Take a Stand for Life

Video is from Notre Dame Response

ND Response has received official permission to host a prayerful and constructive demonstration on the campus of the University of Notre Dame on the weekend of Commencement. As students of this University, we invite all those interested in respectfully and constructively standing alongside us as we give witness to Notre Dame’s Catholic identity and affirm the sanctity of life. ...

Visit their page, linked above, for more details.

In a gathering I was at this weekend, someone tossed off the remark that they guessed people were protesting Obama going to Notre Dame because they wished he hadn't won the election.

No, no, no.

It's about President Obama's whole hearted support for abortion. The Catholic Church is agin it. So we shouldn't be honoring him with a special award. It's that simple.

In her letter explaining the decision to decline Notre Dame's Laetare Medal award this year, Mary Ann Glendon said:

... I could not help but be dismayed by the news that Notre Dame also planned to award the president an honorary degree. This, as you must know, was in disregard of the U.S. bishops’ express request of 2004 that Catholic institutions “should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles” and that such persons “should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.” That request, which in no way seeks to control or interfere with an institution’s freedom to invite and engage in serious debate with whomever it wishes, seems to me so reasonable that I am at a loss to understand why a Catholic university should disrespect it.

Joseph Bottum comments further at The Weekly Standard (via The Paragraph Farmer).

Any Catholic with an ounce of awareness knew this fight was coming. The ordinary Catholic Church and the Catholic colleges were bound to clash, and it's a little unfortunate that it actually spilled into public view with a visit of the president of the United States to the campus of Notre Dame. A better place to make all this public might have been the Sacred Heart University dinner this spring, which honored the pro-abortion activist Kerry Kennedy. Or the Xavier University commencement, which is honoring the pro-abortion political strategist Donna Brazile. Or the University of San Francisco graduation, which is honoring the pro-abortion district attorney (and prominent Proposition 8 opponent) Kamala Harris.

For that matter, the fight should have been held in April, when Georgetown University accommodated President Obama's handlers by covering up the IHS, the monogram for Jesus, on the wall behind the rostrum when Obama spoke on campus. You'd think this really would mark the end for Georgetown. The school typically shrugs off criticism of its lack of Catholicism by proudly declaring its "Jesuit Tradition," but the IHS monogram was the symbol for the Jesuits that St. Ignatius Loyola himself chose when he founded the society in the 16th century.

Seriously, this has been a long time coming. The bishops, who have finally spoken up in large numbers protesting the ND award to Obama, can look themselves in the mirror for who to blame about this. Except for a notable few, most have looked the other way for a long time when our faith has been treated with such a lack of respect, very often by prominent Catholics themselves. It is bound to make a big stir when the dam finally breaks. It's about time.