The politics of nudge-nudge-wink-wink in LA-02 (@AnhJosephCao)

The politics of the non-endorsement are an old game, and Rep Anh Cao (R-LA02) is merely the latest politician to play them. You would think that a Republican who is Catholic would not need to publicly claim support from the Church, but Cao needs to raise money from conservative Catholics next door in the burbs (which are in Scalise's LA-01).

The problem is Archbishop Aymond knows the dangers of public political endorsements, so he came down hard on Cao:

U.S. Rep Anh "Joseph" Cao, heading into a difficult re-election campaign, has apologized to New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond for sending out a fundraising letter that strongly implies that Aymond and the local Catholic Church have endorsed him for re-election.

In response, Aymond said he will release a clarification through the Clarion Herald, a Catholic newspaper, underscoring the church's neutrality in the November election.

The archbishop is a good guy, and I'm willing to take him at his word that he and the officials of the archdiocese will remain neutral.

Enter the nudge-nudge-wink-wink:

In 1996, retired Archbishop Philip Hannan famously announced "that no Catholic should vote for" President Bill Clinton or Mary Landrieu, then running for the Senate, because of their support for abortion rights. But within hours of that announcement, the archdiocese issued a statement asserting that it is neutral regarding candidates in elections and that Hannan, in retirement, was speaking for himself.

Archbishop Hannan is New Orleans Royalty. There's a high school named after him (was originally in Da Parish, since the storm, it's across the lake). Hannan was archbishop here when Abp. Aymond was a deacon and I was one of his altar boys at St. Angela Merici. When Hannan says something, it carries more weight than most papal pronouncements. Archbishop Aymond doesn't need to say a word on an issue if Hannan is speaking to it.

The politics of nudge-nudge-wink-wink can be dicey for the Church. Many families in the area are still unhappy about the $20+ million the local church had to pay out to settle clergy sex abuse lawsuits in the 1990s. Catholic Charities is a huge part of the relief effort in the wake of the BP oil disaster. Now is not the time for the Church to go all-in on a single issue.