Phoenix Bishop Accuses Notre Dame’s President of ‘Public Act of Disobedience

CNSNews.com ^ | March 27, 2009 | Staff

[Man50D]

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, Ariz., sent a scorching letter Wednesday to Fr. John Jenkins, president of Notre Dame University, directly accusing Fr. Jenkins of committing an act of disobedience to the Catholic bishops of the United States by inviting pro-abortion President Barack Obama to deliver Notre Dame’s commencement address and receive an honorary law degree.

Bishop Olmsted delivered the letter to Fr. Jenkins via email.

The rebuke from the Phoenix bishop came one day after Bishop John D’Arcy of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend--the diocese that includes Notre Dame--released a statement announcing that he was boycotting Notre Dame’s graduation ceremony for the first time in his 25 years as bishop in order to make clear his disapproval of Fr. Jenkins’s decision to honor a pro-abortion president.

Bishop Olmsted’s official biography says that he lived for sixteen years in Rome, where he earned a masters degree in theology and a doctorate in Canon Law. He also worked for nine years in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State.

“I am saddened and heavy of heart about your decision to invite President Obama to speak at Notre Dame University and even to receive an honorary degree,” Bishop Olmsted wrote to Fr. Jenkins. “It is a public act of disobedience to the Bishops of the United States.”

Both Bishop Olmsted in his Wednesday letter and Bishop D’Arcy in his Tuesday statement pointed out that Fr. Jenkins’s decision to honor President Obama violated a June 2004 declaration by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that states: “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.”

Bishop Olmsted told Fr. Jenkins it was impossible for him not to know of President Obama’s positions in favor of government policies that violate the right to life.

“No one could not know the public stands and actions of the president on key issues opposed to the most vulnerable human beings,” Olmsted said in his letter to the Notre Dame president.

Bishop Olmsted also quoted a statement from Pope John Paul II, who said, “Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights—for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture—is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with the maximum determination.”

The Phoenix bishop closed his letter by telling Fr. Jenkins that he would pray that the Notre Dame president would come to understand he had made a serious error. “I pray that you come to see the grave mistake of your decision, and the way that it undercuts the Church’s proclamation of the Gospel of Life in our day,” wrote Olmsted.

Similarly, Bishop D’Arcy had called on Catholics to pray to Our Lady to help Notre Dame mend its ways.

“Even as I continue to ponder in prayer these events, which many have found shocking, so must Notre Dame. Indeed, as a Catholic University, Notre Dame must ask itself, if by this decision it has chosen prestige over truth,” said Bishop D’Arcy in his Tuesday statement. “Let us ask Our Lady to intercede for the university named in her honor, that it may recommit itself to the primacy of truth over prestige.”

Notre Dame spokesman Dennis Brown told the Associated Press on Thursday that Notre Dame does not plan to repudiate its invitation to President Obama.

[Man50D]

Petition www.notredamescandal.com/. 180,005 have signed.

[Man50D]

I was unable to add the latter part of the title as it is too long. Please add “to the Bishops of the United States”. Thank you

[bgill]

Amen to that.

[Vaquero]

time for Ratzinger to excommunicate him.

[BlackElk]

Bishop Olmsted is one of our very best.

[livius]

I hope more bishops get behind this. Barry’s strategy in dealing with the Church is to divide and conquer: that is, use the “liberals” (who are fundamentally not Catholic in their thought and behavior but have their jobs because of 40 years of lax discipline) to undermine the uniformity of Catholic teaching and make it appear as if it’s all optional and the choice to accept one doctrine or another is basically a political matter.

These people- Biden, Pelosi, Jenkins, etc. - are working towards the splintering of the Church in this country, and I can’t believe they don’t know it. They just think that they’ll be the ones who will end up in charge.

[Right Wing Assault]

Thank you Bishop Olmsted.

I hope he sends it by regular mail, too, since I am sure the email will somehow be “lost.”

[HANG THE EXPENSE]

Seems as if they are really starting to pour the heat onto this dirtbag.Good.

[all the best]

Thanks for posting. I signed the petition and sent email.

[gracesdad]

I’m curious as to whether ND checks all students, professors and speakers as to their position on abortion. Is a pro-abortion position not allowed?

[Ann Archy]

The Church will lose ALL Moral Authority to speak Against Abortion and Pro Chice Politicans if "Fr" Jenkins allows Bammy to speak and get his Honorary Degree. He MUST CHANGE HIS MIND or have SOMEONE Change it for him.

God will NOT be mocked!

[Ann Archy]

WHAT????? You can’t be serious. How old are you?? Of course they don’t.

[Right Wing Assault]

I’m curious as to whether ND checks all students, professors and speakers as to their position on abortion. Is a pro-abortion position not allowed?

No, Notre Dame is not an oppressive atmosphere as are many universities.

[traderrob6]

Related...

http://exposingtheleft.blogspot.com/2009/03/notre-dame-student-groups-denounce.html

[Right Wing Assault]

http://ndresponse.com/

The following student organizations are opposed to Fr. Jenkins’ decision and will be protesting it:

* Notre Dame Right to Life
* Jus Vitae (Notre Dame Law School Right to Life)
* The Irish Rover independent student newspaper
* Notre Dame College Republicans
* The University of Notre Dame Anscombe Society
* The Identity Project of Notre Dame
* Notre Dame Militia Immaculata
* Notre Dame Children of Mary
* The Orestes Brownson Council
* Notre Dame Law St. Thomas More Society

[hoosierham]

As a Catholic,I would expect the university ,and all its staff, to follow Catholic teachings ;hence no pro-abortion speeches from anyone on campus.Should the university invite speakers that are atheists?

[radiohead]

<Should the university invite speakers that are atheists?

While I agree that no Catholic univ should give an honorary degree to a pro-abortionist, the university, all universities, should foster debate and exposure to all sides of an issue. I have no problem with religiously affiliated schools inviting atheists or pro-abortion speakers. I do have a problem with honoring them, so that while Obama might come and speak, I think it is wrong to give him a degree.

Note, this is for schools affiliated with a religion. For public schools, I think you’d have to give him the degree.

[hoosierham]

Well,I think it is patently ridiculous to invite speakers to promote views in direct opposition to the core beliefs of your group,because of the implied approval inherent with being furnished the unusual opportunity to speak to the student body..

Debating various views in the classroom is different.

[rhema]

As a Catholic,I would expect the university ,and all its staff, to follow Catholic teachings. . .

That was then; this is now. In the Protestant tradition, about 900 colleges claim "religious affiliation," but far fewer are distinctively and unapologetically Christian.. At Notre Dame, there's also concern over the diminution of Catholics on the faculty.

In the wake of the passing of governance from religious to secular hands came the dilution of the sponsoring religion’s representation on the faculty. Thus, at Note Dame, as the graph on our home page shows, there has been a precipitous and unchecked reduction in the proportion of Catholic faculty members over the last several decades. Father Jenkins has marked the threat to Notre Dame’s “distinctive Catholic character” posed by this “steady decline,” which has resulted in a drop in Catholic representation from around 85% in the 1970’s to the current level of just over 52%. (The Observer of 10/12/05) Meanwhile, in accord with the pattern traced by Father Burtchaell, the student body remains 85% Catholic.

Moreover, this slim Catholic faculty majority will probably shortly become a minority through the combined effects of retirements and new hires, since a large majority of the retirees are Catholic whereas, as Dean Roche acknowledged, only 43% of new faculty hires in 2004–2005, and 35% of the new teaching-and-research faculty in 2005–2006 were Catholic. This, the Dean warned, “threatens Notre Dame’s capacity to realize its mission.” And if that happens, he continued, the Catholic “intellectual and cultural inheritance” will “likely continue to fragment and diminish throughout the academy,” because “Notre Dame is the only university with the resources to preserve and renew the Catholic intellectual and cultural inheritance in its fullness.”
(Dean Roche’s report)

[hoosierham]

The main problem is that through deception on his part,and indifference on the part of most Americans, the man currently occupying the office of President of the United States of America is an ineligible ,divisive,radical Marxist who has publicly equated a baby as punishment for having sex!