Obama Avoiding Catholic Prayer at Inauguration?

Apparently I was misled when I earlier reported that the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., would be giving an invocation at some point in Tuesday's activities. According to the National Catholic Register, there are no scheduled prayers from Catholics, just as there were none at Obama's convention in Denver.

Some believe it is only an oversight. The Register quotes Steven Waldman of Beliefnet.com as saying that it is the result of Obama's organization trying hard to balance so many competing interests (gays, environmentalists, etc.) that they forget about balancing Christian factions. The Register believes it is more sinister than this:

We suspect Obama’s omission of a Catholic participant was a whole lot more intentional than that. This year’s Democratic National Convention in Denver also notably excluded an invitation to Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, unlike invitations extended at previous conventions to bishops such as Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles at the DNC in 2000 held in that city.

Why the contemporary reluctance among Democrats to grant Catholic bishops a voice at functions they have organized? Perhaps it’s because they fear that virtually any Catholic bishop they invite will call the nation’s attention to the Democratic Party’s failure to respect the sanctity of life of the unborn, because of the party’s formal commitment to the promotion of abortion rights....

... it’s only reasonable to speculate that Barack Obama — who by general consensus is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever elected to the White House — is not eager to afford one of the Church’s American shepherds another high-profile opportunity to remind him that this obligation to respect the sanctity of the lives of unborn Americans applies very specifically to all of Obama’s actions during his upcoming presidency.