The League and the coalition of partners continue to fight HB 2354. It still hasn’t come up for a vote-but an email intercepted from the pro-aborts says they expect a vote on it on April 3. So keep up the pressure. Visit StopIllinoisFOCA.com for details on the bill and information on contacting your representative.
Jenkins Defends Inviting Obama
I’m sure you’ve heard of the other issue that has become quite the scandal-and has also begun to dominate the attention of the League. America’s most pro-abortion president ever has accepted an invitation to give the commencement address at Notre Dame on Sunday, May 17.
Joe Scheidler, a Notre Dame alumnus, was incensed and has promised that the League will bring every graphic sign we own to protest this assault on our Catholic colleges.
Feel free to add your name to the 80,000 signers on a petition hosted by the Cardinal Newman Society. Or call the President’s secretary at 574-631-3903 (though the mailbox has been full every time I’ve tried), fax him at 574-631-2770, or email him at president@nd.edu.
Keep your calendars clear on May 17th, though, since it doesn’t seem like Fr. Jenkins is going to be changing his mind. Here’s what the Notre Dame school paper wrote about the decision:
Jenkins made clear the University is not honoring the president for his stances on these [life] issues, but for his leadership. “The invitation of President Obama to be our Commencement speaker should in no way be taken as condoning or endorsing his positions on specific issues regarding the protection of life, such as abortion and embryonic stem cell research,” Jenkins said.
These “crucial differences” in positions on the protection of life are not being ignored in extending the invitation to the president, Jenkins said, but rather can be used as a catalyst for dialogue. “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.”
Right. Because if Obama did decide to have a discussion about these issues, a commencement speech would be the proper forum for that discussion…
Thank You Bishop D’Arcy
We applaud Bishop D’Arcy of the diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend for refusing to attend the graduation. Of Obama’s invitation to speak and his receiving of an honorary law degree he says:
…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.
And here’s the office’s favorite quote, this comes from Fr. George Rutler in the National Review Online’s article “A Moral Exemplar” :
If a midwestern school seeks attention by granting Mr. Obama an honorary doctorate in law, the next logical step would be to grant Judas Iscariot posthumously an honorary doctorate in business administration.”
