…along with several other good-luck trinkets.  This has been hitting the blogs all of a sudden the last couple of days, and us Catholics are making hay of the way our President carries a miraculous Mary medal as well as a Madonna and Child medal.  Rightly so, they are invoking our Mother on behalf of our President, that she would intercede on behalf of him and us for his conversion.

Forgive the cynicism of my headline, then, but I call this “voting present” on religion.  Why?  Because of all the stuff he’s carrying for “good luck.”  Let’s go to the tape:

From Time’s political blog…

Amongst the things that Barack Obama carries for good luck are a bracelet belonging to a soldier deployed in Iraq, a gambler’s lucky chit, a tiny monkey god and a tiny Madonna and child.

He’s carrying around a smorgasbord of good luck items among which two are Christian and specifically Catholic.  Again, forgive my cynicism but this just looks like running the gamut, so to speak.  Juxtaposing Christian “trinkets” with other trinkets makes me question what level of esteem he gives the Marian medals compared with the others. That and he’s so darned political that I would think the only reason he carries those items is because focus groups have told him those are the most politically popular things for him to carry.

All that said, I agree – whether he gives a flip about what he’s carrying, we should certainly pray for him through our Mother.