It's strongly critical of Jenkins' motives.
Father John Jenkins likely thought himself very clever. Professor Mary Ann Glendon just took him to school.In declining to receive the Laetare Medal alongside President Barack Obama's honorary doctorate of laws at next month's commencement, Glendon has refused to participate in the shabby manipulation Father Jenkins attempted to engineer. It is a rare personage who could ennoble an award by refusing to receive it, but Professor Glendon has done just that. The Laetare Medal will now be known best for the year in which it was declined. Glendon chose, to use the apt words of Bishop John D'Arcy in this regard, truth over prestige.
The significance of Glendon's refusal is enormous. The most accomplished Catholic laywoman in America -- former ambassador of the United States to the Holy See and current president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences -- has refused to accept Notre Dame's highest honor. It is a signal moment for the Catholic Church in the United States. It is a signal moment for the Church's public witness. It is may even be a signal moment for Notre Dame. What Glendon will not say at Notre Dame will finally be a fitting response to what Gov. Mario Cuomo said there some 25 years ago.
It has been 25 years of deliberate confusion, ambiguity and equivocation at Notre Dame in regard to her presidents -- Fathers Hesburgh, Molloy and Jenkins -- and abortion politics. What New York Gov. Mario Cuomo did in 1984 was with the willing connivance of Father Theodore Hesburgh. Father Jenkins thought he could outdo the master himself, but he has been taught that this is no longer Father Ted's Notre Dame. Notre Dame is no longer untouchable by the American bishops and the lay faithful.
Father Jenkins must be puzzled at how it has all gone so wrong. He was doing what Notre Dame has done for a long time, namely, to bring the prestige of Notre Dame to bear on the pro-choice side of American politics. Notre Dame has that prestige not only because of its money or its football fame, but because it is a genuine Catholic university. Visitors to campus know that it is a Catholic university. Her Catholic identity is not merely historical. It is precisely the Catholicity of Notre Dame which makes its recent history on abortion politics so scandalous. It is that scandalous history that Professor Glendon's refusal may help to correct.
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On April 23, 2009, Obama said:
“It is the grimmest of ironies that one of the most savage, barbaric acts of evil in history began in one of the most modernized societies of its time, where so many markers of human progress became tools of human depravity: science that can heal, used to kill; education that can enlighten, used to rationalize away basic moral impulses; the bureaucracy that sustains modern life, used as the machinery of mass death, a ruthless, chillingly efficient system where many were responsible for the killing, but few got actual blood on their hands.”
Obviously, Obama is just saying those words for their political effect. He does'nt mean what he says or say what he really means or mean it to mean what it says, or that his statement is derived from an over-arching principle or that there is an unchangeable immutable law that might pertain to whatever he is talking about (probably how bad we have been to terrorists and to defend and free the people of Iraq from SH) all other issues, like abortion.
Oops...I had to repost due to the time limit and forgot to retype my name.
Another university has joined the rebellion (perhaps to take the heat of Jenkins and ND):
“New Orleans Archbishop to Boycott Xavier U. Commencement Honoring Pro-Abort Catholic.”
Storm clouds gathering.
There it is. A new record. Criticize Mr. Obama and an instant critical response of the previous president is the result. Nice to see that the best argument for the Obama is that he is not George Bush. It would be terrible if we looked to close at his record and the absolute support for the culture of death that he has shown, going so far as to make infanticide legal.
The President called having a baby a punishment. Parse that how you will, the very notion that a baby, an innocent human life, is a punishment shows a moral compass so at odds with natural law as to be irreconcilable with Catholic moral teaching.
I certainly do believe that Obama doesn't mean what he says. Why? Because I look at what he has done, not what he says. I look at the associations he has kept during his life, that is the people he has used and supported and who has supported him.
Being an old Chicago hand I know a slick, corrupt Chicago machine politician when I see one. Our president is one such.
My shock is that people are surprised by his actions. When a candidate says one thing to one group and another to another group it is difficult to determine what is in his heart and mind. When his actions show what he really believes and it is pointed out how those actions support his politics and morals, and this information is widely pointed out, how can anyone be surprised? American elected the most left-wing, radical, pro-culture of death candidate which has ever run in a presidential election. How could anyone expect not to get what is advertised on the tin?
Yup...it takes great moral courage to keep cashing her Learned Hand check from Harvard while turning down a free appearance at Notre Dame.
de Souza has stated an opinion and at the same time judged Fr. Jenkins. In so doing, he has negated the value of his opinion since it is shaped around his judgmental view. Who knows what motivated Fr. Jenkins? To say he leans in favor of pro-choice individuals is terribly wrong.
If Glendon felt so strongly about the pro-life issue, then she should have never gone to work in a State Department run by an ardent pro-choicer, Rice!
I trust Glendon's motives are pure and as she states them, but then it is possible she does not want to share the stage with a Democrat.
I wonder if Mother Theresa would have turned down the invitation?? I doubt it. She was far simpler in her faith. You either love your brother and sister, or you don't.