Remember last week when dialogue was the whole point of having Barack Obama come to be honored at Notre Dame, according to the President of Notre Dame Fr. Jenkins.

So after the whole brouhaha started over Fr. Jenkins’ invitation to Obama, he agreed to meet with upset students to dialogue with them. But when Mary Daly, of ND Response, requested that the meeting not just be with a small group but in a public forum, Fr. Jenkins then wondered if maybe dialogue wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be and cancelled on his promise to meet with students.

According to an April 14 statement from ND Response, Fr. Jenkins replied that “conditions for constructive dialogue simply do not exist” and informed the students that they could disregard his earlier invitations to meet with him.

But wasn’t it Fr. Jenkins who defended inviting Obama by saying, “We are not ignoring the critical issue of the protection of life. On the contrary, we invited him (Obama) because we care so much about those issues, and we hope for this to be the basis of an engagement with him,” Jenkins said. “You cannot change the world if you shun the people you want to persuade; and if you cannot persuade them, show respect for them and listen to them.”

Well? Well? So Fr. Jenkins wants to change the world by “engaging” the world, but he doesn’t see the need to “engage” with his own students?

ND Response spokeswoman Mary Daly said the coalition “remains open to true and transparent dialogue with Fr. Jenkins on this issue.”

You can visit ND Response here.