I'm not the only one, it seems, who thinks this picture crystallizes some really important recognitions about the agenda of the religious right in its involvement with the American public square: Think Progress has just chosen the photo as one of the 12 most memorable images of 2012.
As I said several days ago, it will take a long time before any nice words of the U.S. Catholic bishops about a loving, inclusive, and salvific God who cherishes everyone in the world manage to dispel this image of Bishop Lori, the bishops' religious freedom guru, sitting at this table with his confreres. The image speaks volumes about who the bishops imagine their God to be, about who occupies the table the bishops' God sets and who is absent from that table, and about whom the bishops' God chooses, blesses, empowers, and includes, and whom their God shoves from the table.
And I'm not inclined to forget that picture and that message anytime soon.
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