The Al Smith Dinner and Obama's invitation.

The latest topic to get online fellow Catholics to sing like the Temptations is the invitation of El Presidente to the Al Smith Dinner in NYC.

This was done by Cardinal Dolan, who has been very blunt and outspoken on the topic of the HHS mandate and it's requirement for Catholics to violate Church teaching. Now a large portion of the blogosphere faithful are screaming the cardinal is Judas reincarnated, another portion is saying he's a world class fool and a smaller portion is adopting a "wait and see" attitude.

I'm with the last group. The fat lady hasn't sung to end this particular drama yet. Let's see what develops. Nobody knows where this will go. Maybe nowhere fast. But the naivete of clerics DOES have a limit, witness the Pope's refusal to be photographed with Nancy Pelosi when he gave her an audience. That particular incident, though not a slam dunk defeat for Pelosi, was definitely in her loss column.

So maybe the cardinal is a horse's ass, maybe he's gone to the dark side, maybe theres more going on than we can see at present. If it's the last option I'm sure we'll have a better idea of what it all means the morning after the dinner.