It’s that time of year and the Cardinal Newman Society has put out it’s annual listing of the Catholic college pro-abortion commencement speakers and honorees list. There are 223 Catholic colleges in the U. S., and about half of them announced their commencement speakers.
Pro-Abort Commencement Speakers at Catholic Colleges
At least twenty catholic colleges and universities sent their students out with a pro-abort’s message ringing in their ears, including:
- Boston College School of Law had Walter Dellinger of NARAL Pro-Choice America;
- The College of St. Rose in Albany, NY honored abortion rights advocate Libby Pataki;
- The College of Santa Fe, NM heard pro-abort Hugh Downs;
- Dominican University of California got Sen. Barbara Boxer with her 100 % pro-abortion voting record;
- Emmanuel College in Boston got Mary Beth Cahill of the John Kerry for President campaign;
- An all time low was Iona College of New Rochelle, NY who honored militant pro-abort Sen. Charles Schumer of New York;
- Loyola University of New Orleans had Louisiana’s pro-abortion Catholic Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu;
- Ohio Dominican in Columbus OH had Helen Thomas, a staunch defender of Roe. vs. Wade;
- Regis College in Weston MA. will give a degree on Monday to Dr. David Satcher, the former U. S. Surgeon General who opposed a ban on partial birth abortion.
And the list goes on. St. Joseph’s College in Rennselaer, IN, where we once interrupted the commencement address of Sen. Birch Bayh, didn’t learn its lesson and had Monika Hellwig who opposes Ex Corde Ecclesiae and defends inviting pro-aborts to speak on Catholic College campuses. Their commencement already took place or we’d run down and interrupt her talk.
To these folks abortion isn’t important enough to be a disqualifying issue, despite what the Catholic Church teaches. It probably won’t matter to them until the students’ parents, the teachers and the students themselves rise up finally and say, “Enough!”
Bishops with Backbones
And it might begin to matter when Bishops start being true Shepherds, like Ft. Wayne’s Bishop John D’Arcy. D’Arcy insisted that University of St. Francis in Ft. Wayne, IN drop Nancy Snyderman who supports selective abortion, and also got a Catholic high school in South Bend to cancel a speech by pro-abortion Indiana Gov. Joe Kernan.
Speaking of Bishops, Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs has announced that the ban on Communion must extend to all Catholics who vote for pro-abortion candidates. Sheridan wrote in the Catholic weekly, “Anyone who professes the Catholic Faith with his lips, while at the same time publicly supporting legislation or candidates that defy God’s law, makes a mockery of that faith and belies his identity as a Catholic.”
Sheridan’s statement in the May 5 diocesan newspaper said it applies to all Catholics in his diocese. Meanwhile, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington said he won’t use the Eucharist as a sanction, and Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles said he would welcome Sen. John Kerry to receive Communion if he came to Los Angeles.
But Sheridan said that the November elections are critical and that, “we cannot allow the progress that has been made to be reversed by a pro-abortion president, Senate or House of Representatives.” Sheridan said opposition to abortion “trumps all other issues,” and that Catholics who vote against church teaching “jeopardize their salvation,” and will be denied Communion “until they have recanted their positions and been reconciled with God and the Church in the Sacrament of Penance.”
We need more bishops like John D’Arcy and Michael Sheridan
