OK everyone, call off the dogs. We were getting ourselves all worked up about this Notre Dame/Obama scandal. But I think we should all feel a little foolish now.
It turns out that Notre Dame is perfectly right to honor Obama. Just ask Fr. Thomas Reese of The On Faith blog.
Fr. Thomas Reese offered five reasons why Notre Dame was right to invite and honor Barack Obama. Let’s go over them, shall we?
1. “In his personal life, Obama has never acted in defiance of the fundamental moral principle that abortion is wrong.”
Perfectly true. Except if you count his voting for abortion every chance he gets including voting against legislation to restrict partial birth abortions, battling Jill Stanek for the right to murder infants born alive during an abortion, funding overseas abortions, voting against prohibiting minors crossing state lines for abortion, and declaring it open season on embryos by funding embryonic stem cell research. But other than that, he’s been great.
2.”Publicly, Obama has never spoken out against the fundamental moral principle that abortion is wrong.”
Obama is the guy who said, “I don’t want them punished with a baby” or did Fr. Reese never hear that one. You see, in that statement Obama is clearly making abortion a good that stands above the inconvenience of a crisis pregnancy. In his construction, it it at least a lesser evil if not a good.
3. “He supports legal restrictions on third trimester abortions with a health-of-the-mother exemption.”
What part of the “Freedom of Choice Act” does Fr. Reese not understand?
4. “Although he does not believe that other abortions can be made illegal, he supports programs to reduce the number of abortions.”
No. He supports handing out condoms like breath mints and thinks that saying they will reduce abortions makes it an easy sell. Although nobody has ever found that more condoms leads to less abortion. Nobody.
5. “Notre Dame is not honoring Obama because of his views on abortion but because he is President of the United States, as has been made clear by the Rev. John Jenkins, Notre Dame’s president.”
Fr. Jenkin’s intentions of honoring President Obama are unclear. I don’t think many people believe he’s honoring him because of Obama’s stance on abortion. But what many Catholics are concerned with is that Fr. Jenkins is ignoring Obama’s radical history of supporting abortion.
Much like Fr. Reese.
March 25, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Catholicmanhood: I was waiting for the comparison to Hitler. Though it may sound extreme, abortion has caused more deaths than the Holocaust. Yet somehow, such a comparison to Hitler is seen as egregious, and would probably decried by liberals and (sadly) conservatives as well.
March 25, 2009 at 4:43 pm
~cmpt argumentum ad hominem
Stick to the issue of criminal priests. If any of them touch my children, I’ll volunteer to administer the lethal injection or flip the switch to fry them.
March 25, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Christopher Michael: If it happened to your kids or siblings, would you kiss the hand of the reverend father and revere him as you would the Lord?
WWJD? He would probably call them some really nasty names as he did the Pharisees.
March 25, 2009 at 5:20 pm
I don’t think it’s insulting to Fr. Reese to say that his thinking on this subject is plain sophistry. I merely take him at his word. So long as he teaches error in this manner he is a wolf in shepherd’s clothing. He does still bring Jesus in the Eucharist, and of course none of us is a worthy recipient of our Lord, but most of the rest of us aren’t priests defending grave scandal.
March 25, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Not hundreds, thousands!
Database of Publicly Accused
Priests in the United States
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/
Description:
According to the John Jay report commissioned by the U.S. bishops,
allegations of sexual abuse were made in 1950-2002 against 4,392 priests.
The number is generally believed to underestimate the problem. A few bishops
have released the names of accused priests, but no official list exists of U.S.
priests who have abused children and vulnerable adults. Below we present the
most complete list currently available, culled from media reports and legal
documents – with many photos, assignment records, and source articles.
March 25, 2009 at 6:10 pm
The resident heretic defends the extreme pro-abortion president and the heretical college. A surprise?
March 25, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Yup. Vatican 2. ‘nuf said.
March 26, 2009 at 4:05 am
It’s always illuminating to do the Alan Keyes “slavery substitution test” on things like this (see here for Keyes’s take on the Obama/ND thing: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2214065/posts)
Imagine if ND back in, say, the 1850s, had invited a pro-slavery politician, like Stephen Douglas for example. Douglas was the original “I’m-personally-opposed-but” type; he argued for the continuation of slaveholding rights despite his avowed “personal opposition” to the practice. He was an avid defender of the Dred Scott decision which ruled that African Americans could not legally be considered “persons.” He also argued that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution had never meant to include blacks, hence slavery could be legally permitted. His voting record and public speeches consistently defended the right of Southern slaveholders to hold slaves.
So let’s see what that might have looked like, had ND invited him to be honored back then, and some Jesuit back then tried to defend the decision:
1. “In his personal life, Douglas has never acted in defiance of the fundamental moral principle that slavery is wrong.”
2. “Publicly, Douglas has never spoken out against the fundamental moral principle that slavery is wrong.”
3. “He supports legal restrictions on some forms of slavery with a health-of-the-slaveholder’s-assets exemption.”
4. “Although he does not believe that slavery can be made illegal, he supports programs to stop the spread of slavery to the new territories.”
5. “Notre Dame is not honoring Douglas because of his view on slavery but because he is a Senator of the United States.”
Somehow I don’t think the judgment of posterity would be very kind on that author or on ND for their sophistry in defense of the indefensible.
And neither, I predict, will history look kindly on ND’s fateful decision here nor upon its Jesuitical enablers.