Blame USCCB Timidity AND Notre Dame Administration for Honoring Obama
If President Obama speaks at the commencement, a dignified, prayerful walk-out protest would be in order.
"The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."
So stated the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in a statement titled "Catholics in Political Life" developed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Task Force on Catholic Bishops and Catholic Politicians in collaboration with Francis Cardinal George, OMI, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, OFMCap, and Bishop Donald W. Wuerl and approved for publication by the full body of bishops at their June 2004 General Meeting.
Notre Dame officially is a Catholic college.
Therefore, its decision to invite President Obama to deliver the 2009 commencement address and to confer an honorary law degree upon him is an abomination.
Former presidential hopeful Patrick J. Buchanan, in "Is Notre Dame Still Catholic?," demonstrated conclusively that Notre Dame honoring President Obama is utterly outrageous.
Mr. Buchanan:
"Obama...is the most pro-abortion president ever. On his third day in office, by executive order, he repealed the Bush prohibition against using tax dollars to fund agencies abroad that perform abortions.
"He supports partial-birth abortion, where a baby's soft skull is sliced open with scissors in the birth canal and its brains sucked out to ease its passage, a procedure Sen. Pat Moynihan said 'comes as close to infanticide as anything I have seen in our judiciary.'
"In the Illinois legislature, Obama helped block the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, a bill to save the lives of infant survivors of abortion. He voted to allow doctors and nurses to let these tiny babies die of neglect and be tossed out with the medical waste.
"Barack is committed to signing the Freedom of Choice Act, which would repeal every federal and state restriction on abortion. He has smoothed the path for federal funding of embryonic stem cell research."
It is a honor to deliver a commencement address.
It is an honor to receive an honorary degree.
And bestowing an honor on a person unfit to receive it diminshes the honor itself.
Notre Dame's President, the Rev. John Jenkins, should change the name of the University before commencement.
President Obama should not be honored at a university named after the Virgin Mary.
If Rev. Jenkins insists that Obama he honored, at least he should change the name of the University from Notre Dame to...Nancy Pelosi.
Obama speaking at a Nancy Pelosi University WOULD be fitting.
Speaker Pelosi is an ardent abortion supporter pretending to be an ardent Catholic.
It's impossible to be both.
Mr. Buchanan:
"Notre Dame, a university that teaches that all innocent human life is sacred, will...honor a leader determined to ensure that a woman's right to destroy her unborn child in the womb remains unrestricted.
"There is thus a direct clash between what Notre Dame professes to stand for and what Notre Dame is doing."
EXACTLY!
And that is the result of the timidity of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
In its "Catholics in Political Life"statement, the USCCB declared: "The question has been raised as to whether the denial of Holy Communion to some Catholics in political life is necessary because of their public support for abortion on demand. Given the wide range of circumstances involved in arriving at a prudential judgment on a matter of this seriousness, we recognize that such decisions rest with the individual bishop in accord with the established canonical and pastoral principles. Bishops can legitimately make different judgments on the most prudent course of pastoral action."
WRONG! Truth does not depend upon geography or individual choice and there are some cases that cannot be reasonably disputed. Speaker Pelosi is not fit to receive Holy Communion in San Francisco or Washington, D.C., but unfit to receive Holy Communion in St. Louis.
Notorious pro-abortion politicians should be denied Holy Communion everywhere, regardless of their political party affiliation, until they repent.
And they are less likely to repent until they are refused.
Ralph McInerny, philosophy professor since 1955: "By inviting Barack Obama to be the 2009 commencement speaker, Notre Dame has forfeited its right to call itself a Catholic University. ... (T)his is a deliberate thumbing of the collective nose at the Roman Catholic Church to which Notre Dame purports to be faithful."
This is what happens when sacrilege and public scandal at the now figurative communion rail are tolerated instead of prevented.
Mr. Buchanan noted that Pope Benedict, during his visit to the United States, explained that any appeal to academic freedom "to justify positions that contradict the faith and teaching of the church would obstruct or even betray [a Catholic] university's identity and mission."
Father Jenkins disagrees and defends his invitation by claiming that it "should not be taken as condoning or endorsing his positions on specific issues regarding the protection of human life."
Will Father Jenkins also confer an honorary degree on David Duke, with the caveat that it "should not be taken as condoning or endorsing his positions on specific issues"?
That would not be politically correct, so at least there's no danger of that.
Mr. Buchanan: "...what Notre Dame is saying with this invitation is that Obama's 100 percent support for policies and programs that bring death to more than a million unborn children every year is no disqualification to being honored by a university dedicated to Our Lady who carried to term the Son of God."
At least make it Nancy Pelosi University, dedicated to apostate "Catholics" who reject fundamental Church teaching on life!
If President Obama speaks at the commencement, a dignified, prayerful walk-out protest would be in order.
Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.
Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.
The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.
Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.