Pleasing Everyone Pleases No One

President Obama gave a speech last Tuesday (April 14th) at Georgetown University on his over-arching plan to fix the current economic crisis. He made a little bit of a stir before he even began speaking, though.

Religious Symbols Hidden

Before President Barack Obama spoke from Gaston Hall at Georgetown University last week, his advance team requested that the university hide or remove any religious symbols or signs while the president was on stage. Of the more prominent was a monogram IHS, whose letters in Greek spell out the name of Jesus and which normally perches above the stage in Gaston Hall. During the address, the monogram was covered with what appeared to be black wood.

Georgetown is a private Catholic institution founded by Jesuits in 1789. The auditorium in which the president spoke is normally adorned with religious imagery, but only the symbols directly on the stage — those likely to be picked up by a television camera — were obscured.

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, accused the university of "cowardice" for acceding to the While House, and criticized Obama's team for asking a religious school to "neuter itself" before the president made his address. "No bishop who might speak at the While House would ever request that a crucifix be displayed behind him," said Donohue.

The White House said that the backdrop, which included blue drapes and a host of American flags, was standard during policy speeches and other events.

Though the advance team asked that the religious signs be veiled, the president himself included in his message an analogy from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount as he outlined his plans for an economic recovery. "We cannot rebuild the economy on the same pile of sand," he said. "We must build our house upon a rock." [FoxNews.com]
(From "The Pastor's Weekly Briefing"(a pastoral ministry of Focus on the Family) by H.B. London Jr.)

I would suggest that if you travel somewhere, you should be more respectful to the people you are visiting. If you disagree with them on something- you should do it in the open. If you do not think that you should be associated with them, perhaps you should not visit. Here is the video of the speech for anyone interested: