, “Let’s honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause.”

The health care debate moved into high gear soon after. On August 19, speaking via a teleconference organized by religious groups, Obama protested health care “fabrications” including claims that legislation then moving forward provided public funding of abortion. On August 23, in his weekly radio address, he followed that up by saying, “When it comes to the current ban on using tax dollars for abortions, nothing will change under reform.”

Next day a nonpartisan web site called FactCheck concluded that “despite what Obama said” the House bill really would use public funds to pay for abortion.

Even so, addressing Congress September 9, Obama pointed to a “misunderstanding” in need of correcting. “Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions and federal conscience laws will remain in place,” he explained.

On November 7, however, the House found it necessary to amend its bill by adopting the Stupak-Pitts amendment — essentially, the Hyde Amendment which since 1976 has barred federal funding of elective abortions, allowing it only in cases of rape, incest, and to save the mother’s life.

The president then repeated his endorsement of the “status quo” on funding. But although Stupak-Pitts — a.k.a. Hyde — is the status quo on this matter, Stupak-Pitts wouldn’t do, he said.

Shortly before Christmas the Senate rejected the amendment that the House earlier had passed. A few days later it approved a health care bill containing a so-called compromise on abortion funding that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other prolife groups said would allow public funding of elective abortions and force people with conscientious objections to help pay for them. Obama prefers the Senate version to the House version.

Obama’s public utterances don’t add up. He says that he supports the status quo on abortion funding, but when push comes to shove he supports loosening up. This makes sense if you suppose he’s prepared to give prolifers rhetoric but not substance. The health care fight will come to a head in the next few weeks, and the president could still change his tune. Unfortunately, by now that seems highly unlikely.

Strictly by accident, the Woods episode coincides with publication of a major new study, The Effects of Pornography on Individuals, Marriage, Family, and Community, showing why it should. It is the work of Patrick F. Fagan, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and director of its Center for Marriage and Family Research.

“Powerful and deep” is how Fagan sums up pornography’s capacity to “undermine individual and social functioning.”

The merit of this heavily documented review of social science literature lies in backing up conclusions with serious scientific sources. No one who takes the time to read it can buy the liberal cliché that pornography does no harm (a companion piece, incidentally, to the conservative cliché that guns don’t kill people, people do).

As a matter of fact, pornography, like the abuse of handguns, does great harm: to its users-especially, those who become addicted-as well as to marriages, to family life, and to society as a whole. Internet pornography is a serious threat to the nation’s children, including both those who become users and those victimized by sexual predators.

In brief, says Fagan, “habitual consumption of pornography can break down the relational substrates of human interaction-family, friends and society.” (People who want to read this important document can find it at www.frc.org/pornography-effects.)

Those are psychological and sociological dimensions of the problem. Beyond them lies the dimension of the ascetical struggle. Let me explain.

Lately I’ve been writing a book about a book. The book I’ve been writing about is a small volume of meditations composed by the founder of Opus Dei, St. Josemaria Escriva, and called The Way. More about that another time.

Here I note what might seem an oddity of the book. The chapter on chastity comes way up front-fourth of 46 chapters-and the topic itself receives a generous 28 “points.” Considering that other virtues are treated much later in The Way, why such prominent billing for chastity?

The reason is simple. The model of the interior life used by St. Josemaria is the inclined plane-start at the bottom and work your way up toward union with God. With regard to chastity, he takes the tough, realistic view that spiritual progress can’t even begin in the case of somebody who habitually and, as it were, complacently sins this way. Someone who falls occasionally, repents, resumes the struggle, yes. Someone for whom unchastity is a way of life, no.

Looking for an explanation for many seemingly unrelated problems in the religious world today? You’ll find them here — in self-deception and rationalization concerning unchastity as an obstacle to interior life.

But the idea of chastity isn’t an easy sell now, not even in religious circles. I think of a man who told me cheerfully he’d been assured by his brother, a religious order priest, that it’s impossible to sin seriously against chastity by looks. Really? The New Testament quotes Jesus like this: “I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt 5.28).

My guess is that many people have either forgotten that or don’t care much. Anyway, keep Tiger Woods and his family in your prayers.

What does Donohue do? Here is a sentence from a recent League news release quoting its leader: "The real story here is not the corruption of Harvard-that’s old hat-the real story is the president of the United States choosing a morally challenged anti-Catholic homosexual to join his team."

In case you wonder, that was Donohue’s trademark way of protesting President Obama’s choice of one Kevin Jennings as the administration’s "safe schools czar." Among other things, it turned out, Jennings was a member of a homosexual activist group called ACT UP and donor to an ACT UP display featured at the Harvard art museum. In case it’s slipped your mind, it was ACT UP which in a notorious 1989 incident disrupted Mass in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York and desecrated the Eucharist.

It’s hardly a surprise that Bill Donohue, holder of a doctorate in sociology from New York University and a former college professor, is not universally liked. There are two obvious reasons. One reason is his take-no-prisoners way of expressing himself. The other reason is that he gets his facts straight. Take my advice: if you are thinking about signing up in the culture war, be sure to join Donohue’s side.

But make no mistake-this is not a mean man. Friends of Bill Donohue (full disclosure: I count myself among them) know him as a kind and gentlemanly fellow. Trash the Catholic Church, however, and beware. Donohue in action plays rough.

A few zingers drawn from his new book Secular Sabotage: How Liberals Are Destroying Religion and Culture in America (Faith Words, $21.99) may serve to suggest the flavor of the man.

*On the people whom he gently terms "radical secular activists": "That they have absolutely nothing to offer in the way of an alternative social order not only reveals their intellectual bankruptcy, it explains their rage. This is the revenge of the nihilists."

*On college administrators who take steps to suppress religious expression on their campuses: "Some college officials are totalitarians."

*On old-line Catholic dissidents who keep up their complaints about the Church year after year: "What would make them happy? It’s not clear even the dissidents know at this point….They could join another religion, but that wouldn’t be as much fun."

Secular Sabotage is chock-full of anecdotes drawn from skirmishes in the culture war. Bill Donohue and the Catholic League have played a high-profile role in many of these. If your dudgeon is low and your blood needs to boil, read this book.

Many Catholics deeply admire Donohue, seeing him as a gutsy and effective champion of the Church in the face of rampant anti-Catholicism. Others find him an embarrassment or worse — too loud, too outspoken, a spike in the wheels of Catholic surrender to the culture of secularism.

Count me in the first group. In a devastating chapter on Catholic "self-sabotage," Donohue writes of those Catholic church-wreckers of the ‘60s and ‘70s who "gave it their best shot and they lost….It’s up to the rest of us to clean up the mess they left behind." Bill Donohue is working hard at that. We all should.

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:”";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Speaking to 800 priests at the shrine of Fatima in Portugal, the cardinal who heads the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy recently leveled criticism at priests for whom the priesthood has become “a kind of ecclesiastical profession which they carry out as civil servants.” Having only news reports to go on, I strongly suspect Cardinal Claudio Hummes said more than just that. I certainly hope so, because, although the comment contains much truth, it is seriously inadequate as it stands. In this current Year for Priests it’s important to point out why.

My biggest objection to the remark as reported concerns the slighting use of the expression “ecclesiastical profession.” What I suspect the cardinal meant—and what’s true enough—is that the priesthood isn’t just one more job alongside others. In making this perfectly reasonable point, however, it’s a mistake to say or imply that there’s something intrinsically wrong with, or at least inferior about, professions and jobs in general.

The Christian ideal of work is to do one’s job, whatever it may be, for the glory of God and the service of other human beings. Many people in many lines of work try to do exactly that each day. There is every reason for priests to try to do it too. Looking down our noses at the notion of “profession” isn’t helpful to that.

Nor is it helpful to suggest that there’s something wrong with having priests approach their work with a professional attitude. To be professional means doing one’s best to meet high standards of excellence in one’s work. People who aren’t professional are prepared to settle for sloppy, careless, just-getting-by performance. Surely this is not what we want of our priests.

I also take exception to the slap at priests who function as “civil servants” in the Church. Over the years I’ve encountered many of these men in chancery offices, national organizations, the Holy See, and other settings, and—making allowance for the occasional time-server—I’ve found many to be admirable priests whose administrative tasks are as much an expression of their priestly commitment as preparing a homily or teaching a catechism class.

True, priests in this situation often feel a need for some form of directly pastoral work on the side—to keep their hand in, as it were—and I admire them for that. But this is not a reflection on their office work as such.

Around the time Cardinal Hummes made his remarks, Pope Benedict also spoke to a group of Brazilian bishops about the priesthood. In this case, I have the advantage of having the full text of the Pope’s remarks, and I find them notably more nuanced and helpful than the snippets attributed to the cardinal.

The Pope’s central statement was this: “The role of the priest is essential and irreplaceable for the proclamation of the word and for the celebration of the sacraments.” That was said in the context of a discourse touching on questions raised about lay and clergy roles in the changing circumstances of today’s Church, including the shortage of priests in some places.

Against this background, Benedict XVI insisted, there is need for a “harmonious, correct and clear deepening of the relationship between the common priesthood [the baptismal priesthood or priesthood of the faithful] and the ministerial [ordained] priesthood.” The more aware lay people become of their responsibilities in the Church, he said, “the more clearly stand out the priest’s identity and his irreplaceable role.” Here’s a challenge and an opportunity for us all.

Clueless as usual where Catholicism is concerned, the secular media have tended to treat Benedict XVI’s action in political terms, as a power grab. This interpretation ignores the fact that the Anglican traditionalists most likely to take advantage of the new provision for “personal ordinariates” have been pleading for something like this for years. The Pope has simply responded to those pleas.

But secular journalists aren’t the only ones to get it wrong. Catholic voices also have been raised in this chorus of callousness. Consider the final paragraph of an article in the London Tablet, a reliable platform for progressive Catholic views: “It is hard to see how this new development will do anything but further sow division in the Anglican Communion and confusion among Catholics who have long been committed to the work of ecumenism.”

As to Anglican “division”: the departure of Anglicans who’ve anguished for a long time over the direction of their fractured communion is much more likely to restore a semblance of unity to that deeply troubled body than it is to create more division.

As to Catholic “confusion”: the confusion admittedly felt by many Catholics about the nature and intent of ecumenism is largely a product of a post-Vatican II interpretation that reduces the ecumenical enterprise to endless dialogue leading—God knows how—to some sort of corporate merger in an unimaginable future. Confusion is a mild word for it.

Most of all, though, such critical comments miss the fundamental point—the relief potentially afforded to those Anglican groups most directly affected by Benedict’s generous gesture. That is best understood in human terms.

A year ago in Rome I had a substantial chat with an Anglican woman who is a member of one of these groups. Moved by her faith and her ardent desire for communion with the Holy See, I told her at the end of our conversation: “I can only hope and pray that you get what you want—and get it soon.”

It’s often said that conservative Anglicans are upset about things like women bishops and openly homosexual bishops. No doubt they are. But much else is involved.

Several years ago an American woman—a contented member of the Episcopal Church—told me an anecdote concerning an Episcopal clergyman which she insisted was true. It seems that this gentleman, in a fit of whimsy, was seen one day to give communion to a dog. The lady seemed to think that was just fine. I was appalled—at what had happened, at her approval of it, and at what it disclosed concerning the state of Episcopalian belief in the Eucharist.

A man who’d been an Episcopalian for years but finally came over to Rome once shared a useful insight with me. “The trouble with those people,” he said of his former co-religionists, “is that they’re sentimental.”

A number of present Anglicans seem to agree. I am glad that Pope Benedict has offered these troubled believers a congenial way out of the dilemma in which their sentimental Anglican brethren placed them. As for those who don’t like what the Pope has done, I suggest they remove their blinders and congratulate him on an act of Christian charity.

I have no intention of rehashing the furor over the Nobel committee’s selection of Obama. Since this is the kind of simple, one-dimensional issue that media love to go on about, journalists have had great fun with it, pro and con. For my money, The Washington Post, a certified Obama supporter, got it right in calling the peace prize “odd” and remarking: “It is no criticism of Mr. Obama to note that, barely nine months into his presidency, his goals are still goals.” Enough said.

For people who’ve been confused by things happening at the Vatican since early this year, the Nobel committee’s action seemed eerily familiar in some respects. Vatican voices have hailed the American president for months, and it hasn’t always been easy to say just why.

First it was L’Osservatore Romano, the semi-official Vatican newspaper, then more recently Cardinal Georges Cottier, an elderly Swiss churchman who was official papal theologian under Pope John Paul. The newspaper and the cardinal publicly pinned high hopes on Obama in the absence of much real achievement and despite his well publicized support for legalized abortion.

Inevitably, this has had the look of policy. But if it’s that, the roots of such a policy on the part of the Holy See are not immediately clear. What exactly does the Vatican expect to get from Obama? An Israeli-Palestinian settlement? Meaningful steps toward nuclear disarmament? These surely are worthy goals, but other American presidents before now have pursued them, with limited success so far.

Note, though, that L’Osservatore Romano was critical of the Nobel to Obama. Perhaps earlier criticism has sunk in at its editorial offices.

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver recently had the courage to stand up and say: Enough. In an article published in an Italian magazine, he took polite but strong exception to Cardinal Cottier’s dismissive view of Catholics who criticized Notre Dame University’s decision to give President Obama an honorary degree last spring. The critics included 80 bishops and some 300,000 American Catholics who signed petitions of protest.

Remarking that “the pastoral realities of any country are best known by the local bishops,” Archbishop Chaput said Catholic frustration with the university’s action in honoring Obama had nothing to do with “whether he is a good or bad man” and everything to do with his “deeply troubling views on abortion law and related social issues.”

Meanwhile, things are rapidly coming to a head in Congress over health care reform in general and the issue of abortion coverage in particular.

President Obama has promised that there will be no government funding of abortion and any reform program will include a conscience clause allowing abortion opponents to opt out. But the key legislative proposals in play at present provide for abortion funding and have no conscience clause.

Will Obama deliver on his promises or will he not? Time is running out. Maybe those Catholics who are eager to pay homage to our pro-abortion president—including those at the Vatican—should wait to see what actually happens. Unless, like the Nobel committee, they think promises without performance are good enough.