Concerning President Barack Obama speaking at Notre Dame graduation, receiving honorary law degree
Bishop McCormack supports Bishop D’Arcy on the University of Notre Dame’s
decision to honor President Obama.
Bishop McCormack has expressed his support for Bishop John M. D’Arcy in
connection with his position on the decision by the University of Notre Dame
to honor President Barack Obama.
By Bishop John M. D’Arcy
Bishop of Ft. Wayne-South Bend, IN
March 29, 2009
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.
I have spoken with Professor Mary Ann Glendon, who is to receive the Laetare
Medal. I have known her for many years and hold her in high esteem. We are
both teachers, but in different ways. I have encouraged her to accept this
award and take the opportunity such an award gives her to teach.
Even as I continue to ponder in prayer these events, which many have found
shocking, so must Notre Dame. Indeed, as a Catholic university, Notre Dame
must ask itself, if by this decision it has chosen prestige over truth.
Tomorrow, we celebrate as Catholics the moment when our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ, became a child in the womb of his most holy mother. Let us ask
Our Lady to intercede for the university named in her honor, that it may
recommit itself to the primacy of truth over prestige.
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