If you have been listening to Catholic radio in recent days, you have no doubt heard that Fr. Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame, has invited President Obama to give the commencement address to the graduating class in May.
This is creating a huge firestorm of protest from many in the prolife apostolate.
The local ordinary, Bishop D’Arcy is refusing to attend the ceremony because he does not want to give any impression that his presence would be tacit support for Obama’s radical anti-life policies.
This is what is being reported.
What I don’t understand is why a purportedly Catholic university would give a platform, and confer an award (which I understand they are going to do), to anyone who so blatantly is pushing the kind of pro-abortion and embryionic stem cell research policies that our President is advocating.
The bishops of the United States as a whole in 2004 were quite clear that no one was to be given a platform to speak or given awards from a Catholic institution of learning if they publicly promote issues that were intrinsically evil and contrary to Church teaching.
Surely, supporting abortion and experimentation on embryos and embryonic stem cell research are such issues. The Church teaches that these are intrinsically evil, i.e., always wrong with no exceptions.
Is Notre Dame Catholic?
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