President Obama went prayer-breakfastless this year (he bucked a presidential trend by abstaining from the event), but he was very much present in the prayers and words at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast at the Reagan Hilton. In a just-concluded speech, Archbishop Raymond Burke (chief justice of sorts of the Roman Curial supreme court) focused on the “anti-life and anti-family” crisis in the United States today. He called to task prominent Catholics in the administration (Sebelius was singled out), Catholic voters who “chose the leadership,” and Catholic institutions who are not being “necessarily countercultural.” Notre Dame was singled out as “the source of the greatest scandal” for honoring and giving a forum to a president who has acted “against the moral law.” Burke’s most popular remarks were about Notre Dame, but his greatest and more consistent emphasis was on Catholics knowing and living their “faith deeply” and expressed “with integrity.” In short, there’s a different kind of hope here — for life, marriage, Notre Dame, and the even longer term . . .