President Barack Obama is exploiting Catholics by inviting guest who are opposed to church doctrine to the White House to meet Pope Francis next week, Catholic League President Bill Donohue said Saturday.
"Every time a Jewish or Muslim leader is invited to the White House, properly, they have Jews and Muslims and others who are respectful of the leader," Donohue told Michael
Smerconish on CNN. "Only Catholics are exploited this way by this president."
He asked why weren’t such groups invited as the Sisters of Life, a New York-based order that helps women facing abortion issues, and the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, founded in 1997.
"The loyal nuns are not there," Donohue said. "It's one thing to be welcoming and to be inclusive. It's quite another to bring in people who are opposed publicly to the teachings of the Catholic Church."
The Vatican expressed concerns this week at some of the guests President Obama invited to meet the Holy See during a welcoming ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House on Thursday.
The guests include transgender activists Mateo Williamson and Vivian Taylor, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, Bishop Gene Robinson and Sister Simone Campbell, an activist nun who leads a group criticized by the Vatican for its silence on abortion and euthanasia.
Vatican officials raised concerns this week that pictures taken with such guests could be exploited as a sign of endorsement by Pope Francis.
The Rev. Franklin Graham slammed the list in at Facebook post on Saturday, Obama's plans "
disgraceful and obviously inappropriate."
Donohue told Smerconish that the president was showing "his contempt for Catholics" with such guests.
Pope Francis' intense schedule in the United States next week includes celebrating Mass at Madison Square Garden in New York City and a huge outdoor Mass in Philadelphia next Sunday that is expected to attract more than one million people.
But Donohue said that the pontiff's most significant appearances will be his speeches before Congress on Thursday and at the United Nations on Friday.
"That's where you'll hear his more political-type speeches," he said. "But don't forget, what's most exciting and driving a lot of people crazy is what he says off the cuff.
"Actually the most controversial remarks will probably be made on his way leaving Philadelphia to go to Rome."
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