Today on "Kresta in the Afternoon" - June 1, 2012

Talking about the "things that matter most" on June 1

4:00 – Kresta Comments

4:40 – The Clerical Frown: Our Chief Obstacle to Catholic Political Participation
What is the chief political obstacle for Catholics? Deal Husdon is here to answer that question. He says lay Catholics are the key. We simply need to affirm our obligation to engage fully in the political process without asking for permission from their pastor or their bishop. The Church itself teaches that prior permission is not required but that participation should be guided by the teaching of the Holy Father and the bishops. Deal is here to make his case.

4:40 – Christmas in May: Attorney Defends Nativity Display Before Federal Appellate Court
This week Robert Muise presented oral argument in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in an appeal to protect a private citizen’s First Amendment right to display a Nativity scene on public property during the Christmas season. The case, Satawa v. Macomb County Road Commission, et al., was brought by Muise on behalf of Satawa, a longtime resident of the City of Warren, Michigan, and a practicing member of the Catholic Church who was told, after 60 YEARS, to remove the nativity after a complaint from an activist atheist group. Rob joins us.

5:00 – Kresta Comments

5:20 – Rare Canon Lawsuit Filed Against Georgetown University
Georgetown University alumni, students and others are preparing a canon law suit to be filed with the Archdiocese of Washington and the Vatican, seeking remedies “up to and including the possible removal or suspension of top-ranked Georgetown’s right to call itself Catholic or Jesuit in its fundraising and representations to applicants.” The move comes on the heels of an unprecedented rebuke of Georgetown and its first lay president by His Eminence, Donald Cardinal Wuerl over Georgetown’s invitation to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to be a diploma ceremony speaker. The St. Joseph Foundation Canon Lawyers are working on the case and canon lawyer Michael Dunnigan joins us.

5:40 – The Cristero War and the Knights of Columbus
When the Mexican government of Plutarco Elías Calles began persecuting the Catholic Church in the 1920s, priests were not immune. In fact, they became targets of the regime. One of the hundreds of priests killed during that time for simply carrying out his priestly ministry was Father José María Robles Hurtado. His martyrdom in 1927 at the hands of Mexican troops is depicted in the film For Greater Glory, which opens today. The film sets the story of his martyrdom in the broader context of the persecution of the Church in Mexico at that time. During that same period, the Knights of Columbus in Mexico was instrumental in founding the League of the Defense of Religious Liberty, which organized economic boycotts and petition drives in response to the persecution. We talk to Andrew Walther, spokesman for the Knights, about the role of the Knights in the Cristero War.