Some Thoughts About Yesterday's Shameful Turn Of Events At Notre Dame

- Norma McCorvey was arrested yesterday during a peaceful on campus protest. Once again, Notre Dame's administration proves where its true loyalties lay by lionizing a champion of Roe v. Wade while sweeping Roe - who outlived her usefulness the moment she committed the unspeakable crime of becoming a pro-life Catholic - under the carpet.

- Fr. Jenkins' gushing introduction of Obama was deplorable. I wonder if he has ever spoken in such awestruck terms about Jesus Christ Himself.

- Fr. Jenkins has repeatedly and dishonestly tried to frame this whole debacle as a "dialogue," even though he has arranged for Obama to address a captive audience with no chance for a Q&A afterward and has been called on his duplicity repeatedly, by Bishop D'Arcy and many others.

- The "reaching out to those who disagree" argument might also have held more water if he hadn't sanctioned the arrest - along with McCorvey - of a Catholic priest praying for Our Lady's intercession on behalf of the cause of life on Notre Dame's campus in protest of Fr. Jenkins' decision to honor Obama. So much for tolerating opposing points of view....

- Obama said on abortion, "Let's draft a sensible conscience clause." You mean like this one?

- Obama said, "Be unafraid to speak your mind." Just a reminder of how the Obama administration views ideological opponents (be sure to check the link within the link).

- Obama praises the 1967 Land O' Lakes Statement, which - as has been previously mentioned on this blog - was a major staging point for the secularization of many Catholic colleges and universities and the popularization of the misrepresentation of the Catholic faith in the university classroom. Truly a man with a heart for the Church.

- Obama shamelessly uses the moral equivalency approach in dealing with abortion and stem cell research. He says the decision over whether or not to have an abortion is somehow on a par morally with the action itself. One is the decision over whether or not to take a human life. The other is the actual taking of the human life. But that little distinction is of little concern to The Great Equivocator. And on stem cell research, he tries to pass off the desire to kill human embryos for the sake of unproven research that has yet to have any proven life-saving results as just as principled as opposition to killing said embryos. What is obvious is that Obama doesn't recognize the humanity of the conceived, unborn child, and cares little for the fact that others do. He is essentially saying, "Come on, so much good can come out of killing innocent life. The sooner you right wing extremists recognize the wisdom of my stance, the sooner we can find common ground on this issue and move on to more important (read: less politically radioactive) issues."

- From the start of Fr. Jenkins' introduction to the end of Obama's speech, the core message was the greatness of Barack Obama. Leave it to The One to take an event that is supposed to be about God and the graduating seniors and make it about himself. But given his track record, who really expected any less?


The event proved to be every bit as shamefully self-indulgent as many of us expected it would be. Obama got what he wanted all along: an honorary degree from an allegedly Catholic institution. Expect him to use it early and often to blunt any and all criticism of his anti-Catholic stances.

All that's left now is to see what becomes of Fr. Jenkins. I don't expect any action from the head of the Holy Cross Fathers or the Notre Dame Board of Trustees. For years, they have refused to perform their respective moral obligations with respect to safeguarding Notre Dame's Catholic identity, and there is no reason to expect them to do the right thing now. It falls to Bishop John D'Arcy to put an end to this mess by revoking Notre Dame's Catholic charter until the university can prove that it is once again committed to living out its calling as a Catholic university, with the necessary first step - and I must emphasize that this is only one step in what is bound to be a long and painful process - being the ouster of Fr. Jenkins. If Bishop D'Arcy will not perform his episcopal duty, then I pray that the Vatican will step in and take appropriate action.

Our Lady weeps at the apostasy of a school that was named in her honor. I can only pray that the school will soon return a blessed smile to her beautiful face. God bless!


In Jesus and Mary,
Gerald