ANOTHER TWO-AGAINST-ONE AT AL SMITH DINNER
by Paul Murano • ChurchMilitant.com • October 5, 2020
Cdl. Dolan hosts candidates at Catholic e-event
The annual Al Smith Dinner was, in one respect, eerily reminiscent of the presidential debate fresh in minds of most Americans. The differences were that there was no interrupting, and Chris Wallace was replaced by Cdl. Dolan.
Honoring Catholics since the dinner's namesake broke barriers for Catholics in the political arena, Former Vice President Biden and President Trump gave their messages via video feed — and, like Wallace on Tuesday night, the cardinal had the last word.
The annual dinner, attended regularly by presidential candidates in election years since 1960, was in virtual format for the first time on Thursday due to the Wuhan pandemic. It was hosted by Dolan and Mary Callahan Erdoes, the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation vice chair.
Erdoes introduced Biden with a smile and a statement that faithful and believing Catholics would unquestionably dispute: "If elected, Vice President Biden would certainly make Al Smith proud, becoming our nation's second Catholic president."
Al Smith most likely would not have recognized the Catholicism of Biden. Smith was raised before the great sexual revolution against God, in a time when abortion was unthinkable to decent people, contraception was both illegal and universally banned by all Christian denominations as serious sin, natural marriage was respected and homosexual "marriage" was a concept that would have been met with both humor and disgust.
Born in 1873, Smith grew up in poverty and eventually became New York's four-time governor — despite living in an era of widespread anti-Catholic discrimination in America. In 1928, he was the first Catholic nominated to become a major party's presidential candidate.
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