"the Dems make clearer and clearer with each passing year..."

"... that they can’t even be bothered to *pretend* not to feel deep and abiding hostility and even hatred toward Christians in general and Catholics in particular. As long as they could swallow hard and make a few social justice noises every election year, they could gull a lot of Catholics into believing they were not just the other side of the Caesaroligarch duopoly. And they could, till Obama declared war on the Church with the HHS mandate, sell themselves as just a bit more progressive. But these days, it’s becoming more and more obvious that the leadership and manufacturers of Dem opinion really do regard the Church as the enemy."

-Mark Shea

That, posted yesterday, was Mark's response to the Democrats informing Cardinal Dolan that they were not interested in his praying at their convention as he will be doing at the GOP affair.

Perhaps some in the party saw Mark's sharp rebuke and reacted because word now is that the Dems have changed their minds:

Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York, has accepted an invitation to deliver the closing prayer at next week’s Democratic National Convention. As was previously announced, he will also be offering the closing prayer at the Republican Convention on Thursday of this week.

It was made clear to the Democratic Convention organizers, as it was to the Republicans, that the Cardinal was coming solely as a pastor, only to pray, not to endorse any party, platform, or candidate. The Cardinal consulted Bishop Peter Jugis of the Diocese of Charlotte, who gave the Cardinal his consent to take part in the convention that will be taking place in his diocese.

So the Dems saw the error of their ways and made the invite.  Good for them.

Because you juxtapose that rejection with this news and you have to seriously ponder what it is the Dems were thinking:

The Democratic National Committee is raising a number of eyebrows after announcing that it will be hosting Islamic “Jumah” prayers for two hours on the Friday of its convention, soon after denying a Catholic cardinal’s request to say a prayer at the same event.

...

Siraj Wahhaj, the “Grand Imam” for Jumah at the DNC, is often considered a “moderate” because he was the first Muslim to give an invocation in the U.S. Congress, but as Robert Spencer notes, he has a number of troubling ties to dangerous radicals.  In the early 1990′s the man reportedly sponsored talks by “the Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman in New York and New Jersey mosques, and told his followers that the United States will fall unless it “accepts the Islamic agenda.”

Wahhaj elaborated, according to bestselling author Brigitte Gabriel, to say: “If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.”

He continued: “Take my word.  If 6-8 million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us.”

When an imam like Siraj Wahhaj says “it his duty and our duty as Muslims to replace the US Constitution with the Quran…we need to speak up!” Dr. Jasser reiterated in response, adding that Americans “should be concerned” if this is who the DNC is “consorting with.”

No need to be concerned now however.

Dolan is indeed going to offer a closing prayer and I'm sure with many, having an extremist like Dolan pray at the convention cancels out the Muslim extremists.

I'll however hold to the position that for America, November will be do or die time.

Comments

[stanchaz]

May I humbly remind Cardinal Dolan,
as he preens and pontificates under the spotlights
of the political conventions:
there is really room for only ONE superstar in his religion.
And as the Cardinal addresses and blesses the Republicans and their billionaire buddies,
as he smiles upon those who would destroy Social Security and voucher Medicare to death,
and as he joins with those who readily admit they they “don’t care about the very poor”......
it would be good, it would be very good ...for the good Cardinal
to remember -and take to heart- the words of his boss,
who once said “What you do for the least of these you do for me”.
Unless perhaps, the Cardinal is working for someone else these days?
Not only do Politics and Religion not mix:
they bring out the worst in each other.
And they destroy each other.

[Marv]

@stanchz

Your point "What you do for the least....", in my opionion, is meant to refer to an individual and his/her soul. This should not give politicians a moral right to tax and spend for the good of their souls.
If you take away my ability to decide how I will go about helping the least of us, are you saving my soul for me?
If supporting government run social programs was a Catholic/Christian virtue, why are there so many Atheists on the left?
Lastly, remember 'Thou shall not steal', once the government taxes and spends beyond it's authority, then you can start arguing that it's theft, and therefore sinful and should not be supported.