Some of us are probably wondering if it matters that President Obama is scheduled to deliver the commencement address at Notre Dame on May 17th in spite of the USCCB's admonition against the Church giving a platform or honors to pro-abortion leaders.
Notre Dame is standing by its decision, with university president, Rev. John Jenkins, stating, "The invitation to President Obama to be our Commencement speaker should not be taken as condoning or endorsing his positions on specific issues regarding the protection of human life, including abortion and embryonic stem cell research." Father Jenkins went on to tell the campus newspaper, "We are not ignoring the critical issue of the protection of life. On the contrary, we invited him, because we care so much about those issues, and we hope … for this to be the basis of an engagement with him."
Sad to say, Father Jenkins' words remind me of 1984 (Orwellian connotation noted).
That was the year New York Governor Mario Cuomo, speaking before a relatively small audience at Notre Dame (including then-president Father Hesburgh), gave us "Religious Belief and Public Morality," a speech that would serve as a political encyclical for Pelosi and Biden and Sebelius long before anyone ever thought of invoking St. Augustine. Cuomo's "I-disagree-with-abortion-as-a-Catholic-but-have-no-right-to-inflict-my-personal-belief-on-others" approach charted a course for a generation of Catholic politicians eager to reconcile their Catholicism on the one hand and their anti-life stance on the other.
In effect, Governor Cuomo gave Catholic politicians a way out, a way to abandon church teaching (and millions of unborn babies) without actually leaving the Church. And he gave it to them at The University of Notre Dame.
So, yes, I would say that it matters. It matters very much.
