Posted on 09/28/2009 3:51:18 PM PDT by wagglebee
SOUTH BEND, Indiana, September 28, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The attorney representing the pro-lifers arrested while protesting Obama at Notre Dame today repeated his request that the judge in the case, who is married to a pro-abortion Notre Dame professor, be removed from the case.
Attorney Tom Dixon's motion provides detailed support for his assertion in a previous recusal motion that there exists sufficient actual and perceived bias that Judge Jenny Pitts Manier, the judge assigned to the "ND 88" case, is required by Indiana state law to recuse herself in the matter. Dixon states that ever since Judge Manier has known her husband, Professor Edward Manier, he has been a well-known and outspoken advocate of the pro-abortion position.
As his views were well-known and have largely defined his identity at Notre Dame, Dixon argues, it seems implausible that Judge Manier could claim to be unaware of his views on the "ND 88" case, which stem from "the single biggest controversy in the history of the University of Notre Dame."
The case surrounds the arrest of 88 pro-lifers from across America who were charged with trespassing after peacefully witnessing against the presence of President Obama at Notre Dame The university awarded Obama with the commencement speech and an honorary law degree on May 17 of this year. Arrestees were singled out for carrying pro-life messages onto campus - including images of aborted children, a large cross, and images of Mary - while several other trespassers with pro-Obama or pro-Notre Dame signage were allowed to roam the campus.
Dixon argues that the career of Judge Manier's husband at Notre Dame was largely defined by the very same controversies which prompted the pro-lifers to travel across America to ultimately land in the St. Joseph County court room. In Indiana, a judge must recuse himself or herself from a case in the event of actual or perceived bias.
In the original recusal motion in August, Dixon says that Judge Manier refused to answer whether her husband had ever written on the topic of abortion, saying only, "I'm not my husband."
Dixon highlights several ways in which actual and perceived bias exists in the "ND 88" case. In addition to several writings revealing his pro-abortion beliefs, the professor donated "a significant sum of money" to Barack Obama's 2008 Presidential campaign, as well as additional donations to other pro-abortion rights candidates in the United States.
Manier, a supporter of the production of "The Vagina Monologues" on Notre Dame's campus, also attacked Pope John Paul II's pro-life encyclical Humanae Vitae as "intellectually stillborn."
"When one analyzes Edward Manier's political contributions to pro abortion candidates and Political Action Committee, when one reads Edward Manier's writings referencing members of the Christian right, calling them 'fundamentalist mullahs' and 'jackleg preachers,'" Dixon writes, "it is hard to comprehend how Judge Manier could derive from her husband's writings the notion that he has no interest in the outcome of these cases."
Last week, University of Notre Dame law professor emeritus Charles Rice issued an open letter to University president Fr. John Jenkins, saying that the school's attempts at reconstructing a pro-life image were a "mockery" while yet refusing to request leniency for the 88 pro-lifers awaiting trial.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Notre Dame Pro-Life Efforts a "Mockery" While Pro-Life Protesters Continue to Face Charges: ND Law Prof
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/sep/09092405.html
88 Pro-Lifers Arrested at Notre Dame Still Facing Jail Time: Thomas More Lawyer Again Asks Fr. Jenkins for Leniency
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/sep/09090405.html
ND Prez Jenkins Has "No Interest" in Asking for Leniency for ND Protesters Despite Calls for "Dialogue"
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jun/09061007.html
The Protestant system has worked out real well in this country. None of the mainlines will stand up and say killing an unborn baby is morally wrong. At least that is the official and authoritative teaching of the Church, however evil the heretics currently occupying Notre Dame.
I love your new tagline!
Notre Dame no longer merits the title of a “Catholic University” Rockne and the Gipper are very sad, very sad indeed.
To the point, ain’t it.
Pro-life has been an undeniable good coming out of the Roman institution. Too bad it has let itself get hijacked by its enemies such that according to one admittedly controversial report more Catholics-by-name voted Obama than McCain. This makes the Roman church look more like a bureaucracy than anything else.
Wherever the Protestant mainlines have gone (I don’t argue for them), Southern Baptists are closest to the evangelical ideal in America today. It was a Southern Baptist church that kicked Judge Greer out during the Terri Schiavo tragedy.
It certainly is.
I would argue that what is going on at Notre Dame is a liberal and socialist bureaucracy of American academia. When they stop following the teachings of the Church and practicing the faith in full communion with those teachings, they are no longer Catholic but apostates and heretics.
Yes, and I wish that Notre Dame would have the decency to confess that it’s not a Christian institution any more. But, the ball is in Rome’s court to spew this one out of their mouth, so to speak.
Jenkins should be de-frocked.
At the very least he should be silenced.
What a disgrace that Notre Dame continues to prosecute these people!
Excellent post!
That’s why I described the situation as “hijacked.”
Something has put a stupor into the Roman church. It shouldn’t be behaving this way. There’s more fuss in the international Episcopalian/Anglican church over the ordination of gay bishops in some lands, than we see in the international Roman church over Notre Dame situations and pro-”choice” Catholics.
I mean, U.S. based pro-”choice” Catholics. (Obviously international Roman congregations have their own local battles.)
Humanae Vitae is an encyclical of Pope Paul VI.
Notre Dame's Kabuki Dance with Obama and the Culture of Death
You are correct.
The Bureaucracy calls anything presumptuous that it wants. Except, apparently, the flouting of its name.
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