The first senator elected president since JFK has rapidly cobbled together an "iCamelot 2.1."
Famously dubbed an American Camelot by Jackie O., JFK's time in office is comparable to President Barack Obama's presidency so far. His massive power and influence is complemented by his image as a fit, photogenic leader riding the better angels of our nature next to a pretty wife with a signature bob. This collective memory spins together the auras of Kennedy and Obama much tighter than history may allow for. The paths of these two luminaries diverge abruptly, however, once the Pope is in the picture.
Pope Benedict XVI stepped up this past weekend and directed the Vatican to throw down the first essential attack on the Obama administration's policy regarding access to international funding for abortion. Obama was called arrogant, a bad listener and a disappointment by two of the Pope's main mouthpieces after only days on the job.
The law that so angered the Pope is a political hot potato that Obama attempted to handle with care. Enacted by former President Ronald Reagan in 1984, the "global abortion gag rule" prohibited international nongovernmental organizations connected to federal U.S. aid from using their money to provide regular abortions or lobby for less restrictive abortion laws in their own countries.
Former President Bill Clinton repealed this same law on Jan. 22, 1993, and former President George W. Bush reenacted it on Jan. 22, 2001. Both men used the anniversary of Roe v. Wade to make a point regarding their political convictions. Obama waited until Friday evening and only made a small announcement in a calculated attempt to slip the expected change past the weekly news cycle.
Even though he looks like your average German octogenarian, this Pope has a YouTube channel and works weekends. On Saturday morning his people fired off an announcement - becoming the first to step up to the new president on a legislative issue. American opposition in the Republican or religious vein may have been too preoccupied with fighting aspects of the massive bailout flashing through Congress to respond properly, but the fact that the Pope took the lead in going after Obama could have lasting implications.
The very same weekend, Pope Benedict XVI brought four excommunicated bishops back into the fold in an attempt to heal the only Catholic schism of the 20th century. One of the four holy men is currently under investigation for Holocaust denial, so the combined effect of last weekend's events unites the religion under a much more conservative and combative banner.
Catholicism in America has been reinvigorated by the recent infusion of the strictly fundamentalist ethic of recent Hispanic immigrants, and the church now counts its equally conservative African bishops as many of the most prized leaders in their system. History may hold Pope Benedict XVI aloft not for his willingness to pick a fight, but for laying the groundwork for the selection of the first black pope. Unlike the strained shadow of Camelot, that shift would truly be change one could believe in.
Tommy Maple is an international communications graduate student. His column appears on Tuesdays.
