By Anthony J. Lauinger, Vice President,
National Right to Life
Editor’s note. The following is from the
April issue of National Right to Life News.
This month’s guest column is written by
Anthony J. Lauinger, Vice President of
National Right to Life.
Carved in the stone
of Notre Dame's Basilica of the Sacred Heart is an inscription:
"God, Country, Notre Dame." Simple, edifying, profound, those words,
and what they represent, have inspired Notre Dame students for
almost two centuries. Generations of alumni have lived by these
words. More than a few have died for them.
 |
|
Tony and Phyllis Lauinger and their
family on campus at
Notre Dame in 1995. The seven older
children have
graduated from Notre Dame, and the
youngest,
Johnny, far right, will graduate May
17. |
The order is not random; it's no accident that
"God" is first. God has always come first at Notre Dame. At least,
until March 20, 2009; that was the day Notre Dame suffered an
institutional identity crisis, the day Notre Dame stopped giving
precedence to the eternal, the day the Fighting Irish quit fighting
for what is right.
March 20, 2009, was the day the Creator, the
Author of Life, was replaced as Notre Dame's top priority by our
nation's leading destroyer of life: President Barack Obama, it was
announced that day, will speak at Commencement, and, to add insult
to injury, be granted an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by the
University of Notre Dame.
There is special irony that it is a Doctor of Laws
degree with which President Obama is to be honored, for it is in the
precise area of law that he has most directly repudiated the bedrock
values of Notre Dame. As Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Houston
explained, "Particularly troubling is the Honorary Law Degree, since
it recognizes that the person is a 'Teacher,' in this case, of the
Law." Is it for the pro-abortion laws that he has championed, or the
pro-life laws that he has opposed, that Notre Dame is honoring Mr.
Obama?
The media downplay what so offends pro-life
Americans. It's not simply President Obama's "views" about abortion;
it's that Barack Obama has declared war on the unborn child, a
scorched-earth, take-no-prisoners war in which he is aggressively,
zealously, relentlessly attempting to wipe out three and a half
decades of hard-fought pro-life gains while his policies
simultaneously annihilate countless human beings at home and abroad.
Not only abortion on demand, but also
embryo-destructive stem-cell research. As Bishop John D'Arcy of
South Bend has said of Obama, "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."
The President's vacuous, self-serving claim about
"science" is absurd on its face. Does the name Josef Mengele ring a
bell? Tuskegee? Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune observes,
"Science can tell us how to build a nuclear weapon. But science
can't tell us whether we should use it."
While John Paul II preached the Gospel of Life,
Barack Obama advances the Culture of Death. While the bishops direct
Catholic institutions not to honor pro-abortion politicians, Notre
Dame bestows its highest honors on the abortion industry's number
one champion who, in 75 days, has done more grievous harm to the
cause of life than Bill Clinton did in eight years. And Mr. Obama is
consistent, the same at home as at the office. In Johnstown,
Pennsylvania, last year he famously said: "I've got two daughters
... if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."
The invitation to Mr. Obama makes a mockery of
Notre Dame's Catholic character. His 2012 re-election campaign
already underway, he is cynically exploiting and manipulating Notre
Dame for his own political purposes: seeking legitimacy with
Catholics, co-opting the Catholic vote, undermining respect for the
teaching authority of the bishops regarding the primacy of the
pro-life issue, inoculating himself against the charge--the
fact--that he is a radical pro-abortion extremist.
University spokesmen have excused the invitation
by mentioning that presidents from both political parties have
spoken at Notre Dame. Either they just don't get it, or they are
creating a straw man to divert attention from the reason for the
outrage. (Surely, university officials are able to think critically,
to judge, to evaluate. Surely they understand the difference between
matters of prudential judgment, on the one hand, and intrinsic
evils--the chief of which is abortion. What we're getting from Notre
Dame are amateurish excuses, red herrings, evasions, non-sequiturs,
and moral incoherence.) The outrage is not because Mr. Obama is a
Democrat. It's because he is doing more to promote the destruction
of innocent human lives than anyone else on the face of the earth.
One assistant vice president has been widely
quoted as saying the criticism the university has received "is
nothing beyond what we expected." One has to hope he was misquoted,
for if what he said is true, it is a devastating indictment of those
responsible for the decision. For it means they went into this with
their eyes wide open, realizing full well the damage it would cause
to the Church, to the university, to the respect of the faithful for
the sanctity of innocent human life. It means they knew the decision
would rip asunder the confidence and trust of the Catholic community
in the people and the institutions they look to for faithfulness,
leadership, and guidance in matters of moral truth.
My wife Phyllis and I entrusted our eight children
to Notre Dame. Ten degrees earned, 35 school years spent there, our
youngest due to graduate May 17 ... what a bitter ending this
tragedy constitutes to our long and deep relationship with Our
Lady's University.
Notre Dame's President, Father John Jenkins, was
ill served by those with whom he conferred about this invitation. He
would benefit greatly by hearing from those of you who believe it
was a mistake. The phone number for his office is 574-631-3903. His
e-mail address is president@nd.edu.
The Notre Dame switchboard number is 574-631-5000. Father Jenkins
could still reverse this decision and withdraw the invitation.
There's still time for Notre Dame to send back to
the White House the 30 pieces of silver.
If you have comments, please send them to
daveandrusko@gmail.com.
