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Item: Presidential visit spurs furor at Notre Dame: Abortion rights debate spills beyond campus/Chicago Tribune
More Info: President Barack Obama’s planned visit to the University of Notre Dame later this spring has triggered a national debate over whether such a prominent supporter of abortion rights should be welcomed at one of America’s premier Catholic universities.
IVA: Notre Dame’s decision to award an honorary degree to President Obama and invite him to be this year’s commencement speaker has stirred up justifiable outrage in the pro-life community as a whole and the Catholic pro-life community in particular. More here.
Question: Should President Obama be allowed to speak at the Notre Dame commencement exercise?
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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Cabbage Boy on March 25 at 9:21 a.m.
Dave, it isn’t “should he be allowed to speak” or his “visit spurs furor”, but rather should this man be honored by an institution that should have dramatically opposing values?
Giving the commencement address and receiving an honorary law degree qualifies as being honored, held in high regard. Not something a “Catholic” university should be doing for someone with Obama’s track record.
scootermom on March 25 at 9:31 a.m.
They invited him didn’t they?
If commencement speakers were limited to those who held beliefs consistent in every way with the Catholic church, the pool of speakers would be very limited.
Have other speakers supported the death penalty? Have other speakers supported public policy that cares for the poor? Have other speakers supported policies that recognize basic human rights for immigrants? Have other speakers belonged to churches that ordained women?
Not everyone agrees with, or acts consistently with, every Catholic teaching. Abortion is certainly the most divisive, but there are plenty of other church teachings that seem to be overlooked.
moscow_minidoka on March 25 at 9:36 a.m.
He’s the president of the United States, and it should be an honor for any university to have him speak. Not everyone agrees with Chief Justice John Roberts, but it was an absolute honor to have him speak at the University of Idaho.
We, as a society, suffer if we only communicate with people who agree with us.
Notre Dame is not offering Pres. Obama communion (which he couldn’t do anyway, because he’s not Catholic), so I don’t understand why people like Bryan Fisher are getting their panties in a twist. Well, except that the IVA likes to hitch its wagon to anything that will get it in the newspaper.
Cabbage Boy on March 25 at 9:42 a.m.
Communicating is much different than bestowing an honor. It shows that the school will not only tolerate what it supposedly teaches is evil, it will also honor those that are a model of the opposite of that teaching.
And for the record, I am not hitching my wagon to this item. ND has long been “hardly Catholic.” They should just drop the facade and join the rest of the enlightened intelligentsia.
Escapee on March 25 at 9:44 a.m.
Talking about Stem Cell research yesterday, President Obama definitely doesn’t want to alienate anti-abortion forces. He said that regarding stem-cell research and the approval thereof, that he “made the right choice”. In short, babies aren’t going to be stolen out of the womb for this stem-cell research to take place. The stem-cell research would be directed towards elimination of Parkinsons’ disease, or other genetic maladies. That’s the logical side of it. The illogical side of it is that the Abortion Issue (and stem-cells, which can fall into that category) will Just Never Go Away. It’s one of those hotbed issues that I’m afraid is with us forever. As the Four Tops once sang, “It’s The Same…Old Song”…
jreighley on March 25 at 10:54 a.m.
Notre Dame has the right to do whatever it chooses… Those who object have the right to patronize a different institution. And I most definitively believe that they should. Notre Dame is soiling it’s name, and it’s own tradition buy bestowing honor on a man who advocates the protection of these barbaric sacrifices on the altar of the false gods of prosperity, sexuality, and pride.
ThomasPaine on March 25 at 11:19 a.m.
Seems to me if Notre Dame can’t have a commencement speaker who disagrees with their views they could only have Catholics speak. Would it be any worse to honor someone who didn’t believe in the infallibility of the pope, or the need for the intercession of priests to insure your salvation?
By the way, Notre Dame once had President Bush give the commencement address. As he’s a Methodist and therefore does not hold with Catholic theology they should have opposed his speech as well. Or is it possible that the people who are objecting think abortion is more important than the death penalty (which Bush supported) or the hierarchy of their own church?
KJJ on March 25 at 11:39 a.m.
I went ND for five years of graduate school. I’m a liberal heathen and they still gave me a degree. I understand that they are “honoring” Obama with a degree and people are upset about this.
What I would like to know is how much of this furor is from those at ND that will be directly involved (i.e. graduating students/faculty in funny hats/etc) and how much is from elsewhere? I started there the year after Bush gave the commencement speech. Though I have never been a fan of Bush, he was the POTUS! I would have loved to have had the opportunity to hear him speak! Obama isn’t going to go up there and advocate killing the unborn, he’s going to give an inspiring outstanding speech that the students will talk about and remember forever.
idawa on March 25 at 11:53 a.m.
This is a lark, it just shows how narrow minded some “Christians” are. The dean of my law school is homosexual and she is allowed to, with school resources, to openly advocate for homosexual equality, and yet, it is private Catholic institution. I suppose, that many posters on this site would see her fired on theological grounds despite that fact that she is imminently qualified for her position. And people wonder why atheism and alternative religions are growing at a faster rate than traditionalists.
Getting the sitting President to speak at your institution is the greatest commencement nod a school can get. Of course they should allow it - not everyone thinks with their bible.
toadman on March 25 at 12:32 p.m.
Inviting someone to speak does not automatically presuppose alignment with that person’s beliefs or policies. It DOES, however, let the world know that your campus is open to allowing free speech and diverse opinions. That’s a good thing, right?
Cabbage Boy on March 25 at 1:20 p.m.
“it just shows how narrow minded some “Christians” are. ”
Love that line. The irony is just so full of itself.
It wouldn’t be narrow minded to think that “Christians” should wonder about a “Christian” school honoring a man that radically opposes their view on many issues. Bush may have not been Catholic and certainly differed on some points, but he wasn’t radically opposed in theology.
Again, it isn’t about speaking, it is about honoring.
riggs on March 25 at 3:32 p.m.
Perhaps what those protestors are asking for is just a tuition raise. Since quite a few heathens surely attend ND and pay their tuition, this so-called moral crowd is happy to take dirty money to subsidize the college resources. I am quite sure that if ND wants to be a place of Catholic purity, we can surely pull some of the federal grants they get for research.