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Refusing to Allow the
Memory of the Notre Dame Tragedy to Fade
Part One of Three
By Dave Andrusko
Editor's note.
Part Two is
the brilliant introductory remarks made by
NRLC Vice President Tony Lauinger as the NRL
Educational Trust Fund presented Prof. Mary
Ann Glendon with its "Proudly Pro-Life
Award." Part
Three updates you on the fascinating
ebbs and blows in the race for governor in
Virginia. Please send your comments to
daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you'd like,
follow me at
www.twitter.com/daveha.
After pro-abortion President
Barack Obama gave the commencement address
at the University of Notre Dame last
May--and received an honorary degree to
boot-- not a few people emailed me to say
that President Obama had prevailed and that
all the loyal Catholics who so adamantly
objected to his delivering the speech and/or
receiving an honorary doctorate of laws had
failed. I had a different take then, as I do
now.
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Pro-abortion President Barack Obama
speaking at the Notre Dame
Commencement |
Sure, Obama had secured
his short-term objective. The university
most identified with Catholicism in this
country had voluntarily provided a
prestigious forum to the most pro-abortion
President in our history. This, in the teeth
of an enormous institutional resistance from
a considerable segment of the American
Catholic hierarchy, must have left him giddy
with a sense of triumph.
But pro-lifers have long,
long memories. As Obama gradually unfolds
his militantly anti-life agenda, even those
who sold their pro-life birthright for a
mess of political pottage will find it
difficult to explain away his assault on the
most vulnerable.
NRLC is playing a major role in keep that
memory alive. Its Educational Trust Fund
awarded Prof. Mary Ann Glendon the "Proudly
Pro-Life Award" for her principled stand
during the debacle over Obama at Notre Dame.
(See Part Two.)
Archbishop Charles Chaput of
Denver is laboring in the same vineyard. He
wrote a wonderfully insightful article that
appeared in the Italian daily Il Foglio on
Tuesday, the same day, as it happens,
pro-lifers gathered in New York City to
honor Ambassador Glendon. He was politely
but firmly responding to the pro-Obama
assertions made by Cardinal Georges Cottier
in the international Catholic magazine "30
Days " last July.
Since you can read
Archbishop Chaput's full remarks at
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=17321,
let me highlight just three of the points he
made and add a few words of my own.
First, Catholic resistance to
Obama speaking at Notre Dame's commencement
"had nothing to do with whether he was a
good or bad man," Chaput wrote. It was about
"The President's views on vital bioethical
issues, including but not limited to
abortion," which "differ sharply from
Catholic teaching." While Obama's "sympathy
for Catholic social teaching" held sway "in
some religious circles," Chaput wrote,
"there is no 'social justice' if the
youngest and weakest among us can be legally
killed." Second,
Archbishop Chaput reminded his readers that
in their 2004 document, "Catholics in
Political Life," the American bishops "urged
Catholic institutions to refrain from
honoring public officials who disagreed with
Church teaching on grave matters." Prior to
his election in 2008, Obama had already
accumulated an "overt, negative public
voting and speaking record on abortion and
other problematic issues."
The "American bishops as a
body had already voiced strong concern about
the new administration's abortion policies"
when "Notre Dame not only made the President
the centerpiece of its graduation events,
but also granted him an honorary doctorate
of laws – this, despite his deeply troubling
views on abortion law and related social
issues." No wonder there was instant
controversy! Third,
Archbishop Chaput makes a brilliant
distinction between searching for a
political "common ground" and "the Catholic
emphasis on pursing the 'common good.' "
They are not the same.
"So-called 'common ground'
abortion policies may actually attack the
common good because they imply a false
unity; they create a ledge of shared public
agreement too narrow and too weak to sustain
the weight of a real moral consensus," he
writes. "The common good is never served by
tolerance for killing the weak – beginning
with the unborn."
There is in "Politics, Morality and a
President: an American View" much for us to
carefully read and consider. I encourage you
in the strongest possible terms to go to
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=17321
and read the full remarks.
Please send your thoughts and
comments to
daveandrusko@gmail.com.
Part Two
Part Three |
