National Prayer Breakfast | National Catholic Reporter

National Prayer Breakfast | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: I will make comments as they come in the text.  The Breakfast should be scrapped.  It is a C Street Family event and that should be enough reason for anyone to turn down an invitation to either speak or buy a ticket.  As a Catholic, Jeb Bush should never go.



Now, on ISIL, the L means the Levant.  The President is correct and he has better researchers for this kind of thing.



The Spanish Inquisition probably happened after a prayer breakfast with the Monarch.  The Crusades were more muderous - indeed, what they did to Constantinople gave us th Ottoman Empire eventually.  Bad idea.  They were also the first example of European (and later American) imperialism - and the Spanish Inquisition has inspired the Roman Inquisition - later called the Holy Office and the CDF.  At least the wrack has been replaced by badly written literary criticism.  Sometimes they call attention to real issues - sometimes they get the whole thing wrong (like when they objected to a synthesis of theology that was not an endorsement of altherative views) - mainly, they are the door against women's ordination - something ISIL would likely agree with.



As for the English Civl Wars, stuff happens - and it has something to do with religious fanaticism, but had more to do with sexism against queens and the desire for personal power.  I have people on both sides of that conflict, so I submit it was a family feud - which continued through Cromwell's regicide - leading to English Democracy as we know it, which includes waiting for Kate's new baby.



The President was correct in talking about recent events being a twisting of religion. I doubt it was as much a major point as a transition to later thoughts.  Either way, it as a speech writer, it belongs there.



The concept of religious freedom is low - because tribalism is what most people know.  It is hard to bring them from tribalism to modernity - certainly in the Middle East.  You can't do it with drones.



I look forward to the Pope in Congress - much more so than any papal visit to the United Nations.  He gets a chance to look the servants of capitalism straight in the eye and tell them they are doing evil.  Nothing better than that.  As for ending the Prayer Breakfast - Biden, Clinton or Bush could refuse the invitation - the men for religious grounds and Hillary for feminist grounds (although she might go anyway to prove she could).  Mike Huckabee would revel in the thing.  While he could end it, he would have no reason to.  It would be his triumph.  How scary is that?