Some Further Thoughts on Notre Dame's Invitation to President Obama

Some Further Thoughts on Notre Dame’s Invitation to President Obama
Part Two of Two

Be also sure to post these TN&V on your social networking pages by going to www.nrlc.org/News_and_views/Mar09/nv032409.html and clicking on the "Share" button. Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

In Part One you benefited from reading an extraordinary letter sent by NRLC Vice President Anthony Lauinger to Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., the president of the University of Notre Dame, protesting the choice of pro-abortion President Barack Obama to give the university’s May 17 commencement address and to receive an honorary degree. Before I offer my two cents worth, let me offer some quotations to put the controversy (which daily grows in scope and intensity) in further perspective.

"We are not ignoring the critical issue of the protection of life. On the contrary, we invited him [President Obama] because we care so much about those issues, and we hope … for this to be the basis of an engagement with him. …[Obama is] an inspiring leader who has taken leadership of the country facing many challenges: two wars, a really troubled economy, he has issues with health care, immigration, education reform, and he has addressed those with intelligence, courage and honesty.”
University of Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins, from an interview published yesterday in the campus newspaper, The Observer.

“Asked about the volume of complaints to the university, [Notre Dame spokesman Dennis] Brown said it was ‘nothing beyond what we anticipated.’"
Emailed response to the Associated Press.

“Notre Dame’s decision to make President Obama its 2009 commencement speaker is a very bad thing. It’s bad for Notre Dame, bad for Catholic moral witness in America, and bad for the bishops who are trying to mount a defense against the Obama administration’s assault on the conscience rights of Catholic health-care professionals. The invitation to deliver a commencement address, especially when coupled with the award of an honorary degree, is not a neutral act. It’s an act by which a Catholic institution of higher learning says, ‘This is a life worth emulating according to our understanding of the true, the good, and the beautiful.’”
George Weigel at www.nationalreview.com.

If this edition is not to go on forever, I have time to address only one, very important component of the debate.

I do not know Rev. Jenkins, or his track record, or any previous controversies in which he may have been enmeshed. All I know is what I’ve read the last few days about the invitation to Obama, most particularly what Rev. Jenkins said to the Observer.

Let me see if I get this straight. You have a rookie President who’s been in office about an hour and a half and Rev. Jenkins gives him credit for solving everything but the ultimate value of P1. Of course, not only has Obama not solved anything (who could in two months?), one could make a persuasive case he has made an already difficult situation worse.

But what you couldn’t deny is that Obama is bent on advancing the abortion agenda in every conceivable way. In that sense making sure that more unborn babies will die at home and abroad is his one “success.”

You know the litany of awful actions. Among them is a frontal assault on the right of conscience of any physician—Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, or someone of no faith at all—to steer completely away from abortion.

Obama believes that no one, no how, no way, should ever be absolutely free of complicity with the assault on the unborn. That’s why he wants your tax dollars diverted into the coffers of the Planned Parenthood types and physicians’ consciences compromised.

Rev. Jenkins, I gather, is not denying that Obama has been busy chiseling away at the pro-life policies of his predecessor. But anticipating that the less enlightened set [people like you and me] might draw the erroneous conclusion that this is precisely the kind of man you don’t honor, we are told this is all the more reason to invite Obama to speak at one of the most prestigious Catholic universities in the world. How’s that?

Because the 90 minutes or so Obama will be on campus will “be the basis of an engagement with him.” I’m not sure what to say to that except, oh, my goodness.

When I went to the university’s webpage this morning, I noticed some headlines about upcoming campus events. One read, “Lecture: ‘Holocaust Denial in the 21st Century: New Forms of Antisemitism.’" That got me to thinking.

I wonder if Rev. Jenkins would consider inviting someone to give the 2010 commencement address who denies that six million Jews were killed during World War II? Not that Rev. Jenkins would agree with him, of course. But it would give Rev. Jenkins and our Holocaust denier a chance to “dialogue.”

And, adding frosting to the cake, Notre Dame graduates could end their undergraduate academic careers with a bracing exposure to rancid, unfiltered anti-Semitism.

Rev. Jenkins, call your office.

When you go to www.nrlc.org/ObamaAbortionAgenda/WhattoDo.html you will be taken to a page which offers you information about what you can do to help National Right to Life fight Obama's Abortion Agenda, become a member of National Right to Life, or, if you are a member already, find new people to join NRLC.

Part One