Posted on 05/06/2009 11:29:39 AM PDT by presidio9
In the seven weeks since Notre Dame announced President Barack Obama as its 2009 Commencement speaker, the campus has seen prayer gatherings, academic debates, banner-flying planes and bloodied baby dolls in strollers.
Now, with a week and a half to go until Obama lands in South Bend to address the graduating class, another group has arrived in town to demand Notre Dame be stripped of its Catholic identity.It's really been quite the month and a half. I spent the entire day stuck in the library studying for exams, but luckily the South Bend Tribune was on the scene Tuesday to capture the American Life League's news conference.
The American Life League is a grassroots Catholic pro-life organization based in Virginia. They gathered at the entrance to Notre Dame to protest the Obama invitation and intent to award the president with an honorary law degree.
A press release on the American Life League's Web site said Notre Dame was "placing the souls of millions in jeopardy" with its decision.
"The school has no right to sell itself as Catholic to donors and potential students while simultaneously working to undermine the Church and honor the most pro-abortion president in the nation's history. In the interest of truth, we're asking Bishop D'Arcy to remove the school from the Official Catholic Directory," said Mike Barnett, the leadership director at American Life League, according to the news release.
The Official Catholic Directory contains information on the Church's hierarchy, institutions, schools, dioceses and other related offices.
The Tribune did not get a comment Tuesday from D'Arcy, the bishop who oversees the South Bend and Fort Wayne, Indiana dioceses. But a spokesperson told the Tribune he did not know if the Bishop had the power to remove Notre Dame's Catholic status, nor if the Bishop would if he could, saying the Bishop "prefers to work with people to improve things."
American Life League's problem with Notre Dame started long before the university invited Obama to come to campus, according to the organization's news release. They said Notre Dame has "actively undermined Catholic teaching" since the early 1960s. The Obama invite is just the straw that broke the camel's back.
The League's numerous problems with Notre Dame, according to the Tribune report, include other campus speakers over the years like Walter Mondale, Mario Cuomo and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. They also condemned Notre Dame's allowance of student performances of the play "The Vagina Monologues" and the presence of the Queer Film Festival. And they don't like the fact that students have been trying to convince administrators for several years that the university needs to add sexual orientation to its non-discrimination clause (which it has not, so that one should be a check in the League's column of reasons why Notre Dame is Catholic.)
For decades, the American Life League has pursued the laudable goal of ending abortion, and the group has every right to protest Obama speaking at Notre Dame.
Calling on a bishop to remove the Catholic status of Notre Dame -- a school where every year, on average, 200 graduates spend time after graduation doing service, where dorm masses are as popular as dorm dances, where the Grotto is nearly always lit with candles, where students spend their spring breaks volunteering -- that's insulting to me and to all the people who come to Notre Dame, not only to learn but to develop and live out their faith. That's something that doesn't change with the choice of a Commencement speaker.
The American Life League and other groups who don't want Obama to speak here should keep protesting, as it is certainly their right and they have valid points, but don't tell us we're not being Catholic enough.
We've heard it before and I'm sure we'll hear it again. But that statue of Mary on top of the Dome isn't coming down anytime soon, and long after Obama has spoken, Notre Dame will still continue to be "a powerful force for good."
Looks like another CINO writing stories about something she knows nothing about?
This ND student misses, intentionally or not, the inherent weakness in her statement. Her ‘defense’ would do a high school sophomore proud. For a graduate or near-graduate of a ‘premier’ Catholic University, it is laughably shallow. No one is claiming ND is less ‘Catholic’ for inviting a virulently pro-abortion politician to speak. The point is that HONORING and REWARDING him with a Law degree is an insult to and denial the fundamental beliefs which supposedly underlie her ‘alma mater.’ The ‘honor’ implicitly lends support and credence to Obama’s fanatical support of abortion. The university is publicly endorsing and trivializing a fundamental truth of the religion it purports to support and which it milks for donations and support.
The fact that she neither feels insulted by nor recognizes the insult to what are the proclaimed principles of the university of this action, just reveals the inadequacy of the education received, or rather the actual learning she did as a student there. The actions of Fr. Jenkins and the transparent rationalization of them by alumni and students supporting him reveal the moral shallowness which has enveloped education at Notre Dame.
Actually, he reminds me a lot more of Hugo Chavez, except that in our society of free-to-be-liberal press, he didn’t need to stage a failed coup to get attention before being elected. But now he finds himself in a very similiar position of power to where Chavez was at this point. I will admit its a little bit scary, but he hasn’t really done anything to cause concern up to this point.
Note Dame is making Notre Dame less catholic.
Yes it does..same as bringing Stalin to give a speech at convent would.
Sorry, Kaitlynn. You're not being Catholic enough. If you were, Notre Dame would never even consider awarding a degree to the premier abortion provider; nor would the students, faculty, or alums tolerate it.
Hitler presided over the extermination of 11.5 million untermenschen, and started a world war in which more than 20 million civilians were killed.
Please give him full credit for all his work.
It is going to be really interesting to watch the Notre Dame commencement. Really interesting.
This is Stockholm Syndrome from a liberal modernist too young to know or remember what a real Catholic college is.
Yes. He does. His invite takes the University down into that vacumm of anything goes.
Having the statue of Mary on the top of the dome doesn’t mean the same thing it does to Fr. Jenkins as it did to the founder, Fr. Sorin. Anyone can have a statue, but not everyone believes all that it stands for. After all, I have seen Madonna (and all manner of entertainers) wear a crucifix. Do they believe in what it stands for?
Fr. Sorin would have a seizure were he alive today and able to see what Jenkins and others have done at his university.
Using that argument as a reference, you could say that inviting a devil worshiping homosexual to preach at your church’s pulpit doesn’t make the church any less Christian. There are just some things you don’t do.
Right. Agreed.
That's true. Notre Dame itself has been doing that for a couple of decades.
presidio9,
Where in an constitution does it say the federal govt has the right to take MY money to pay for abortions for ANYBODY?
DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Does Ted Kennedy have the right to call himself a Catholic?
I’m so sorry for the Catholics that the Pope hasn’t gone bonkers against Ted the murdering abortionist.
Well, I suppose that one petty dictator is pretty much like another. Chavez has a sense of humor, however. The other two don’t.
Joe, I disagree with every word in about 95% of the articles I post here.
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