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March 24, 2009
Stop Obama From Being Honored at Notre Dame
The Destruction of Notre Dame
by James M. Thunder
(The author is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame.)
On Friday, March 20, it was announced that President Obama had accepted an invitation by the president of the University of Notre Dame, Father John Jenkins, to give the commencement address on May 19 and receive an honorary degree. What fire could not do, Father Jenkins and his Academic Council may succeed in doing -- destroying a major Catholic institution.
In April 1879, the Main Building of the University was destroyed by fire. It was "the Main Building" because it housed classrooms, student sleeping quarters, kitchen, library, offices. The man who had left France and founded Notre Dame 37 years earlier, in 1842, Father Edward Sorin, was 65 and saw his life's work destroyed. Nonetheless, with fiery determination, he exclaimed: "If it were all gone, I should not give up. Tomorrow, we will build again, and build it bigger."
That summer, with help from Chicagoans who had suffered their own fire eight years before, 300 laborers, using mud from the campus lake, made bricks and rebuilt it. It was sufficiently complete for the return of students in September. It is this building that TV viewers see during Notre Dame home football games.
How did Father Jenkins calculate the benefits and the burdens of Notre Dame giving Obama a platform on campus at commencement?
As Notre Dame's own press release indicates, this would not be the first time that a sitting president would have visited Notre Dame. Eisenhower, Carter, Reagan, Bush the Elder, and Bush the Younger all spoke at commencement. And FDR, Kennedy and Ford each came to campus for honors. So, if Obama came and gave one of his first commencement addresses at Notre Dame, it would add to Notre Dame's secular glory only in an incremental sense.
Maybe Father Jenkins wants to honor Obama as the first African-American to become president. Undoubtedly this fact will be prominent in the biography the school will recite just prior to conferring the honorary doctorate upon him. (Frankly, there is no other achievement in his biography.) But this would be looking at the color of his skin over his policies.
Consider these policies and the burdens of Notre Dame honoring Obama. We must assume that Father Jenkins knows how hostile Obama, as state legislator, as U.S. senator, and now as president, has been to innocent human life and to the Catholic Church which tries to protect it. And Father Jenkins must have thought about the fact that inviting Obama would offend large numbers of students, the graduating seniors, alumni/ae, benefactors, and all pro-lifers through the country and the world. Moreover, it would constitute an attack on the pastoral authority of the local bishop, the American bishops as a group, and the Pope who have prohibited Catholic institutions from granting platforms to pro-abortion speakers -- even if their talks would not be about abortion and other human life issues.
So, any rational person occupying the position of president of Notre Dame who weighed the benefits and the burdens would not invite Obama. It would be self-destructive.
It was just last month that Speaker Pelosi who, no doubt, sees herself as the Supreme Head of the Catholic Church in America, visited Pope Benedict, but Pope Benedict was politically aware and refused to give her a photo opportunity. Father Jenkins thinks he is smarter than the Pope and will purposefully smile with Obama for the cameras.
Obama's visit to Notre Dame will be a one-way street -- in favor of Obama. Father Jenkins will not be taking Obama to Notre Dame's woodshed, to speak truth to power. No, Obama will be doing all the talking. Obama will co-opt a major Catholic institution.
Above the Main Building that TV viewers see during Notre Dame home football games is a Golden Dome. Atop it is a statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. (Notre Dame is "Our Lady" in French.) At the end of every game, the football players face the students and all of them sing the school's alma mater whose title and first line is "Notre Dame our Mother." Another line is "Glory's mantle cloaks thee; golden is thy fame." Father Jenkins will allow Obama to take Mary's mantle and wear it on his shoulders for all the world to see.
The day Father Jenkins' presidency is over (soon one hopes), the new president, the loyal faculty and alumni/ae, and friends throughout the world will repeat Father Sorin's words, "Tomorrow, we will build again, and build it [better]."
There is also this from some research online:
The Cardinal Newman Society site is getting 270+ signatures PER MINUTE on their petition. Their wonderful president, Patrick Reilly, has flown to Rome
The Mission of “Stop Obama at Notre Dame”
Our Mission: Stop President Obama from Speaking at Notre Dame on May 17.
Our Principle: Nothing is Sacred, except that which is Sacred.
And Joe Scheidler/Prolife Action League is working on this as well. Quote from his site:
"If Notre Dame does not disinvite Obama, Scheidler says, the Notre Dame campus can expect a massive pro-life protest on graduation day, including the use of large, graphic abortion pictures that show exactly what Barack Obama supports."
League Calls on Notre Dame To Disinvite President Obama
On March 20 it was announced that President Barack Obama is scheduled to give the commencement address to the Class of 2009 at the renowned Catholic University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. The Pro-Life Action League immediately issued a press release calling on Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins to withdraw the invitation.
Obama Attacks Sanctity of Life
"Over the first two months of his administration, Barack Obama has established himself as the most pro-abortion president in U.S. history," said League National Director Joe Scheidler, himself a graduate of Notre Dame, a Catholic university. "My alma mater should not be providing a platform for this president."
"Starting from his first week in office, President Obama has enacted a string of executive orders, appointments and policy decisions that contradict Catholic teaching on the sanctity of life—a teaching that Notre Dame is supposed to uphold," said Scheidler.
Among the pro-abortion actions Obama has taken in just two months in office, Scheidler lists:
* Overturning of the Mexico City Policy, which had prohibited U.S. funds from being used to promote or provide abortions overseas.
* Working to overturn conscience protections for healthcare workers, forcing them to cooperate in abortion or risk losing their jobs
* Appointing pro-abortion Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, who has close ties to late-term abortionist George Tiller, to head the Department of Health and Human Services
* Dedicating federal funds to harvest embryonic stem cells for research at the expense of the most defenseless members of the human family
"Father Jenkins cannot expect pro-life Catholics to stand back and allow the most pro-abortion president in U.S. history to make a mockery of Notre Dame's Catholic identity," Scheidler said.
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Wild Thing's comment........
I don't understand this at all. Why are their exceptions made just because a person is a President or because a family has wealth, or because a person is a high profile person like Pelosi and others that have also taken a stand of PRO Abortion. Obama leads the way in wanting abortions and to the extreme with his putting into law that it is ok to kill a baby if it some way has a miracle and makes it alive from an abortion he want that baby killed ASAP. And Obama’s contempt for life is the fundamental issue here.
Please understand I am not a Catholic and this is not about bashing Catholics, it is about not understanding the weakness that shows up when it does not have to. Giving an honorary law degree to this man, is a symbol of approval
"You don’t “engage” with a person who is embroiled in massive, murderous moral wrong by inviting him onto a floodlit, nationally-televised public platform and giving him an honorary Law Degree."
There is a cost that comes with true leaders, not elected officials but true leaders in history, a cost that leadership, takes the high road and that is not always easy, but it is the very thing that separates the average from those that make a difference in the world. Those that leave their mark in history for the better. I tell our troops that too, they are not only living history they are making in a special way. Just as our Veterans have all done, being part of history that has made changes in the world or kept our world here in America from becoming the monster that communism brings and other things.
But also, how on earth can the President of Notre Dame justify an honorary law degree to someone who has never done anything whatever in the fields of law or politics to deserve it?
As President of the Harvard Law Review he broke a long tradition by writing NOTHING for the review he headed.
As instructor of constitutional law in Chicago he argued that the Constitution need to be rewritten, but he never wrote a single scholarly article.
As a lawyer, he forced banks in Chicago to make subprime loans, leading to our current economic crisis.
I hope they think hard about this decision, I truly hate to see people giving agreement to what Obama stands for.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at March 24, 2009 07:55 AM
Comments
Hey I agree, I personally DO NOT want him to speak there or anywhere for that matter!
But this is a case of damned if do and damned if you don’t. Notre Dame did way all of this when they decided to invite him just as they have done for every other president. I read an article on it from Notre Dame on this very issue.
If they had decided NOT to invite him then they would have been called racists would they not? You know that would be the 1st thing out the box had they not invited him. That is standard protocol from the libs in the case of this moron who is squatting in the oval office.
It is a case of hold your nose and invite him even though they do not agree with him on a number of issues; it is a more of a respect to the office of the U. S. president than any honor for b.o. the man, the myth, the legend in his own mind. You just have to pretend that the office of U. S. President is empty and they are extending a respective courtesy to the office itself not to the pretender that is keeping the chair warm while we wait for a real president to come along.
I did sign the petition to un-invite him however at this point Notre Dame will catch even more hell from the loony libs if they do it now.
#1 Notre Dame football fan, Richard
Posted by: Richard at March 24, 2009 11:12 AM
Too many Catholic clergy are liberally minded. Their support for illegal immigration is one example. Their lack of condemnation of Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi as sinners is another.
The Church is not racist and should not worry about being called such. Being labeled racist should be a lot less problematic to Notre Dame than supporting one of the most pro-abortionists in America. I guess Notre Dame's secular glory is the most important thing.
Posted by: TomR at March 24, 2009 12:42 PM
I always thought Notre Dame was a Catholic University under the authority of the Catholic Church? If so, why would they invite the president who has done more to further abortion in 2 months than Clinton did in 8 years? So much for doctrinal beliefs and convictions.
Posted by: BobF at March 24, 2009 12:48 PM
Wild Thing is clearly not a Hoosier. Notre Dame is in Northern Indiana. This is Labor Union country. There is no clear distinction between there and Detroit, MI.
Add the strong Irish/Socialist tradition and the Notre Dame community is one of the regions that gave Obama his win in the Indiana primary. (Modern Ireland followed Reagan out of the wilderness of centuries of bad economics. Reagan did not specifically say to Ireland that they should follow him but they recognized a wise Irishman when they saw one. It is too bad that Notre Dame can not.)
The Notre Dame community is as far to the left as any community that still believes in God can be.
Posted by: Avitar at March 24, 2009 02:32 PM
The American catholic leadership is so far to the left they all should be in the Pacific. never had much use for shamans of any kind and this just re-enforces my contention that it is more about power over people than it is about religion.
Posted by: GUYK at March 24, 2009 04:13 PM
This is an outrage. I signed the petition to un-invite that baby-killer. As a Catholic, I have put up with plenty of labels my entire life (old-fashioned and backward thinking are the mildest). This is the kind of crap that happens when the Church doesn't do enough to bitch-slap priests and Bishops who fail their congregations by bowing to the powers of politics and political correctness. N.D. could simply say they don't want the chief abortion nazi to be on their campus...let the press call them racist...better that label than abandoning your faith for worldly praise.
Posted by: PeteSuj at March 24, 2009 05:13 PM
It's true--they invited him like they do all Presidents, but we have the right to say "No." His views are not those of Roman or Irish Catholics and it would just not go over very well. He'd probably giggle all the way through his speech anyway. He needs a good swift kick in the hindquarters to wake him up. He needs to realize that life does begin at conception when the cells begin to divide. He's rude, obnoxious, condescending, nasty, a hypocrite, a liar and many other things that are not worth printing here. I know ND's heart was in the right place, but they didn't temper it with the mind.
Number 2 ND Fan!
Posted by: Lynn at March 24, 2009 06:18 PM
It's like getting either Lou Holtz or Donna Shalaila for commencement ceremonies. The luck of the Irish gets Shalaila. Hence they get Obama. Its Murphys Law: If obama can happen it will.
Posted by: Mark at March 24, 2009 07:16 PM
Richard, you have a point, thanks. I just wish they had taken a stand not to and they would have had a perfect excuse not to invite him.
Posted by: Wild Thing at March 24, 2009 11:25 PM
Tom, I guess so too, that is what is showing up anyway.
Posted by: Wild Thing at March 24, 2009 11:26 PM
BobF., I am not sure,it is hard to understand.
Posted by: Wild Thing at March 24, 2009 11:28 PM
Avitar, LOL I am not a ND football fan. I was born in Illinois so the Indiana teams are not something I cheer for.
That is funny that you might have thought that though.
Posted by: Wild Thing at March 24, 2009 11:31 PM
GUYK, I agree, over the last 20 or so there have been so many churchs that have gone way to the left, Protestant too has changed a lot.
Posted by: Wild Thing at March 24, 2009 11:34 PM
PeteSuj, I agree so much, well said. And the thing is it is not just the Catholic church it is also so many others as well. I wish they realized that to go to the left like that have been doing is destroying the vary thing that they should be fighting against.
Thank you PeteSuj.
Posted by: Wild Thing at March 24, 2009 11:37 PM
Lynn, yes I wish they had thoguht it through more, it would not have looked bad for this time to just say no this time it is different.
Posted by: Wild Thing at March 24, 2009 11:40 PM
Mark, what a great way to put it.
"Its Murphys Law: If obama can happen it will."
Posted by: Wild Thing at March 24, 2009 11:42 PM
