American Papist: 32 bishops now against Obama at UND

Round-up: *32* Bishops have responded to Notre Dame's Obama invitation
I was going to compile this list, but Catherine Harmon at Catholic World Report did it first. Here it is:

Bishops’ statements on Notre Dame’s invitation to Barack Obama (my additions in bold)

1. Bishop John D’Arcy, Fort Wayne-South Bend
2. Cardinal Francis George, Chicago
3. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Galveston-Houston
4. Archbishop Timothy Dolan, Milwaukee (--> NYC)
5. Archbishop John Nienstedt, St. Paul-Minneapolis
6. Archbishop Eusebius Beltran, Oklahoma City
7. Bishop Edward Slattery, Tulsa
8. Archbishop John Myers, Newark
9. Archbishop Alfred Hughs, New Orleans
10. Bishop Joseph Martino, Scranton
11. and Auxiliary Bishop John Dougherty, Scranton
12. Bishop Thomas Doran, Rockford, Ill.
13. Bishop Thomas Olmsted, Phoenix
14. Bishop Gregory Aymond, Austin
15. Bishop Robert Lynch, St. Petersburg
16. Bishop R. Walker Nickless, Sioux City
17. (Paul Schenck, on behalf of) Bishop Kevin Rhoades, Harrisburg, Pa.
18. Bishop William E. Lori, Bridgeport, CT
19. Bishop Robert Morlino, Madison WI
20. Bishop George Murry, S.J., Youngstown, OH
21. Bishop William Higi, Lafayette, IN
22. Bishop Anthony Taylor of Little Rock, AR
23. Archbishop Jose Gomez, San Antonio, TX
24. and Auxiliary Bishop Oscar Cantu
25. Bishiop Jerome Listecki, La Crosse, WI
26. Archbishop Edwin O'Brien, Baltimore MD
27. Bishop Alex Sample, Marquette MI
28. Archbishop Daniel Buechlein, Indianapolis
29. Bishop Robert Baker, Birmingham AL
30. Bishop Samuel Aquila, Fargo ND
31. Bishop Gerald Barbarito, Palm Beach FL
32. Archbishop Fabian Brukeswitz, Lincoln NE

Some thoughts on the Notre Dame/Obama scandal & Nienstedt's letter

Just a couple further thoughts on the ND scandal...

Below is a letter from Arch. Nienstedt on the whole Obama/Notre Dame issue.
The bishop sees the bigger picture, I think.
A few things need to be considered on this issue:

-Obama is receiving a 'honorary doctor of law' degree; he promotes laws that
disregard human life, and are an affront to human dignity (gay marriage, etc.).

-Obama is the most anti-life president in history, and this is only 100 days into his
presidency. The ignorant speech he gave about stem cells is enough to
make George Bush look like a philosopher at a prestigeuos university. He also
said we ought not 'politicize science'- basically that means no ethics bind science?

-Obama has a penchant for nominating unfaithful 'Catholic' politicians to his cabinet;
this is a total embarassment and affront on the Church. The message of this is clear:
you don't have to pay attention to your bishop or Rome, we are the authority.

-Times have changed. In the past, everyone expected a lack of fidelity after the council;
this is no longer the case. Vatican II is now becoming more and more clear, thanks
to JPII and BXVI. The post conciliar Church was not pressing the 'reset' button
on doctrine and tradition as the progressivists have pushed for 40 years.

-Although ND has invited presidents to speak since Jimmy Carter,
one cannot simply look to past precedent; past precedent (Carter & Clinton) displays two
presidents who did not respect human life and should not have been honored. It is time
that the Church break from tradition (that of the last 40 years), a tradition of relativism
and infidelity to authentic teaching. It is one
thing to allow a president to speak at a Catholic school, but another to give them an
honoring and let them speak from the pulpit after mass and at commencement.
This has nothing to do with academic freedom, but the promotion of 'worldly' ideas and bowing
down to 'the world'. ND has been doing this since the Land O' Lakes decree under Hessburg.
ND would rather be a second rate Harvard, than the #1 Catholic university.

-This is a teaching moment, and everyone is paying attention. To waffle on this very clear
issue is to promote pusilanimity and infidelity to Church teaching.

-Lastly, here's Obama's anti-life record.

So, I think this is a big deal and dispicable if ND goes through with it.
Neinstedt's letter is below.

March 26, 2009

Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.
President, University of Notre Dame
400 Main Building
Notre Dame, IN 46556

Dear Father Jenkins:

I have just learned that you, as President of the University of Notre Dame, have invited President Barack Obama to be the graduation commencement speaker at the University’s exercises on May 17, 2009. I was also informed that you will confer on the president an honorary doctor of laws degree, one of the highest honors bestowed by your institution.

I write to protest this egregious decision on your part. President Obama has been a pro-abortion legislator. He has indicated, especially since he took office, his deliberate disregard of the unborn by lifting the ban on embryonic stem cell research, by promoting the FOCA agenda and by his open support for gay rights throughout this country.

It is a travesty that the University of Notre Dame, considered by many to be a Catholic University, should give its public support to such an anti-Catholic politician.

I hope that you are able to reconsider this decision. If not, please do not expect me to support your University in the future.

Sincerely yours,

The Most Reverend John C. Nienstedt
Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Weigel vs. Kmeic on 'Notre Dame-Obama scandal'

Notre Dame's Common Ground [Fr. Z. comments]
By Douglas W. Kmiec
March 29, 2009

As a former law school dean, I know selecting commencement speakers can be difficult. The ideal speaker must raise your institution’s prestige and be universally beloved for a life well-lived. Toss in the school’s religious mission, and it’s depressing to think Mother Teresa is deceased. [Should those be the criteria? "raise prestige"? "be univerally beloved"? I don’t think that being universally beloved has to be a factor. But actually honoring a person who stands for things your institution should be against seems might be a criterion for disqualification.]

One would think the president of the United States would be a good bet.

Presidents are political figures, of course, but just as politics are expected to stop at the water’s edge, partisan sentiment ill-becomes a graduation. [Is Kmiec, like so many others, going to reduce this to a political issue?] The rough and tumble of political debate is as awkwardly out of place at commencements as attempting to mediate an intrafamily grievance would be at a wedding.

Commencements are mostly celebrations—of achievement, past and anticipated. Seated among the berobed faculty is everyone from Grandma to Uncle Harry, and while the scholars expect to hear, and the families tolerate, orations touching on the issues of the day, ponderous intellectual heft is best checked at the door, or at least moderated with kind words about the graduating class and a touch of wit. Not everyone follows this prudential guidance, of course. In the 20 years I taught at the University of Notre Dame, I witnessed presidents, scholars, actors, scientists and world figures defy this formula—or worse, the need for brevity. One speaker delivered his remarks entirely in untranslated Italian. A South American head of state went on so long that it is a standing joke among the graduates of that class that Notre Dame built a new auditorium because he is still speaking in the old one.

Of course, the controversy over President Barack Obama at Notre Dame is different. [Not if it is reduced to a political issue it isn’t.] Even as unprecedented numbers of Catholics voted for the president (54 percent of the Catholic vote nationwide), Catholic voters paying respectful heed to local bishops had reservations. [Which bishops? Also, I detect a whiff of the universal excuse I call "the struggle". If you "struggle" with something, you are to be exonerated of any guilt for doing something wrong. I am guessing that "having reservations" does the same thing on Kmiec’s planet.] Of course, this is not unusual either. Politics is the art of compromise and candidates are the embodiment of it. But there’s the rub, the Catholic Church is the foremost defender of unborn life, and properly, uncompromising about it. [That use of "properly, uncompromising" surprises me from him. So… is he saying that the Church’s pastor’s, properly following the properly uncompromising stand of the Church on abortion, properly warn their subjects about the consquences of improperly promoting abortion?] Obama is more pragmatic, accommodating other religious and scientific views that see the origin point of life differently. [How enlightened he is. He sees so many sides of the difficult issue at once. Oh… ! ...... ..... ...... I almost swooned there for a moment, but I am better now.] Obama may thoughtfully [he is so pragmatic, accomodating… and thoughtful too! He is a deep thinker. He’s like that statue… you know… The Thinker.] call reducing the "moral tragedy" of abortion a top priority of his faith office, but this is not absolute legal protection, and the Catholic hierarchy has not been shy about raising moral objection, for example, to the president’s new direction on embryonic stem-cell research. [Okay… let me get this straight. Kmiec has chosen to cite, of all the various things Pres. Obama has said and done about abortion, to cite… wait for it, his desire to reduce the "moral tragedy" of abortion as a priority of his "faith office". That is what Kmiec is going to say about Pres. Obama’s position on abortion? His desire to reduce the "moral tragedy"?]

Notre Dame’s president, Rev. John Jenkins, has also made it plain that the commencement invitation represents no disregard of the church’s commitment to life. [Right! And President Obama is working through his faith office to reduce the moral tragedy of abortion!] And while it is unfortunate the local prelate, Bishop John D’Arcy, has chosen to be elsewhere rather than pray with Obama and engage him in conversation, [booo! hisss! bad bishop! President Obama is so pragmatic! He would be practical enough to use the occasion for dialogue. But not Bp. D’Arcy! Pres. Obama is so accomodating! But not the bad bishop! Pres. Obama is thoughtful! He reflects on everything ... with depth! But Bp. D’Arcy won’t come to pray with him. He has chosen to be elsewhere rather than be with The Wun!] the significance of the bishop’s absence and Jenkins’ candor is surely not lost on our intellectually gifted 44th president. [pragmatic, accomodating, thoughtfull, intellectually gifted… wow… Well.. I should hope the absence of the bishop will be noticed!]

So with all this reservation and dissent, [sooo… what does "dissent" mean in this sentence? I think he might actually be applying it to the people who don’t approve of the invitation to the President.] should Notre Dame regret Obama’s acceptance? [NB: regret his acceptance…. Clever. Should they regret the invitation!] And in light of the commotion being stirred up by Obama’s detractors, should Obama feel unwelcome? [It just piles up, doesn’t it? The dentification of Pres. Obama’s positions as morally unacceptable to a human being (not just a Catholic) because they violate natural law and reason, is not "detraction". Kmiec is saying that if you call the President’s positions for what they are, you are a "detractor". Maybe this is why Kmiec wouldn’t say more, above, about the President’s position on abortion other than that he wants to reduce the moral tragedy, blah blah….]

No, on both counts; the "O" in Obama’s name may be only remotely Irish (kin on his mother’s side traced to Moneygall—which sounds like a place American International Group execs go to vacation), [soooo funnny too!] but this much is undeniable: both Notre Dame and our new president are "fightin’ Irish" when it comes to working for social justice. [Hey! Forget about the dissent in the theology department or the disgraceful desire to honor a man who is working so concretely to advance abortion – because that is what the President is really doing Prof. Kmiec. Forget about the President’s actual record, his promises, his concrete actions since taking office! They are fighting for social justice. Applicable to all but the unborn. Er… no… I guess some of those who were accidently born don’t get social justice either.] The Obama administration’s early victories extending health insurance to children, rectifying imbalances in a tax code neglectful of the working man, and persuading Congress to allocate abundant resources for educational reform, despite the economic distress, all coincide strongly with church teaching. [He is so, gifted, and pragmatic, and thoughtful, and …. gosh…. wonderful. It’s just that pesky thing about the the meaning of all human life, isn’t it. This has been Kmiec’s position since the campaign: all these things he lists are, in effect, more important than defending the dignity of all human lives. Some are less valued, in effect. Some are expendable. But if they are expendable… then why not old people, or the sick or stupid… as defined by, well, me! Or, because people will blue eyes irritate me today…. them too.] So too is the president’s disposition to end an unjust war, the exploitation of the immigrant and his pursuit of environmental stewardship that will no longer be profit’s afterthought. [He’s soooo groooovy.]

And there is a very special reason [When "special" isn’t enough to describe our need to honor President Obama, it becomes "very special"!] why only Notre Dame is capable of giving emphasis [And let’s pander to Notre Dame! Maybe they’ll invite Kmiec next year?] to these compelling aspects of Barack Obama. The reason: honoring the extraordinary priesthood and life of Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, 92, [Hesburgh? The driving force behind the notorious Land O’Lakes Statement? That Fr. Hesburgh?] Notre Dame’s president emeritus who during the 35 years he led the university to its present greatness, served as chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Today, Father Ted has been rendered nearly blind by illness, but he, like Obama, can see clearly two great goods missed by the short-sighted critics [Get it? Get it? Hesburgh is blind but can see more clearly than the physically sighted but obtuse critics of the President and Notre Dame? Get it? Get it?] of the invitation: first, that while on Inauguration Day, all Americans rejoiced in the election of the first African-American to the presidency, today we are with him or against him irrespective of race, and second, that despite our occasionally profound disagreement, if we are truly to learn to live with one another, [can’t we all just get along?] we will need to find a way, as Obama has remarked, "that reconciles the beliefs of each with the good of all." [YES WE CAN!]

Cheer, cheer [clever to the end, I see] for Notre Dame for being an inviting place of common ground.

Douglas W. Kmiec is a law professor at Pepperdine University and the author "Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big Question about Barack Obama."

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The University's Egregious Error [Fr. Z. comments]
By George Weigel
March 29, 2009

When a university invites a prominent personality to deliver a commencement address and accept an honorary degree, a statement is being made to graduates, students, faculty, parents, alumni and donors: "This is someone whose work is worth emulating." The invitation, in other words, is not to a debate, or to the opening of some sort of ongoing conversation. The invitation and the award of an honorary degree are a university’s stamp of approval on someone’s life and accomplishment. [Precisely. You can’t just hide behind the reason that he is POTUS. This is a POTUS with a difference!]

Which is precisely why the University of Notre Dame, which claims to be America’s premier Catholic institution of higher learning, made an egregious error in inviting President Barack Obama to address its May commencement and accept an honorary doctorate of laws degree.

Since Inauguration Day, Obama has made several judgment calls that render Notre Dame’s invitation little short of incomprehensible. [Noooo… I know this is a rhetorical device, but please. But compare the list that follows with Kmiec’s list, above:] The president has put the taxpayers of the United States back into the business of paying for abortions abroad. He has expanded federal funding for embryo-destructive stem-cell research and defended that position in a speech that was a parody of intellectually serious moral reasoning. The Obama administration threatens to reverse federal regulations that protect the conscience rights of Catholic and other pro-life health-care professionals. And the administration has not lifted a finger to keep its congressional and teachers’ union allies from snatching tuition vouchers out of the hands of poor inner-city children who want to attend Catholic schools in the nation’s capital. ["But Father! But Father!", you are squeeking as you wave your hands to get my attention. Yes… I know… you are itching to point out that Pres. Obama is working through his "faith office" to reduce the "moral tragedy".... etc. Prof. Kmiec taught me that, above.]

How any of this, much less the sum total of it, constitutes a set of decisions Notre Dame believes worth emulating is not, to put it gently, easy to understand. [Again.. the rhetorical device. It is really quite easy to understand.]

Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic bishops of the United States, following the teaching and intention of the Second Vatican Council, have all declared that the defense of life from conception until natural death is the premier civil rights issue of our time. [HUH? What about all those things Kmiec listed above? Don’t they really, if put in the balance against all the great things The Wun is doing… don’t they outwiegh the whole abortion thing?] It is important to remember, however, that the Catholic defense of the right to life is not a matter of arcane or esoteric Catholic doctrine: You don’t have to believe in the primacy of the pope, in seven sacraments, in Mary’s assumption into heaven, in the divine and human natures of Christ—you don’t even have to believe in God—to take seriously the Catholic claim that innocent human life has an inalienable dignity and value that demands the protection of the laws. [Right! This is a human issue, not a Catholic issue. Doesn’t that make it twice as bad when a Catholic, who has the advantages of the Church, dissents from the clear truth?] For that claim is not a uniquely Catholic claim; it reflects a first principle of justice that anyone can grasp, irrespective of their religious convictions or lack thereof.

Moreover, it is precisely that claim—that all members of the human family [the unborn included… and those born even accidently … in Illinois…] have a dignity and worth that law and public policy must recognize—that once led men like Notre Dame’s former president, Father Theodore M. Hesburgh, to work for decades on behalf of civil rights for African-Americans. [If you cannot defend the rights of the innocent unborn, then you have no grounds for defending the rights of anyone else. If one innocent group is denied the right to live, then another innocent group can be denied other rights.] That claim and that work made it possible for Obama to be elected president of the United States. And, in a bitter irony, it is precisely that claim that is contradicted, indeed trampled on, by the Obama administration’s policies on a whole host of life issues. This is what Notre Dame wishes to propose as worth emulating, by the award of an honorary doctorate of laws? This is what a Catholic institution dedicated to the idea that all law is under moral scrutiny wishes to celebrate? The mind boggles. [Yes… a good rhetorical device. We know why they are doing this.]

If Notre Dame wished to invite Obama to debate the life issues with prominent Catholic intellectuals during the next academic year, it would have done the country a public service and no reasonable person could object. If Notre Dame had invited the president to address a symposium on the grave moral issues the president himself acknowledges being at the heart of the biotech revolution, that, too, would have been a public service. For that is one of the things great universities do: They provide a public forum for serious argument about serious matters touching the common good. But, to repeat, a commencement is not a debate, nor is a commencement address the beginning of some sort of ongoing dialogue, as Notre Dame officials have tried to suggest. [Exactly.] A commencement address and the degree that typically accompanies it confer an honor. That honor is, or should be, a statement of the university’s convictions. [Therefore… what do we conclude about the University’s convictions? (Keep in mind the pivotal role UND played in the Land O’ Lakes Statement.)]

By inviting Obama to address its commencement and by offering him an honorary doctorate of laws, Notre Dame’s leaders invite the conclusion that their convictions on the great civil rights issues of our time are not those that once led Hesburgh to stand with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and proclaim an America in which all God’s children are equal before the law. And that is very bad news for all Americans. [Not just Catholics.]

George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies.

Bishop D'Arcy to Skip Notre Dame Graduation

Sites University's Preference for Prestige Over Truth

SOUTH BEND, Indiana, MARCH 24, 2009 (Zenit.org).- For the first time in 25 years, the bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend will not attend the University of Notre Dame's graduation ceremony.

In a statement released today on the diocese's Web site, Bishop John D'Arcy revealed his decision to not attend this year's commencement, at which President Barack Obama will speak and receive an honorary degree.

He said his move isn't an attack on anyone, but rather a gesture done in defense of the truth of human life.

Father John Jenkins, the president of Notre Dame, informed the bishop Friday that Obama had accepted an invitation to speak at the university's spring commencement. Bishop D'Arcy noted that this was the first he had heard that such an invitation had been extended.

"President Obama," he said, "has recently reaffirmed, and has now placed in public policy, his long-stated unwillingness to hold human life as sacred. While claiming to separate politics from science, he has in fact separated science from ethics and has brought the American government, for the first time in history, into supporting direct destruction of innocent human life."

Bishop D'Arcy noted that he made his decision "after much prayer," and that he wishes "no disrespect to our president."

"I have always revered the office of the presidency," he said. "But a bishop must teach the Catholic faith 'in season and out of season,' and he teaches not only by his words -- but by his actions."

"My decision is not an attack on anyone, but is in defense of the truth about human life," he added.

Quoting a 2004 statement of the U.S. bishops, Bishop D'Arcy said, "The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."

"Indeed, the measure of any Catholic institution is not only what it stands for, but also what it will not stand for," the bishop noted.

Honor for Glendon

Bishop D'Arcy noted that Notre Dame will also honor Mary Ann Glendon, former U.S. ambassador to the Holy, at this year's graduation ceremony. She will be presented with the university's Laetare Medal.

The medal has been awarded annually since 1883 to a Catholic "whose genius has ennobled the arts and sciences, illustrated the ideals of the church and enriched the heritage of humanity."

The bishop said he has spoken with Glendon, and he encouraged her to accept the award, "and take the opportunity such an award gives her to teach."

"Even as I continue to ponder in prayer these events, which many have found shocking, so must Notre Dame," concluded Bishop D'Arcy. "Indeed, as a Catholic university, Notre Dame must ask itself, if by this decision it has chosen prestige over truth.

"Tomorrow, we celebrate as Catholics the moment when our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, became a child in the womb of his most holy mother. Let us ask Our Lady to intercede for the university named in her honor, that it may recommit itself to the primacy of truth over prestige."

Obama commencement... at Notre Dame?!

George Weigel kicks off the diatribe against America's Catholic University
for this absurd decision. Others include: James Schall, Ralph McInerney, RR Reno, Fr. George Ruttler et al.

Weigel and McInerney are quite good, they are included below... View the rest here.

A Moral Exemplar?
Should the University of Notre Dame honor our most anti-life president?

An NRO Symposium

The University of Notre Dame has announced that Pres. Barack Obama will be the principal speaker and will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree at the university’s commencement on Sunday, May 17. The invitation comes after the president has taken several official actions that directly oppose the Catholic Church’s most sacred teachings. National Review Online asked some of our experts on education and Catholicism for their comments.


GEORGE WEIGEL
Notre Dame’s decision to make President Obama its 2009 commencement speaker is a very bad thing. It’s bad for Notre Dame, bad for Catholic moral witness in America, and bad for the bishops who are trying to mount a defense against the Obama administration’s assault on the conscience rights of Catholic health-care professionals.

The invitation to deliver a commencement address, especially when coupled with the award of an honorary degree, is not a neutral act. It’s an act by which a Catholic institution of higher learning says, “This is a life worth emulating according to our understanding of the true, the good, and the beautiful.” It is frankly beyond my imagining how Notre Dame can say that of a president who has put the United States back into the business of funding abortion abroad; a president who made a mockery of the very idea of moral argument in his speech announcing federal funding for embryo-destructive stem cell research; a president whose administration and its congressional allies are snatching tuition vouchers out of the hands of desperately poor Washington, D.C., children who just as desperately want to attend Catholic schools.

As to Lenin’s question, “What, then, is to be done?,” one does not risk a charge of cynicism by suggesting that the most effective advocates for Notre Dame’s recovering its senses will be alumni and other donors capable of withdrawing or withholding contributions in the range of seven, eight, or nine figures. That is the sad state to which things have descended under the Golden Dome: moral argument seems to be unavailing with the leaders of an institution dedicated to developing the arts of moral reason.

RALPH McINERNY
Bernie Madoff has declined an honorary doctorate in economics from the University of Notre Dame, but all is not lost. Barack Hussein Obama, enabler in chief of abortion, has agreed to speak at the 2009 commencement and to receive an honorary doctorate of law. That abortion and its advocacy violate a primary precept of natural law reinforced by the Catholic Church’s explicit doctrine is a mere bagatelle. Wackos of all kinds will kick up a fuss, of course, but their protest will go unnoticed in South Bend. The pell-mell pursuit of warm and fuzzy Catholicism will continue. How better to defend the faith than to celebrate a man who advocates polishing off babies even after they are born? The newly created Herod Award will be added to the university’s recognition of the chief magistrate. Administrators are hugging themselves with delight at this massive publicity coup. The national championship in football has eluded Notre Dame for many years, but when the president dribbles onto the stage at the great event, the hall will erupt in ecstatic applause; the president, Father Jenkins, will wring his hand; and a final nail will be driven into the coffin of a once-great Catholic university. No one will note nor long remember what Barack Obama says on the occasion. Who listens to commencement addresses? But the Lady atop the golden dome, recalling the flight into Egypt, will exhibit one of her many titles: She who weeps.