Unprecedented division has broken out in the Church in America over the issue of abortion following the decision by the University of Notre Dame in Indiana to invite President Barak Obama to give the annual Commencement Address at the University and to confer an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on him.
The President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, took the unprecedented step of publicly urging Catholics to protest against a Catholic university over the move, in light of President Obama’s vigorous support and voting record for legalised abortion, including late-term abortions.
Other bishops in the US described the university’s invitation as scandalous, as the situation became an ongoing story of interest in secular newsmedia across the country.
Cardinal George described the university’s actions as an “extreme embarrassment” for Catholics and for the Church in the US and became the ninth US bishop and one of three cardinals to publicly criticise the university over its decision.
“Whatever else is clear, it is clear that Notre Dame didn’t understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation,” George told the audience at a March 28 conference on the Vatican document Dignitatis Personae. The conference was hosted by the Chicago archdiocese’s Respect Life office and Office for Evangelisation.
Meanwhile, the US Newman Society, an organisation representing graduate Catholics in the US, has collected more than a quarter of a million signatures for a petition to the University protesting the decision on the grounds of President Obama’s well-documented support for abortion, which has included voting against legislation while a State Senator that would have outlawed doctors killing children born alive if they survive abortions.
Among those buying into the uproar created by the university’s move were some of the most senior figures in the Church in the US, including the new Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, who said in a March 29 interview that Notre Dame “made a big mistake” by inviting President Obama to receive an honorary degree and give the commencement address at the school on May 17.
“They made a big mistake … in an issue that is very close to the heart of Catholic world view, namely, the protection of innocent life in the womb, [Obama] has unfortunately taken a position very much at odds with the Church,” Archbishop Timothy Dolan told a television interviewer on the “Sunday Insight” program of Milwaukee station TMJ4.
At the time of the interview Dolan was the fifth bishop to publicly condemn the university’s decision following the March 20 announcement that Obama had accepted the invitation, sparking a wave of protest and outrage from the American Catholic community and pro-life campaigners across the nation.
However an increasing number of bishops have publicly brought into the argument, with most openly criticising Notre Dame or publicly questioning whether it understands the meaning of Catholicism.
The highest-ranking bishops of the US state of Oklahoma publicly chided the university for its action in extremely strong language.
“President Obama, by word and action, has approved of abortion and other atrocities against human life,” Archbishop Eusebius Beltran of Oklahoma City was reported as saying by The Oklahoman newspaper. “Therefore he deserves no recognition at a Catholic institution.”
In a separate letter to the University, Bishop Edward Slattery of Tulsa was reported as having written:
“I am writing to plead with you to cancel the invitation you gave to President Obama to speak at the University and the plans to honour him with a doctorate degree. “Many, many Catholics and alumni of the University of Notre Dame are waiting for you to do so…”
Earlier that week the Texas Catholic Herald newspaper published Houston Cardinal Nicholas DiNardo’s “Shepherd’s Message” in which the Cardinal said the “very disappointing” invite “requires charitable but vigorous critique.”
“Though I can understand the desire by a university to have the prestige of a commencement address by the President of the United States, the fundamental moral issue of the inestimable worth of the human person from conception to natural death is a principle that soaks all our lives as Catholics, and all our efforts at formation, especially education at Catholic places of higher learning,” wrote DiNardo.
Bishop John D’Arcy of the diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Inidana, in which Notre Dame is located, responded soon after the scandal broke with a statement condemning the invitation and announcing his decision to boycott the graduation ceremony.
Bishop D’Arcy wrote that his decision to boycott the event is “not an attack on anyone, but is in defence of the truth about human life.”
“President Obama has recently reaffirmed, and has now placed in public policy, his long-stated unwillingness to hold human life as sacred,” said the bishop, apparently referencing the president’s recent decision to allow federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. “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.”
“Even as I continue to ponder in prayer these events, which many have found shocking, so must Notre Dame,” wrote the bishop. “Indeed, as a Catholic University, Notre Dame must ask itself, if by this decision it has chosen prestige over truth.”
D’Arcy also explained that while he has “always revered the Office of the Presidency,” and means no disrespect to the president, “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.”
Reflecting on a US bishops’ statement that stipulates that Catholic institutions should not honour pro-abortion politicians, Bishop D’Arcy wrote: “Indeed, the measure of any Catholic institution is not only what it stands for, but also what it will not stand for.”
The bishop said that he was not informed about the invitation until shortly before the White House announcement confirming Obama’s acceptance.
He ended by invoking “Our Lady to intercede for the university named in her honour, that it may recommit itself to the primacy of truth over prestige.”
During his March 28 talk, Cardinal George provided his audience with information of behind-the-scenes contact with the university of the kind that is usually little-heard by most American Catholics.
The Cardinal said he had spoken with the administrative committee of the bishops’ conference and corresponded with University president Fr John Jenkins several times on the issue.
“That conversation will continue…. whether or not it will have some kind of consequence that will bring, I think, the University of Notre Dame to its [the USCCB’s] understanding of what it means to be Catholic,” said the Cardinal.
“That is, when you’re Catholic, everything you do changes the life of everybody else who calls himself a personal Catholic – it’s a network of relationships.
“So quite apart from the president’s own positions, which are well known, the problem is in that you have a Catholic university – the flagship Catholic university – do something that brought extreme embarrassment to many, many people who are Catholic,” said the cardinal.
“So whatever else is clear, it is clear that Notre Dame didn’t understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation, and didn’t anticipate the kind of uproar that would be consequent to the decision, at least not to the extent that it has happened,” said George.
The Cardinal urged concerned Catholics “to do what you are supposed to be doing: to call, to email, to write letters, to express what’s in your heart about this: the embarrassment, the difficulties.”
However, Cardinal George also emphasised that the US presidency “is an office that deserves some respect, no matter who is holding it,” and said that Notre Dame would not disinvite the president, since “you just don’t do that (disinvite the president of the United States).” According to the cardinal requests to revoke the invitation would fall on deaf ears, but he also observed that there is legitimate potential to organise some form of protest at the ceremony.
“You have to sit back and get past the immediate moral outrage and say, ‘Now what’s the best thing to do in these circumstances?’” said the Cardinal.
“I can assure you the bishops are doing that.”
A growing number of bishops have publicly called on the university to withdraw the invitation to President Obama, the most strongly pro-abortion President in US history.
Meanwhile, other bishops such as retired Archbishop Harry Flynn of San Francisco, have urged the university to proceed with the invitation.
The Rome-based head of the Holy Cross Order that founded the university, while not backing calls for the presidential visit to be cancelled, publicly urged President Obama to “re-think” his position on abortion.
Among the many surprises of the situation is the strength of the language to be publicly used by bishops (see breakout box), without precedent as bishops in the US and elsewhere have traditionally sought to settle controverted issues quietly and out of the glare of the public spotlight and media coverage.
Passions aroused
The two following excerpts indicate how strongly the reaction against Notre Dame’s decision to invite President Obama has registered among Catholics at all levels in the US.
Archbishop Beltran of Oklahoma to Notre Dame University:
I am appalled, disappointed and scandalised! Notre Dame University has certainly turned against the Catholic Church. I believe you have a moral responsibility to withdraw the invitation to President Barack Obama to be your commencement speaker in May. I also ask that you refrain from giving him any award whatsoever.
President Obama has publicly and ruthlessly affronted the Catholic Church of America during the short time of his presidency. His single-handed actions have totally reversed decades of successes of the Church in the prolife cause. Needless to say, he deserves no honour or recognition from Notre Dame or any other Catholic institution.
Please have the courage to take this extraordinary stand in view of the extraordinary scandal you have generated.
May Our Lord and Saviour and Giver of Life bless you during this penitential season of Lent.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Most Reverend Eusebius J. Beltran
Archbishop of Oklahoma City
This excerpt is from a letter sent by Bishop Doran of Rockford to Fr Jenkins at Notre Dame, and concludes:
“I would ask that you rescind this unfortunate decision and so avoid dishonouring the practising Catholics of the United States, including those of this Diocese. Failing that, please have the decency to change the name of the University to something like, “The Fighting Irish College” or “Northwestern Indiana Humanist University.” Though promotion of the obscene is not foreign to you, I would point out that it is truly obscene for you to take such decisions as you have done in a university named for our Blessed Lady, whom the Second Vatican Council called the Mother of the Church.”