UPDATED: Petition against Notre Dame's invitation to Obama to be their commencement speaker and to receive an honorary doctorate

The campaign to stop Obama speaking at Notre Dame commencement is gathering pace. Tonight over 45,000 people have signed the petition asking ND to disinvite this most pro abortion President from speaking and receiving an honorary degree.

We invite you to sign the petition here. I would also ask you, if you are a blogger, to link to this site and encourage your readers to sign. At this site you will also be given email and postal addresses for your involvement.

If you are a non-Catholic reading this blog, network this through to our separated brothers and sisters who share with us the horror at the crime of abortion in our land. Please ask them to sign the petition and voice their own views.

Wording via Fr. Dwight Longenecker. Scandal against Church teachings by celebrating someone so inimical to life ... provided by Notre Dame, to their shame.

UPDATE
Seen all over the place: Bishop D'Arcy will not attend Notre Dame commencement ceremony.

On Friday, March 21, Father John Jenkins, CSC, phoned to inform me that President Obama had accepted his invitation to speak to the graduating class at Notre Dame and receive an honorary degree. We spoke shortly before the announcement was made public at the White House press briefing. It was the first time that I had been informed that Notre Dame had issued this invitation.

President Obama 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.

This will be the 25th Notre Dame graduation during my time as bishop. After much prayer, I have decided not to attend the graduation. I wish no disrespect to our president, I pray for him and wish him well. I have always revered the Office of the Presidency. 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.

I have in mind also the statement of the U.S. Catholic Bishops in 2004. “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. ...

Read it all here.

2nd Update
Get Religion has an excellent piece about the media's portrayal of those opposing Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama as "strict Catholics." Read it all.

So the “strict” Catholics oppose the invitation to President Obama, as opposed to what other kinds of Catholics? There is an answer to that question that reporters should include in their articles. It would be interesting to see the definition attached to those Catholics. See here for Tmatt’s summary of the four types of Catholics of which reporters should be aware:

• *Ex-Catholics. Solid for the Democrats. GOP has no chance.
  
  
• Cultural Catholics who may go to church a few times a year. This may be an undecided voter -- check out that classic Atlantic Monthly tribes of American religion piece — depending on what is happening with the economy, foreign policy, etc. Leans to Democrats.
  
  
• Sunday-morning American Catholics. This voter is a regular in the pew and may even play some leadership role in the parish. This is the Catholic voter that is really up for grabs, the true swing voter that the candidates are after.
  
  
• The “sweats the details” Roman Catholic who goes to confession. Is active in the full sacramental life of the parish and almost always backs the Vatican, when it comes to matters of faith and practice. This is where the GOP has made its big gains in recent decades, but it is a very small slice of the American Catholic pie.

3rd Update
Notre Dame student groups protesting the President's speech. Contrary to popular media belief, there actually are Catholic students at Notre Dame who know and practice their faith. I know some of them.

4th Update

• Bishop of Phoenix accuses Notre Dame president of disobeying U.S. Bishops
• Bishop of Austin says, "... in this case the University of Notre Dame does not live up to its Catholic identity in giving this award..."