Wow … talk about two completely separate perspectives! In this article about Notre Dame’s 2009 Commencement Speaker:
In a statement issued Monday, the Rev. John Jenkins, Notre Dame’s president, said Obama will be honored as an “inspiring leader” at the commencement.
“Of course, this does not mean we support all of his positions,” Jenkins said. “The invitation to President Obama to be our Commencement speaker should not be taken as condoning or endorsing his positions on specific issues regarding the protection of human life, including abortion and embryonic stem cell research. Yet, we see his visit as a basis for further positive engagement.”
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“President Obama has recently reaffirmed, and has now placed in public policy, his long-stated unwillingness to hold human life as sacred,” Bishop John D’Arcy said in a statement issued Tuesday. “While claiming to separate politics from science, he has in fact separated science from ethics and has brought the American government, for the first time in history, into supporting direct destruction of innocent human life.”
“I wish no disrespect to our president, I pray for him and wish him well,” the statement continued. “I have always revered the Office of the Presidency. But a bishop must teach the Catholic faith ‘in season and out of season,’ and he teaches not only by his words — but by his actions.”
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David Constanzo, communications director for the Cardinal Newman Society, said Notre Dame’s tradition of inviting sitting U.S. presidents to its commencement should be rethought.
“There is a time when policies need to be reconsidered in light of the fact that the individual invited may have a history of standing in direct opposition to some of the most prominent aspects of our faith — the biggest case in point is that of the pro-life agenda,” Constanzo said. “The obligation of Notre Dame as a Catholic institution is to follow the directives of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who clearly stated in 2004 that Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles.”
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George Weigel, a Catholic theologian and distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said the invitation is not a “neutral act” and will significantly damage Notre Dame’s reputation in Catholic circles following Obama’s decision to reverse restrictions on embryonic stem cell research and for family planning groups that provide abortions.
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But Ralph McInerny, a philosophy professor at Notre Dame for more than 50 years, likened the invitation as a “deliberate thumbing of the collective nose” at the Roman Catholic Church.
“By inviting Barack Obama to be the 2009 commencement speaker, Notre Dame has forfeited its right to call itself a Catholic university,” McInerny wrote in a column for The Catholic Thing. “It invites an official rebuke. May it come.”
Can you see both sides? People’s perceptions are their reality — I don’t see an amicable solution to this situation – do you?
