There have been several efforts to tease outconnections between Barack Obama and Catholicism--not surprising given many clear affinities, if clearly not a wholesale overlap. Some have been more adept than others. John O'Malley, whose writings I like very much, takes anew tack in an essay at America's site, titled "Barack Obama and Vatican II: The president's persona and the spirit of the council." O'Malley recognizes the "minefield" he is entering, especially as regards discussions of "the spirit" of the council, which as he notes is anathema to many today. But he persists, and draws a connection between the council's "style"--a trope of his--and Obama's style in his election night speech and his Notre Dame address:

The council hoped that this new style of being, which brings with it a new way of proceeding, would lead to cooperation among all persons of good willCatholics and non-Catholics, Christians and non-Christians, believers and non-believerson the new, massive, and sometimes terrifying problems that face humanity today. This new way of proceeding in large part constituted the spirit of the council. It was one of the big messages the council delivered to the church and to the world at large.

That is why when I heard Obamas two speeches I was struck by how much he spoke in accord with the spirit of Vatican II. In those two addresses, as well as in his other speeches, he called for civility, for the end of name-calling, and for a willingness to work together to deal with our common problems, including abortion, rather than a stand-off determination to impose ones principles without reckoning what the cost to the common good might be...

...Classical theorists about rhetoric like Cicero and Quintilian described it as the art of winning consensus, the art of bringing people together for a common cause. It is an art, please note, closely related to ethics, for those same theorists described the truly successful orator as vir bonus dicendi peritus--a good man, skilled in public speaking. It is an art in which Obama excels and which, certainly unwittingly, puts him in touch with the spirit of Vatican II.I often hear laments that the spirit of Vatican II is dead in the church. Is it not ironic that not a bishop but the President of the United States should today be the most effective spokesperson for that spirit? To judge from the enthusiastic response he received from the graduates at Notre Dame, his message captured their minds and hearts. Maybe through young Catholics like those at Notre Dame who are responding to Obamas message the spirit of Vatican II will, almost through the back door, reenter the church. The history of the church has, after all, taken stranger turns than that.

By coincidence, though witha good deal less erudition,I tried to make a similar point re the church "ad extra" in an article this week at PoliticsDaily, in which I argue that Obama may be rescucitating the spirit of Eugene McCarthy and a "liberal" or social justice Catholicism that had been exiled in recent decades by the GOP and the church leadership--with the help of more than a few Catholic pols. Maybe that too is changing. My piece is here. Comments welcome.