Breakfast with the President

For The Morning Star’s inaugural interview, editor Joshua Mercer interviewed Joseph Cella, president of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, who also serves as president of Fidelis. (Full disclosure: Mercer worked for Cella at Fidelis before joining the Marian Center in 2005.)

What spurred you to start the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast?

I was in my office early in the morning on February 6, 2003 watching the National Prayer Breakfast on CSPAN. At that time, I was reading a couple of Pope John Paul the Great’s writings on the New Evangelization. As I was sitting there, it struck me like a thunderclap that Catholics ought to establish their own national breakfast, which would answer the call of John Paul the Great to engage our faith in ways that are “new in ardor, methods and expression.”

You were able to get President Bush to come speak. Did that stir up controversy? He’s been anti-abortion, but many Catholics oppose the war.

When the President first spoke at the NCPB in 2005, there were a couple of anti-war protestors outside of the hotel, but that is really all the stir it created. We would welcome any President of any party if he or she supported the Church’s teachings on the core social teachings of the sanctity of life and traditional marriage, which cannot be questioned, unlike other issues such as health care and foreign policy which are matters left to prudential judgment and debate.

Who’s scheduled for this year’s breakfast?

Thus far, we have Bishop Paul S. Loverde of the Diocese of Arlington serving as our principal celebrant and homilist the evening before. Our keynote speaker will be Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl and the topic of his talk will be “Christianity and Our National Identity.” We will also have Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, publisher of the journal First Things, Raymond Arroyo of EWTN, Steve McEveety, the director of Mel Gibson’s The Passion and a number of other exciting guests.

And this year it’s not on a Friday in Lent, so I trust there will be bacon at the breakfast.

The Resurrection of the Lord is just four days earlier, so we will be celebrating that joyous event. And bacon and ham will be served in copious amounts.

In addition to the prayer breakfast, you started a political group called Fidelis. Tell us about that.

Fidelis is a national Catholic-based advocacy group with offices in Chelsea, Mich., and Chicago. We have a political division and a legal division and we work with people of faith across the country to defend and promote the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and the right to religious liberty.

We do that by electing pro-life, pro-family and pro-religious liberty candidates, supporting the confirmation of judges, and promoting and defending laws faithful to the Constitution of the United States.

The elections of 2006 were disappointing to pro-life Catholics.

Yes, from the standpoint that it will likely be more difficult to advance pro-life and pro-family policies and confirming judges who are faithful to the Constitution is going to turn into a huge battle.

Some are worried that the GOP won’t nominate a strong pro-lifer in 2008. If they don’t, will Catholics abandon the Republican Party?

That is the million dollar question. There is Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) who is solidly pro-life, but at this point faces some challenges because he is still establishing his name identification, just as many of the other candidates are. A colleague I spoke with yesterday argues the candidate who will be the nominee has not even declared his interest yet. It will be interesting to see if he is right.

What did you make of the debate during John Kerry’s presidential run over “pro-choice” politicians receiving the Eucharist?

First, it was quite stunning to see something that began as an asterisk in 2003 when Bishop Wiegand asked then-Governor Gray Davis (D-Calif.) to refrain from receiving Communion because of his rabid pro-abortion position, to then blow up into the story that Catholics followed with great interest in 2004.

Second, denying anyone Communion is an extremely grave matter and it should be reserved for extraordinary cases of public scandal and that decision is vested with the Bishops. One would hope that Catholics who are living sinfully or deny and work against the core teachings of the Church would respect the Eucharist and refrain from receiving Communion. It is a sad and difficult situation to deal with.

Are you worried about Arizona’s rejection of a marriage amendment?

I think it was a blip on the radar screen in terms of the broader national debate — the seven out of eight states with the traditional marriage question on their ballot passed. But the win by homosexual forces in Arizona shows the changing demographics of Arizona — more socially liberal people are making their homes there. Another troubling indicator of where Arizona is going can be seen with this year’s ballot question that is attempting to legalize assisted suicide.

What battles are on the horizon?

We’re going to work against the assisted suicide question in Arizona and preparing for an embryonic stem cell battle that may occur here in Michigan in 2008.

A stem-cell battle here in Michigan? Who’s behind that drive?

It’s a combination of big corporations who want to make money off of the taxpayers, universities who want a piece of the action, along with sympathetic influential people in Michigan, all who have no problem with the killing of human embryos.

There are rumors that John Paul Stevens might retire from the U.S. Supreme Court. Would confirming a replacement for Stevens, a reliable vote for abortion, be an all out war?

It will be the Supreme Court confirmation equivalent of World War III. We’re already gearing up for the fight.

Why has organizing Catholics politically been such a difficult task?

One of the many aims of Fidelis is to harness this largely untapped force of the largest and fastest growing segment of religious faiths in the United States — the Catholic Church and mobilize the laity to participate in the election of candidates, influencing legislation and confirming judges who are faithful to the Constitution.

The good news is that we can once again turn to the teachings of John Paul the Great who said in the document Ecclesia in America: “The new evangelization calls for a clearly conceived, serious and well organized effort to evangelize culture.” Fidelis aims to do just that, create a clearinghouse, if you will, for Catholics to participate in the arena and know they will support an organization that upholds the teachings of the Church who will be good stewards of their financial resources and time.

For more info, visit www.fidelis.org or www.catholicprayerbreakfast.com

 

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