>>One of the Vatican’s highest ranked clerics and a frequent critic of President Obama said Friday that Notre Dame is causing a “scandal” by giving the president an honorary degree and a platform to address graduates at its commencement next weekend.<<
They are giving him an honorary degree?
I didn’t really understand not letting the President speak because he disagrees with one of the church’s principles (for example Presidents Reagan, Bsuh41 and Bush43 disagreed with the church on the death penalty)....
But they sure don’t need to give him an honorary degree - that’s basically an endorsement.
The honorary degree IS the issue here.
That has been at the heart of the scandal. The speaking part has been secondary.
The Church teaches that the state has the right to impose the penalty of capital punishment.
You confuse Church teaching with the prudential statements, which are not Church teaching, of some members of the episcopacy.
Commencementspeakers are normally give honorary degrees. Exceptions occur, but the degree normally goes with the speech. That’s why it’s so easy for the Lying Media to label this a “commencement speech” occasion and obscure the real issue. Do a survey of news stories about big name commencement speakers and see how often the honorary degree part is mentioned and how prominently. It will be mentioned in many instances, but buried deep in the story, rarely in the headline or the lede.
Well, first the Catholic Church does NOT have a doctrinal position against the death penalty. Pope John Paul II had an opinion that the death penalty was not morally beneficial in the Western world (i.e., Europe and North America), given the stability of democracy and conformity of the rule of law. However, consider:
* John Paul was speaking only as to OPINION on matters of PRUDENTIAL judgement. He emphatically rejected the notion that he was establishing doctrine, and harshly condemned any attempts to morally equivocate abortion to the death penalty, not only on the basis that abortion is tens of thousands of times more common in the West, but on the basis that abortion is certainly a grave evil, whereas the death penalty is not.
* John Paul’s statements were stated very precisely, and are thus doctrinally sound, but the more casual interpretation of them is, in fact, heresy: The Catechism of the Council of Trent, published with the authority of the ecumenical council of Trent, and written by Saint Charles Borromeo, one of only 33 Doctors of the Church, stated that the death penalty was in fact morally obligatory to rescue the souls of the aggrieved from the temptation to retribution or despairing against divine justice.
* John Paul’s statements were based on the assertion that Western democracies’ rule of law was unchallenged by criminal activity, an assertion appeared true in the 1990s when John Paul asserted it, but seems less true today.
However,... I believe Ronald Reagan was given an honorary degree. In any case, the degree Obama is being given is a law degree. This can only be taken as an endorsement of Obama’s legal notions, which are an absolute abomination to not only Christ and humanity but rational thought, itself. His law exams were literally exercises in creating rationalizations to subvert democracy and morality. (and I mean “literally” literally!) For instance, a typical question notes that the prevailing interpretation of a state constitution supports an at-face reading. A ballot initiative reaffirmed the constitution by an overwhelming majority. (meaning the majority of the constituents, the courts, the legislature, and the at-face text of the constitution all support a law.) The students’ task was to create a legal ruling to subvert the law. And no, this wasn’t like Spock’s unwinnable academy exam; they were expected to nullify democracy if they wanted to pass.
A law school giving Obama an honorary law degree is like a Tibetan monk ordaining the Chinese dictators.