The latest flare-up on the Obama Watch (it’s not easy to keep up with all of them) was sparked by Georgetown University’s decision to cover up its Christian symbols, or try to, when the president visited the campus to deliver a speech.

The cover-up didn’t entirely work. The university’s (and the Jesuits’) abbreviation for Jesus’ name – HIS – was still visible elsewhere in the hall. Along with the cross above the university’s seal. A result of sloppy planning or divine will? And why not both? He works in mysterious ways.

This scandalette could have been just the product of another bad idea from some lower-down on the White House staff, whose idea of presidential decorum may be what the late Richard John Neuhaus, priest and public intellectual, called the Naked Public Square. That is, one devoid of any reference to religion.

Father Neuhaus deplored that whole, mistaken idea. And with good reason. Just to begin with, any attempt to white-out religious thought from America’s public life would seem a highly unrealistic venture in a country brimming over with all varieties of faiths.

It’s quite possible – it’s done all the time – to recognize our religious roots, of all kinds, without falling into the trap of imposing our kind of faith (or lack of it) on others. For there is a difference in tone between an act of reverence, of witness, of respect, and bashing a captive audience over the head. Just as there was a difference between the way Martin Luther King Jr. and Jerry Falwell approached the blend of political and religious thought that is unavoidable in America.

Letting the public see that the president of the United States was speaking at a Catholic university would seem only a simple, natural recognition of reality.

What’s wrong, what’s nervy, is to ask a religious institution to hide its religion. Talk about intolerance: Why should others be expected to sacrifice their integrity to our own, uncompromising creed – in this case, a blank, official, secularism?

To separate our deepest beliefs from the public square impoverishes it. And ignores how rich and varied our culture is. Why slice our public life into separate little boxes and declare that no symbol may be shown outside the religious ghetto we’ve assigned it? How ill mannered. A gracious guest, and Mr. Obama was the guest in this instance, does not begin his visit by redecorating his host’s house. The sight of the university’s seal as he spoke should not have offended, for it is the university’s own, not a government establishment of religion.

It’s hard to believe this cover-up was the president’s idea, since he didn’t hesitate to bring up the Sermon on the Mount in his speech/sermon: “There is a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells a story of two men. … ‘The rain descended and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house … it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.’ … We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock.”

Somehow I never thought the Teacher from Nazareth was discussing government economic policy when he referred to that Rock, but it was the president’s speech, and he has every right to choose his own words, including a scriptural reference. Just as Georgetown need not have hidden away its religious symbols at his behest.

It was a strange episode all in all, especially because this president has never shied away from religious symbols before. Didn’t he just hold a Passover Seder at the White House? Surely he didn’t cover the symbols on the Seder plate as all the rites were observed in full. Any more than he would have his staff mask some verse from the Koran in beautiful Arabic calligraphy if he were speaking at a mosque.

And how many black churches do you suppose he’s preached in over the course of his long public career? Surely he didn’t insist that they be cross-free before he took his place on the pulpit.

No, Mr. Obama has never been a man to shun religion, at least not in his public remarks. It was at a private campaign fund-raiser, when he didn’t realize he was being recorded, that he made his unfortunate comment about those simple folk who take refuge in their God and guns in hard times. And surely he has repented saying it since, Christian gentleman that he is.

Covering up the cross at Georgetown must have been some officious advance man’s bright idea, not the president’s. Unfortunately, the administrators at Georgetown who acceded to the request have no such excuse.

© 2008 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.