08/01/2004: "One Democrat's faith"

I wouldn't want to be the Catholic priest or religious educator who has to stand before St. Peter and explain my role in getting this young woman, a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, so hopelessly confused about her priorities in life:

"I was raised Ojibwe, Irish, Catholic, and a DFLer [Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party], none of which is more important than the other," says Peggy Flanagan, 25, of Minneapolis, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe.

Flanagan, who's a candidate for the school board in Minneapolis, thinks Catholic Democrats are assuming a larger political role as a reaction to the emergence of the the power of Catholic Republicans--and the bishops--in political fights over abortion and same-sex marriage.

"It was difficult, and it is difficult, that the church in which I grew up, is now sort of rejecting folks, whereas when you get to the door of the church, when you walk through those doors, that's between you and God," she says.

Irish ethnic heritage is just as important as Christian faith? Does she really think that Flanagan name is going to carry weight with God? And she clearly doesn't understand cause and effect in the abortion flap. The Church rejects no one--if someone rejects what the Church teaches as moral truth, then that person has rejected the Church and the Lord who reveals truth to His Church (that's Catholic teaching, not mine). As for the idea that when you go to church "that's between you and God," well, all I can say is that the ecclesiology of Vatican II obviously never made it to her church.

I feel sorry for Ms. Flanagan. Her understanding of Christian, and specifically Catholic, faith is a sad reflection on those in the Church who have failed to disciple her in the truth. Later in the article, she says she's now attending a Lutheran church, but still considers herself a Catholic. The beliefs she expresses in the article are no more compatible with Lutheranism than Catholicism, but hopefully some caring pastor can steer her closer to the gospel and the Lord who stands behind it.