The scandal of teacher unions...

From the Wall Street Journal:

"Teach for (Some of) America"

Here's a quiz: Which of the following rejected more than 30,000 of the nation's top college seniors this month and put hundreds more on a waitlist? a) Harvard Law School; b) Goldman Sachs; or c) Teach for America.

If you've spent time on university campuses lately, you probably know the answer. Teach for America -- the privately funded program that sends college grads into America's poorest school districts for two years -- received 35,000 applications this year, up 42% from 2008. More than 11% of Ivy League seniors applied, including 35% of African-American seniors at Harvard. Teach for America has been gaining applicants since it was founded in 1990, but its popularity has exploded this year amid a tight job market.

So poor urban and rural school districts must be rejoicing, right? Hardly. Union and bureaucratic opposition is so strong that Teach for America is allotted a mere 3,800 teaching slots nationwide, or a little more than one in 10 of this year's applicants. Districts place a cap on the number of Teach for America teachers they will accept, typically between 10% and 30% of new hires. In the Washington area, that number is about 25% to 30%, but in Chicago, former home of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, it is an embarrassing 10%.

This is a tragic lost opportunity. Teach for America picks up the $20,000 tab for the recruitment and training of each teacher, which saves public money. More important, the program feeds high-energy, high-IQ talent into a teaching profession that desperately needs it. Unions claim the recent grads lack the proper experience and commitment to a teaching career. But the Urban Institute has studied the program and found that "TFA status more than offsets any experience effects. Disadvantaged secondary students would be better off with TFA teachers, especially in math and science, than with fully licensed in-field teachers with three or more years of experience."

Read the rest here.

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

Gay marriage = polygamy

Rod Dreher posts the following:

A Canadian writes:

Those opposed to gay marriage said in 2004/2005 that if Canada allowed gay marriage then polygamy would follow. People who said that, like myself were called bigots, obviously detached from reality. Today we have had polygamy endorsed as inevitable by The Ottawa Citizen newspaper ("Sure, it strikes many people as a weird arrangement, but so did gay marriage -- which is now legal. Again, it's about consenting adults."), it gets op-eds endorsing it from law professors at top schools ("The Criminal Code's polygamy section, from its inception through its bizarre history of virtual non-use, has always been shrouded in an aura of xenophobia and racism."), judges are deeming the practice of polygamy to be immaterial to an immigration application, and Ontario our largest province is granting polygamous men welfare benefits and recognizing multiple marriages in family law.

Oh, it could never happen here...

Bizzare: mom wants dead son's sperm to create 'grandkids'

From Rod Dreher:

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- A judge has granted a mother's request to have someone harvest sperm from her dead son's body, so she can have the option of carrying out his wish to have children.

Nikolas Colton Evans, 21, died Sunday at a Brackenridge hospital after being punched and falling outside an Austin bar March 27.

His mother, Marissa Evans, told the Austin American-Statesman newspaper that he wanted to have three sons someday and had even picked out their names: Hunter, Tod and Van.

"I want him to live on. I want to keep a piece of him," she told the newspaper.

I want to keep a piece of him. So now, human beings that may be created using her son's sperm, without (obviously) his consent, will be grandmother's little souvenirs.

When I woke up this morning, I wouldn't have even imagined such a thing possible. Now it seems we are going to have to pass a law forbidding our parents from harvesting our own eggs and sperm after we die, so they can get the grandkids they want no matter what. What a world.

I don't even know where to begin with this. Think of it: a dead man has no say over whether or not he will have children, because his mother has cannibalized his body with the consent of the state.

Metropolitan Jonah (OCA) vs. Patriarch Barthowlemew

Here's a link to a lead up by Rod Dreher, Orthodox reporter.

Below the jump, the full text of Metropolitan Jonah's sermon on Sunday, in which he called for American Orthodox unity, and for the Ecumenical Patriarch to quit trying to strong-arm American Orthodoxy. Discuss.

Metropolitan Jonah, St Seraphim Orthodox Cathedral, April 5, 2009

It is a great joy to see everybody here this evening from so many
different communities, from different traditions. Orthodoxy is a
celebration of diversity in unity, and unity in diversity. Our unity
is in our one Lord and savior Jesus Christ, and our one Orthodox faith
and our one commitment to living the truth, to living as Christians.
Not to live according the spirit of the world, not to live according
to our passions, not to live according to the desires that flit by
through our minds and lead us into all sorts of trouble, but to live
the truth, to live Orthodox. And, our diversity is something we
celebrate, not a diversity of lifestyles, but a diversity that
reflects the whole spectrum of our community, people of all races,
people of all colors, people from a multitude of different ethnic
backgrounds.

And yet, there is another thing that unites us here as well: we are
all Americans. We are a single community, we are a single community of
Orthodox Christians, and we are the local church in Dallas, the local
church in Northeast Texas. It doesn't matter that we have all these
various administrative jurisdictions, ultimately, because we gather
together as one body, to pray with one mind and one heart, to
celebrate the same Eucharist, to come to the same chalice. It doesn't
matter if we are eastern rite or western rite, doesn't matter the
language in the service is, but its all, we are one church, we are one
local Church, and I might add, we are one indigenous Church.

Right now in world Orthodoxy there is a solution to our disunity being
proposed. But I would propose there are two solutions. There's one
solution being proposed in which we all submit to Constantinople. We
all submit to a foreign patriarchate where all decisions will be made
there, where we will have no say in the decisions that are made. We
will have no say in our own destiny. We surrender the freedom that we
have embraced as American Orthodox Christians to a Patriarchate still
under Islamic domination. I think we have a better solution.

And this is something of the utmost importance, and it is something
imminent. It is not something where we can wait and say "Oh maybe in
my grandchildren's time there will be Orthodox unity." I'm talking
about June. And, if you think I'm kidding, there is a conference being
convened in the Phanar in June to discuss exactly this -- (actually,
it's in Cypress) -- to subject the Diaspora to the single singular
control, the so-called Diaspora, to the Patriarchate of
Constantinople, and thereby come into unity.

Well, that's one model for unity. I would submit if we wanted a Pope
we'd be under the real one. And I don't think any of us want a Pope,
otherwise we wouldn't be here. But who are we really? I think part of
this comes from a total and complete ignorance and misperception on
the part of the holy fathers who are the leaders of the churches in
the Old World. They don't understand that there are Americans who are
Orthodox.

There are Americans who have been born and bred in this land who have
embraced the Orthodox faith. There are Americans who have come over
here -- fleeing communism, fleeing Islamic domination, fleeing
oppression. Who have come to this land to embrace a new life, a life
of self-determination as well as a life that is governed by the
Orthodox faith. I don't think they understand that our church here has
this rich diversity but we all share a common identity.

It doesn't matter what language the services are in, we appreciate
them all. We appreciate the Arabic and the Romanian and the Slavonic;
we appreciate the Georgian and the Albanian and who knows what else.
But we also have to appreciate the English and the Spanish and the
French, just as we have to appreciate the Klinkit and the Aleut, and
the Upik and the Athabaskian, who are the true indigenous Orthodox
Christians of our land.

I don't think the holy fathers in the Phanar understand that we are a
Church, albeit with separate administrations, but that has a common
value of determining our own destiny. A church that is dedicated to
the conciliar process, which does not ignore the voice of the laity,
which does not ignore the voice of the priests, a church which is
united in its common commitment. Because we are Orthodox not simply by
birth, we are Orthodox not simply by our ethnic heritage. We are
Orthodox because we have chosen to be Orthodox. We are Orthodox
because we have committed our entire life to Jesus Christ and the
Gospel. And, it is that commitment to Jesus Christ and the Gospel and
our commitment to bring our brothers and sisters in our land to that
same commitment of Jesus Christ and the Gospel, not to some kind of
alien ideology, not to some nationalist or imperialist ideology from
some forgotten empire, not the imposition of foreign customs and the
submission to foreign despots.

But, to a united Church in this country, a Church in which we value
the diversity and value the unity equally. A Church in which we
appreciate one another and listen to the voice of one another so that
no person is devalued. So the traditions that our fathers in the faith
have brought to this country are valued. So the efforts and the labor
and the sweat and the blood and the tears of all those who have gone
before us to establish the Orthodox Faith in America for over 200
years now, 215 years to be precise, to acknowledge their sacrifice.
And, it is upon their sacrifice, upon their martyrdoms, upon their
sanctity, upon their sacrifice that our Church here is built.

There are those there that say that there was no canonical Orthodox
Church in the North American until 1924 until the establishment of the
Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Greek archdiocese.

Excuse me. The Russian Orthodox Church established a missionary work
here in 1794. It established English-speaking churches where priests
were trained to speak, to serve the liturgy, to teach the Gospel, and
to bring faithful people into the Orthodox Church, from 1857 in San
Francisco. They say our unity in America was a myth at the time of St.
Tikhon. Well yes, there were a few dozen churches that were not part
of it, but what about the 800 that were? What about those 800
churches? Churches that may have had Russian clergy, or had clergy who
were trained by the Russians, but were composed of Greeks and Serbs,
of Arabs, of Romanians, of Bulgarians, and of converts, who have stood
for the integrity of the Orthodox Faith and the integrity of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the integrity of the witness, the
missionary outreach which is essential to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Not to make people Greeks, not to make people Russians, not to make
people Arabs, but to simply bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to this
land, in its wholeness and its completeness, as it was preached by the
holy Apostles, in the fullness of its integrity. There are those
there, in the old world, who devalue this, who say that they are the
only criteria of Orthodoxy. Who are ignorant of our Saints, who refuse
to recognize the sacrifice of so many of those who have come before
us, in Christ, to establish the Gospel here.

I think we have a different solution. It is imperative for us to come
together. Not for all the other churches, the Antiochians and the
Serbians and the Bulgarians and the Romanians and everyone, to join
the OCA, but to come together in a new organization of Orthodoxy in
North American that brings us all together as one Church, even just
pulling together all our existing organizations so that all the
bishops sit on one Synod, so that all the Metropolitans get together
on a special Synod or something like that. So we can continue our
relationship with the Mother Churches, a relationship of love and
support. Firm in our own identity as Orthodox Christians and making
our witness to protect them from whatever evils confront them, whether
it be an aggressive Islam, or whether it be Communists who now call
themselves democrats (I'm not talking about Washington by the way, not
at all.)

It's very interesting. Seven months ago I was still an abbot in a
monastery in northern California. Just a few months ago I was made
Metropolitan and I had no idea, really, what the scope of Orthodoxy is
in America. And, now I'm beginning to get an idea. Not only did I find
myself the Metropolitan of the OCA, but Locum tenens of the Bulgarian
diocese. Well, these are people who have fled oppression just as in so
many eastern European countries. It's the same people who were there
under the communists; they just changed their titles.

It's the same thing with the churches in the Middle East. How many
hundreds of thousands of faithful Iraqi Orthodox Christians are living
as refugees in camps in Jordan and Syria, ignored by the world. We
need a united, powerful witness. A witness that will not only bear
witness to the unity of the Gospel and our common commitment to one
Faith in Jesus Christ the one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism that
constitutes the Orthodox Church. We need to bear witness as a united
Body, only to those issues that affect the Phanar, not only to the
tragic situation in Cypress, but to those issue that affect all
Orthodox Christian throughout the world. There is no witness in
Congress. There has been no Orthodox voice, save one lone Serbian
bishop, during the American aggression in Kosovo. There were so many
hundreds and thousands of Orthodox Christians that suffered and died
at our hands, and the hands of our government and our voice was muted.

We have to come together as one united Orthodox Church in North
America in order to truly show people that the Orthodox Church is the
One Holy Catholic Church, in order to show that truly we are the
Church constituted by the Apostles of Jesus Christ. And, there is only
one way to show that -- not by self-righteous proclamations of our
Orthodoxy it's not by self-righteous condemnation of non-Orthodox
Christians, it's by coming together and showing people how we love one
another, how we forgive one another. How we bear common witness to the
Gospel. Though we have multiple churches and diverse traditions, we
affirm that there is One Truth, who is the person of Jesus Christ. The
Orthodox way of life is the way of the healing of the soul and the way
of salvation.

It is imperative brothers and sisters, imperative on us that, we come
together and with one voice, as the Orthodox Church of North America,
to say to the holy fathers of the Old World, the Orthodox Church
exists in North America. We are grateful for the support you have
given us. We love and support your work. We rejoice in your victories
and we are sad with your tragedies. But, you have to give us the
freedom to take care of our own Church in our own country, in our own
culture, and not to be controlled by people who have never heard a
word of English much less allow a word of English to be spoken in the
liturgy. We can't allow our Church to be controlled with people who
have no appreciation of our culture and have to bow to the Turkish
Islamic authorities.

This, my friends, is something truly critical affecting our life and
our witness. We hear of all of these scandals, all the stuff that went
on in the OCA and all the stuff going on in the Antiochian
Archdiocese, and all the petty little stuff that goes on in our
parishes. All of that is pettiness. We have to come together. The Lord
Jesus Christ is calling us together to be one Church in America,
composed of all Americans, no matter where they came from, no matter
how long their ancestors, or they themselves, have been in this land.

Because the canonical organization of the Church, according to the
Holy Apostles and all of the ancient Fathers, is not about some kind
of international organization where we look 8000 miles away for some
source of canonicity. But it is the local Church, the presbyters and
the deacons, and the faithful people gathered around their bishop.
This is the fullness of the catholic Church. This is the fullness of
the Orthodox Church as it was given to us from the holy Fathers, as it
was given to us by the Apostles. And, it is this that we must affirm.

That Church exists now, here, in our midst. It was planted by our
Fathers in the faith generations ago, on this continent. It has grown
and bears fruit. And, it subsists out of our common sacrificial
commitment to Jesus Christ. Let us give thanks to God for our unity,
let us give thanks to God for our diversity. Let us affirm to our
bishops that they will tell the bishops of the Old World,

"There is an American Orthodox Church. Leave it alone."

God Bless you.
(transcribed from Sermon, April 5, 2009)

Vatican responds to Belgium's facism...

From CNA:

Vatican City, Apr 3, 2009 / 01:42 pm (CNA).- In response to Belgium’s diplomatic protest against Pope Benedict’s comments that condoms could potentially "increase the problem" of AIDS being spread in Africa, Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See newsroom questioned whether the lawmakers had considered the Popes words and scientific research, or whether they received their information "through the non-objective, imbalanced filter of the echoes in the western media."

According to Reuters, the Belgium House of Deputies called the Pope’s comments "unacceptable" and instructed their government to "react strongly against any state or organization that in the future brings into doubt the benefit of using condoms to prevent transmission of the AIDS virus." [Satan, is that you?]

The measure approved with a strong majority, 95-18, and asks the government to "condemn the Pope’s unacceptable position statement and to lodge a formal protest at the Holy See." Premier Herman Van Rompuy said he will support the motion saying, "it is not the Pope’s job to shed doubts on public health policies which are unanimously supported and save lives ever day."

Father Lombardi, expressed "amazement" at the resolution, reported the Italian news service, SIR.

He questioned how a democratic country could limit the "freedom of the Holy Father and the Catholic Church to express their own positions" which are "clearly relevant to the view of the human person."

As Belgium reacted to the Pope’s comments, Lombardi pointed to "the great tradition" of the Catholic Church in "education and health-care, especially in the poorer countries" that needs no "evidence or comments."

Lombardi also questioned whether Belgium lawmakers had considered the "Pope’s arguments" and scientific research, or whether they received their information "through the non-objective, imbalanced filter of the echoes in the western media."

Freeman Dyson: global warming a sham (the evidence mounts)

The Civil Heretic

By NICHOLAS DAWIDOFF

FOR MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY the eminent physicist Freeman Dyson has quietly resided in Prince­ton, N.J., on the wooded former farmland that is home to his employer, the Institute for Advanced Study, this country’s most rarefied community of scholars. Lately, however, since coming “out of the closet as far as global warming is concerned,” as Dyson sometimes puts it, there has been noise all around him. Chat rooms, Web threads, editors’ letter boxes and Dyson’s own e-mail queue resonate with a thermal current of invective in which Dyson has discovered himself variously described as “a pompous twit,” “a blowhard,” “a cesspool of misinformation,” “an old coot riding into the sunset” and, perhaps inevitably, “a mad scientist.” Dyson had proposed that whatever inflammations the climate was experiencing might be a good thing because carbon dioxide helps plants of all kinds grow. Then he added the caveat that if CO2 levels soared too high, they could be soothed by the mass cultivation of specially bred “carbon-eating trees,” whereupon the University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner looked through the thick grove of honorary degrees Dyson has been awarded — there are 21 from universities like Georgetown, Princeton and Oxford — and suggested that “perhaps trees can also be designed so that they can give directions to lost hikers.” Dyson’s son, George, a technology historian, says his father’s views have cooled friendships, while many others have concluded that time has cost Dyson something else. There is the suspicion that, at age 85, a great scientist of the 20th century is no longer just far out, he is far gone — out of his beautiful mind.

But in the considered opinion of the neurologist Oliver Sacks, Dyson’s friend and fellow English expatriate, this is far from the case. “His mind is still so open and flexible,” Sacks says. Which makes Dyson something far more formidable than just the latest peevish right-wing climate-change denier. Dyson is a scientist whose intelligence is revered by other scientists — William Press, former deputy director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and now a professor of computer science at the University of Texas, calls him “infinitely smart.” Dyson — a mathematics prodigy who came to this country at 23 and right away contributed seminal work to physics by unifying quantum and electrodynamic theory — not only did path-breaking science of his own; he also witnessed the development of modern physics, thinking alongside most of the luminous figures of the age, including Einstein, Richard Feynman, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Edward Witten, the “high priest of string theory” whose office at the institute is just across the hall from Dyson’s. Yet instead of hewing to that fundamental field, Dyson chose to pursue broader and more unusual pursuits than most physicists — and has lived a more original life.

Among Dyson’s gifts is interpretive clarity, a penetrating ability to grasp the method and significance of what many kinds of scientists do. His thoughts about how science works appear in a series of lucid, elegant books for nonspecialists that have made him a trusted arbiter of ideas ranging far beyond physics. Dyson has written more than a dozen books, including “Origins of Life” (1999), which synthesizes recent discoveries by biologists and geologists into an evaluation of the double-origin hypothesis, the possibility that life began twice; “Disturbing the Universe” (1979) tries among other things to reconcile science and humanity. “Weapons and Hope” (1984) is his meditation on the meaning and danger of nuclear weapons that won a National Book Critics Circle Award. Dyson’s books display such masterly control of complex matters that smart young people read him and want to be scientists; older citizens finish his books and feel smart.

Yet even while probing and sifting, Dyson is always whimsically gazing into the beyond. As a boy he sketched plans for English rocket ships that could explore the stars, and then, in midlife, he helped design an American spacecraft to be powered by exploding atomic bombs — a secret Air Force project known as Orion. Dyson remains an armchair astronaut who speculates with glee about the coming of cheap space travel, when families can leave an overcrowded earth to homestead on asteroids and comets, swooping around the universe via solar sail craft. Dyson is convinced that our current “age of computers” will soon give way to “the age of domesticated biotechnology.” Bio-tech, he writes in his book, “Infinite in All Directions” (1988), “offers us the chance to imitate nature’s speed and flexibility,” and he imagines the furniture and art that people will “grow” for themselves, the pet dinosaurs they will “grow” for their children, along with an idiosyncratic menagerie of genetically engineered cousins of the carbon-eating tree: termites to consume derelict automobiles, a potato capable of flourishing on the dry red surfaces of Mars, a collision-avoiding car.

These ideas attract derision similar to Dyson’s essays on climate change, but he is an undeterred octogenarian futurist. “I don’t think of myself predicting things,” he says. “I’m expressing possibilities. Things that could happen. To a large extent it’s a question of how badly people want them to. The purpose of thinking about the future is not to predict it but to raise people’s hopes.” Formed in a heretical and broad-thinking tradition of British public intellectuals, Dyson left behind a brooding England still stricken by two bloody world wars to become an optimistic American immigrant with tremendous faith in the creative imagination’s ability to invent technologies that would overcome any predicament. And according to the physicist and former Caltech president Marvin Goldberger, Dyson is himself the living embodiment of that kind of ingenuity. “You point Freeman at a problem and he’ll solve it,” Goldberger says. “He’s extraordinarily powerful.” Dyson seems to see the world as an interdisciplinary set of problems out there for him to evaluate. Climate change is the big scientific issue of our time, so naturally he finds it irresistible. But to Dyson this is really only one more charged conundrum attracting his interest just as nuclear weapons and rural poverty have. That is to say, he is a great problem-solver who is not convinced that climate change is a great problem.

Dyson is well aware that “most consider me wrong about global warming.” That educated Americans tend to agree with the conclusion about global warming reached earlier this month at the International Scientific Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen (“inaction is inexcusable”) only increases Dyson’s resistance. Dyson may be an Obama-loving, Bush-loathing liberal who has spent his life opposing American wars and fighting for the protection of natural resources, but he brooks no ideology and has a withering aversion to scientific consensus. The Nobel physics laureate Steven Weinberg admires Dyson’s physics — he says he thinks the Nobel committee fleeced him by not awarding his work on quantum electrodynamics with the prize — but Weinberg parts ways with his sensibility: “I have the sense that when consensus is forming like ice hardening on a lake, Dyson will do his best to chip at the ice.”

Dyson says he doesn’t want his legacy to be defined by climate change, but his dissension from the orthodoxy of global warming is significant because of his stature and his devotion to the integrity of science. Dyson has said he believes that the truths of science are so profoundly concealed that the only thing we can really be sure of is that much of what we expect to happen won’t come to pass. In “Infinite in All Directions,” he writes that nature’s laws “make the universe as interesting as possible.” This also happens to be a fine description of Dyson’s own relationship to science. In the words of Avishai Margalit, a philosopher at the Institute for Advanced Study, “He’s a consistent reminder of another possibility.” When Dyson joins the public conversation about climate change by expressing concern about the “enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories,” these reservations come from a place of experience. Whatever else he is, Dyson is the good scientist; he asks the hard questions. He could also be a lonely prophet. Or, as he acknowledges, he could be dead wrong.

Read the whole story here.

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."

--------------------------------

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.

Harvard Researcher agrees with Pope on condoms in Africa

Cambridge, Mass., Mar 21, 2009 / 10:11 am (CNA).- Pope Benedict’s recent brief remark against condoms has caused an uproar in the press, but several prominent scientists dedicated to preventing AIDS are defending the Pope, saying he was correct in his analysis. In an interview with CNA, Dr. Edward Green explained that although condoms should work, in theory, they may be “exacerbating the problem” in Africa.

Benedict XVI’s Tuesday comments on condoms were made as part of his explanation of the Church’s two prong approach to fighting AIDS. At one point in his response the Pontiff stressed that AIDS cannot be overcome by advertising slogans and distributing condoms and argued that they “worsen the problem.” The media responded with an avalanche of over 4,000 articles on the subject, calling Benedict a “threat to public health,” and saying that the Catholic Church should “enter the 21st century.”

Senior Harvard Research Scientist for AIDS Prevention, Dr. Edward Green, who is the author of five books, including “Rethinking AIDS Prevention: Learning from Successes in Developing Countries” discussed his support for Pope Benedict XVI’s comments with CNA.

According to Dr. Green, science is finding that the media is actually on the wrong side of the issue. In fact, Green says that not only do condoms not work, but that they may be “exacerbating the problem” in Africa.

“Theoretically, condoms ought to work,” he explained to CNA, “and theoretically, some condom use ought to be better than no condom use, but that’s theoretically.”

Condom proponents often cite the lack of condom education as the main culprit for higher AIDS rates in Africa but Green disagrees.

After spending 25 years promoting condoms for family planning purposes in Africa, he insists that he’s quite familiar with condom promotion. Yet, he claims that “anyone who worked in family planning knew that if you needed to prevent a pregnancy, say the woman will die, you don’t recommend a condom.”

Green recalls that when the AIDS epidemic hit Africa, the “Industry” began using AIDS as a “dual purpose” marketing strategy to get more funding for condom distribution. This, he claims, effectively took “something that was a 2nd or 3rd grade device for avoiding unwanted pregnancies” and turned it into the “best weapon we [had] against AIDS.”

The accepted wisdom in the scientific community, explained Green, is that condoms lower the HIV infection rate, but after numerous studies, researchers have found the opposite to be true. “We just cannot find an association between more condom use and lower HIV reduction rates” in Africa.

Dr. Green found that part of the elusive reason is a phenomenon known as risk compensation or behavioral disinhibition.

“[Risk compensation] is the idea that if somebody is using a certain technology to reduce risk, a phenomenon actually occurs where people are willing to take on greater risk.” The idea can be related to someone that puts on sun block and is willing to stay out in the sun longer because they have added protection. In this case, however, the greater risk is sexual. Because people are willing take on more risk, they may “disproportionally erase” the benefits of condom use, Green said.

Another factor that contributes to ineffective condom use in Africa, is the phenomenon where condoms may be effective on an “individual level,” but not on a “population level.” Green’s research found that “condoms have been effective” in HIV concentrated areas where high risk activities are already being conducted, such as brothels in countries like Thailand.

Claiming to be a liberal himself, Green asserts that promoting Western “liberal ideology” where, “most Africans are conservative when it comes to sexual behavior,” is quite offensive to them. Citing his new book, “Indigenous Theories and Contagious Disease,” Green described Africans as “very religious by global standards” who are offended by “trucks going around where people are dancing to ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’, tossing out condoms to teenagers and the children of the village.”

Green also noted that there is an ideology called “harm reduction” that is being pushed by many organizations trying to prevent AIDS. The ideology believes that “you can’t change the underlying behavior, that you can’t get people to be faithful, especially Africans,” the HIV specialist explained.

Read the rest of the story here.

Cardinal: Criticisms of Pope Have Gone Too Far

Archbishop of Genoa Laments Recent Accusations

ROME, MARCH 24, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Attacks directed toward Benedict XVI have gone too far, and Catholics won't go along with it, says the president of Italy's episcopal conference.

Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the archbishop of Genoa, said this Monday at the inaugural session of the conference's permanent episcopal council, under way in Rome.

Referring to the recent controversies regarding the lifting of the excommunication of four bishops of the St. Pius X Society, and comments the Pontiff made about condoms on his trip to Africa, the cardinal said "the harshest criticisms to our beloved Pope -- from Italy and above all from abroad -- have gone beyond good sense."

Not wanting to dedicate too much time on the "clumsy accusations," Cardinal Bagnasco directed his comments toward the letter Benedict XVI sent earlier this month to the bishops of the world, in which he explained the reasons for lifting the excommunication of the four Lefebvrite prelates, who had been unlawfully ordained in 1988 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

The letter "immediately attracted wide consensus," the cardinal noted. He described it as an appeal to the whole Church for genuine reconciliation.

Nevertheless, the cardinal expressed a "severe judgment" regarding the "postures and words that led to a situation which should never have come about, fueling systematic alarmist interpretations and conduct that is mistrustful toward the hierarchy."

Distraction

Regarding Benedict XVI's trip to Cameroon and Angola last week, Cardinal Bagnasco noted that "from the beginning, [it] was diverted from Westerners' attention by a controversy -- on condoms -- which, frankly, was unwarranted."

"It is no accident that Africa's own media showed no interest in the subject, were it not for the damaging insistence of international agencies, and for the statements of some European political leaders and supranational organizations," affirmed the cardinal.

The archbishop of Genoa lamented that the media, governments and international institutions did not "limit themselves to dissent freely, but reached an ostracism that goes beyond secular canons themselves. In any case, derision and vulgarity will never be part of civilized language, and fatally fall on those who practice it."

Furthermore, the cardinal said the Holy Father's comments on the issue have been confirmed by those who work in the fields of health and education in Africa.

Africa needs to focus more on promoting greater access to education and medical care, as well as the "effective promotion of women," Cardinal Bagnasco continued.

He appealed to governments "to keep their commitments," to go beyond "demagogy and the neo-colonial logic of control."

The cardinal also noted that bishops and the faithful will not accept that the Pope is laughed at or insulted, as "the best tradition of our Catholicism is to be with the Pope always and unconditionally."

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.

Moscow Patriarchate Backs Pope's Stance on Condoms

From Zenit.
Says They Can't Be Considered Remedy Against AIDS

MOSCOW, MARCH 20, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The Russian Orthodox Church is supporting Benedict XVI's position that condoms are not an acceptable solution to AIDS.

A message on the French official Web site of the Church stated, "The Patriarchate of Moscow is in solidarity with Pope Benedict XVI's position on the means in the fight against AIDS, and on the fact that condoms cannot be considered as a remedy against this sickness."

This statement came as a response to the Pope's words to journalists on his flight to Africa, in which he affirmed: "This problem of AIDS cannot be overcome only with publicity slogans.

"If there is not the soul, if the Africans are not helped, the scourge cannot be resolved with the distribution of condoms: on the contrary, there is a risk of increasing the problem."

Today the deputy chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, said "It is incorrect to see condoms as a panacea for AIDS."

He noted that AIDS can be prevented not by contraceptives but by education and a righteous life, as the Orthodox Church also teaches.

"The spread of AIDS will only be halted with the ethical education of the affected peoples, and not with recourse to condoms," states the Church's communiqué.

The Russian agency Interfax reported Friday that Father Tchapline took part in a round table in Moscow on the subject. He pointed out that at present certain organizations attempt to simultaneously emphasize the idea of sexual freedom and the fight against AIDS, but that it is impossible to reconcile both of these.

Obama & the Stem Cell 'Sham'

Morally Unserious in the Extreme
By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- Last week, the White House invited me to a signing ceremony overturning the Bush (43) executive order on stem cell research. I assume this was because I have long argued in these columns and during my five years on the President's Council on Bioethics that, contrary to the Bush policy, federal funding should be extended to research on embryonic stem cell lines derived from discarded embryos in fertility clinics.
I declined to attend. Once you show your face at these things you become a tacit endorser of whatever they spring. My caution was vindicated.
Bush had restricted federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to cells derived from embryos that had already been destroyed (as of his speech of Aug. 9, 2001). While I favor moving that moral line to additionally permit the use of spare fertility clinic embryos, Obama replaced it with no line at all. He pointedly left open the creation of cloned -- and noncloned sperm-and-egg-derived -- human embryos solely for the purpose of dismemberment and use for parts.

read the rest...

======================

Stem Cell Sham
The president as sophist.
by P.J. O'Rourke
03/23/2009, Volume 014, Issue 26

When a Democratic president goes from being wrong to being damn wrong is always an interesting moment: Bay of Pigs, Great Society, Jimmy Carter waking up on the morning after his inauguration, HillaryCare. Barack Obama condemned himself (and a number of human embryos to be determined at a later date) on March 9 when he signed an executive order reversing the Bush administration's restrictions on federal funding of stem cell research.
President Obama went to hell not with the stroke of a pen, but with the cluck of a tongue. His executive order was an error. His statement at the executive order signing ceremony was a mortal error: "In recent years, when it comes to stem cell research, rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values."
A false choice is no choice at all--Tweedledee/Tweedledum, Chevy Suburban/GMC Yukon XL, Joe Biden/Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Is there really no difference "between sound science and moral values"? Webster's Third New International Dictionary states that science is, definition one, "possession of knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding."
Let's look at the various things science has "known" in the past 3,000 years.
Lightning is the sneeze of Thor.
The periodic table consists of Earth, Wind, and Fire and a recording of "Got To Get You into My Life."
The world is flat with signs saying "Here Be Democrats" near the edges.
You can turn lead into gold without first selling your Citibank stock at a huge loss.
We're the center of the universe and the Sun revolves around us (and shines out of Uranus, Mr. President, if I may be allowed a moment of utter sophomoricism).

Read the rest...

Cramer takes on White House, John Stewart, and Frank Rich

Suddenly, bloggers, opinion people, columnists and, yes, pundits who haven't paid attention to anything I have been saying or writing for the past 18 months are all over me. Suddenly, I find myself in the center of a firestorm over Obama's economic policies, taking enfilading fire from the "liberal" media (from serious columnist Frank Rich to entertainer Jon Stewart) while being defended by Rush Limbaugh, the standard-bearer for the Republicans.

I'm uncomfortable being in the crosshairs of columnists and comedians I enjoy, and I find the embrace of Rush Limbaugh most certainly strange if not antithetical to many of my viewpoints.

Interesting, read the rest.

The President Politicizes Stem Cell Research

By ROBERT P. GEORGE and ERIC COHEN

Yesterday President Barack Obama issued an executive order that authorizes expanded federal funding for research using stem cells produced by destroying human embryos. The announcement was classic Obama: advancing radical policies while seeming calm and moderate, and preaching the gospel of civility while accusing those who disagree with the policies of being "divisive" and even "politicizing science."

Mr. Obama's executive order overturned an attempt by President George W. Bush in 2001 to do justice to both the promise of stem-cell science and the demands of ethics. The Bush policy was to allow the government to fund research on existing embryonic stem-cell lines, where the embryos in question had already been destroyed. But it would not fund, or in any way incentivize, the ongoing destruction of human embryos.

For years, this policy was attacked by advocates of embryo-destructive research. Mr. Bush and the "religious right" were depicted as antiscience villains and embryonic stem-cell scientists and their allies were seen as the beleaguered saviors of the sick. In reality, Mr. Bush's policy was one of moderation. It did not ban new embryo-destructive research (the president had no power to do that), and it did not fund new embryo-destructive research.

"Moderate" Mr. Obama's policy is not. It will promote a whole new industry of embryo creation and destruction, including the creation of human embryos by cloning for research in which they are destroyed. It forces American taxpayers, including those who see the deliberate taking of human life in the embryonic stage as profoundly unjust, to be complicit in this practice.

Mr. Obama made a big point in his speech of claiming to bring integrity back to science policy, and his desire to remove the previous administration's ideological agenda from scientific decision-making. This claim of taking science out of politics is false and misguided on two counts.

Here's the rest.

Obama quietly moves to de-regulate abortion...

In sum:

hite House quietly announced on Friday that President Barack Obama is starting the process of overturning protections President Bush put in place to make sure medical staff and centers are not forced to do abortions. The move is the latest that will add to Obama's growing pro-abortion record.

Existing federal laws already make it so doctors and hospitals are not required to perform abortions. Because those laws aren't always followed, the Bush administration added additional protections.

Now, the Obama administration is Starting the process to remove them.

See this story...

and this story...

and this story about the Mexico City debacle.

Former Senator Rick Santorum gets it...

From a recent op-ed piece in a Philadelphia paper:

...Sadly, the church hierarchy has been less assertive when public figures' policy positions openly dissent from core teachings.

That's why Scranton Bishop Joseph Martino got so much national attention last fall. Martino, formerly the auxiliary bishop of Philadelphia, made the welcome decision to publicly bar then Sen. Joe Biden and other abortion advocates from receiving Communion in the Scranton Diocese. Then, after the November election, he admonished his brother bishops for their reluctance to deal with the issue faithfully.

Last month, Martino took on the most influential family in his diocese, the Caseys. He excoriated Sen. Bob Casey, who claims to be pro-life, for voting to give taxpayer dollars to overseas organizations that perform abortions. He warned that Casey was "formally cooperating with evil."

Martino was not done. Two weeks ago, the Philadelphia native and St. Joseph's Prep graduate issued a strong statement of disapproval to a local, nominally Catholic college, Misericordia University, that had scheduled a speech on campus by someone advocating same-sex marriage. "The faithful of the Diocese of Scranton should be in no doubt," Martino said, "that Misericordia University in this instance is seriously failing in maintaining its Catholic identity."

Then, last week, Martino took on some more of the biggest guns in the diocese: the Irish clubs that organize the largest public Catholic event of the year, the St. Patrick's Day festivities. Through a letter from his Irish auxiliary bishop, Martino warned that if any of these groups went ahead with plans that in any way honor politicians who are not pro-life, he would close the cathedral where Mass is usually held prior to the parade, as well as other diocesan churches. He said he would not countenance anything that created confusion about the teachings of the church.

The reason for the letter: Scranton's St. Patrick's Day parade last year featured Hillary Clinton.

Many of his brother bishops will look at Martino as they do at other uncompromising defenders of the faith, worrying about the world's reaction. As a Philly guy, though, his excellency knows something about being booed. He also knows his job and calling: to be the good shepherd who faithfully leads and protects his flock from those who would lead them astray.

Yes, scores of people are reportedly protesting and threatening to leave the church. In the end, however, people leaving the church because of a bishop who enforces its teachings are a blessing compared with the alternative: people leaving because bishops and their priests don't teach, much less enforce, those teachings.

Amen, brother!

The media and the left - drumming up hatred in the name of 'tolerance'