As though American Catholics didn’t have enough trouble reconciling their “Catholic faith and beliefs” and what they “feel” they “want” to believe and do – now, they face a major doctrinal face-off at the University of Notre Dame.
The controversy involves the university and its president, Rev. John Jenkins, his own order of priests, Catholic hierarchy across the country, hundreds of thousands of average Catholics and the U.S. president.
The pope hasn’t weighed in yet, but that’s not impossibility.
It’s all because Barack Hussein Obama has been invited to deliver the commencement address on May 17 and to receive an honorary degree. He’d be the ninth president to receive an honorary degree there and the sixth sitting president.
But Obama is unique. He’s the most pro-abortion president this country has ever had, and that’s the core of the controversy.
To Catholics, abortion is killing. It’s premeditated murder. It’s immoral. It’s not a debatable issue.
That is not Barack Obama’s belief. As a politician, he’s done everything he can to allow abortions of every kind and to eliminate any rules or laws that might put the least restriction on a woman’s right to kill her unborn baby.
Yes, I know, that last will incense many, but there is no doubt that the “target” of an abortion is an unborn child, and the goal of the “procedure” is to be certain its “life” is ended.
When you realize that an abortion is considered “botched” when the baby comes out alive – you get the idea.
Barely three days into his presidency, Obama repealed the ban on government funding of abortions overseas. He’s promised to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which eliminates every single restriction on abortion at any government level and would force all doctors, nurses and hospitals to perform abortions regardless of their personal beliefs or be fired.
In Illinois, he voted against the Born Alive Infants Act, which means he does not want aborted babies, which are born alive, to be saved. They are just left alone to die.
And as president, Obama eased the way for embryonic stem cell research to proceed which, like it or not, is experimenting on, and killing, viable human embryos.
You’d be hard pressed to say the man is on the side of “life,” especially early human life.
Unfortunately, that puts him at odds with a fundamental of Roman Catholic belief.
Yet, the invitation was extended and accepted, and, thus far, Obama has said nothing about the controversy.
What’s going on? Is Notre Dame so enamored of cozying up to presidents and politicians that it’s willing to sacrifice core beliefs? It seems so.
Notre Dame is the University of Our Lady. For non-Catholics, that means the woman, Mary, who is the mother of Jesus. For non-believers and atheists and the just downright anti-Catholic – she’s the woman who had the baby in the manger on Christmas. Yes, that one.
Notre Dame is known, of course, for football but also for the fact that it is – some would say was – a Catholic university. That’s Catholic, with a capital “C.” That used to mean something.
The idea behind a school being “Catholic,” regardless of the grade level, from elementary to post graduate, is that it’s guided by Catholic religious tenets and beliefs. There’s a recognition on campus of the reality and presence of God in accord with Catholic doctrine.
You’ll see religious art and crucifixes in classrooms. It is possible to pray on campus and even in classrooms. There are chapels. Mass is celebrated daily, and students are encouraged to attend. Faculty and the administration include religious and lay people.
The purpose of a Catholic liberal arts college or university has nothing to do with “liberal” politics. Liberal arts means that the students are taught to think, to reason, to analyze, to learn philosophy, logic, ethics, psychology, mathematics, music, art and theology as well as being taught subject matter in major study areas. It’s all under the umbrella of Catholic doctrinal morality.
What does it mean when a Catholic school honors a man whose core beliefs violate a basic tenet of the institution? What message does that give to the students other than it doesn’t matter?
The argument that objecting to Obama’s appearance violates free speech is specious. He’s not lecturing or debating or subject to questions. He’s being honored for his body of work, for his accomplishments – but his accomplishments (if you can call them that) include making it easier for millions of innocent infants to be murdered every year, abortions often paid for with tax money.
Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins says the invitation stands.
Ten priests from his order, the Congregation of the Holy Cross, which founded the University of Notre Dame, sent a letter to Jenkins and the trustees asking the invitation be rescinded and that “failure to do so will damage the integrity of the institution.”
Twenty-nine bishops, including Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, have spoken out in opposition, hundreds of thousands of Catholics have signed petitions of objection, and opposition rallies have been held on campus.
So far, nothing has changed.
But in reality, something deeper has changed. Notre Dame is no longer Catholic. It’s an institution with a religious façade, but when you look into the classrooms, into the curricula, into the words of the professors, and even into the president’s office – you’ll see just another secular college, spouting moral relativism.
Notre Dame, and too many other Catholic institutions are “catholic” in name only and sometimes they even avoid that, so as not to “offend” anyone.
Jesus never said being a Catholic would be easy. It wasn’t then and isn’t now. It requires courage and faith, which Notre Dame lacks.
How sad.
