In the fall of 2012, Dr. Whelan joined forces with two former University of Notre Dame law professors and law school deans, Douglas Kmiec and Ed Gaffney, to write the book “America Undecided: Catholic, Independent and Social Justice Perspectives on Election 2012.” Prof Gaffney is a religious liberty scholar and Prof Kmiec a nationally known constitutional law expert. They argued that there was no merit to the idea that the Obama administration was opposed to religious liberty or hostile to Catholicism. The book begins by chronicling the Catholic influence on the early life of President Barack Obama, who attended Catholic school in Jakarta Indonesia as a child. His mother, Ann Dunham, worked collaboratively for 20 years with a Dutch Jesuit in a Catholic vocational school in Jakarta, trying to advance the economic prospects of a population emerging there from colonialism. Dr. Whelan interviewed a group of Catholic priests who had hired Mr. Obama in 1985 to work in Chicago Catholic parishes as a community organizer.