One Cannot Really Be a Catholic and a Grown Up

Earlier this week, President Obama was awarded an honorary degree from Notre Dame University. It is a tradition at Notre Dame to invite the president to speak at the graduation ceremonies the first May after he is elected, but this particular invitee drew the ire of of many Catholics. His stance on the abortion issue, apparently, was the reason people protested.

Mary Ann Glendon, a law professor at Harvard University and a former ambassador to the Vatican, was to receive the Laetare Medal, which Notre Dame calls the most prestigious honor awarded to American Catholics. She turned it down. Glendon wrote an open letter to Notre Dame president, Reverend John Jenkins, saying that while she did not oppose Obama speaking at the commencement, she was bothered by Notre Dame conferring an honorary degree on a president who supports abortion rights. She noted that this would be a direct violation of a 2004 statement by U.S. Catholic bishops, which declared that Catholic institutions "should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles" and that such persons "should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."

I commend the professor for her decision to not accept the Laetare Medal. She has every right to disagree with the decision of the school and to refuse to partake in the honor bestowed upon her under any circumstances or reasoning that she sees fit. However, would Glendon have been so quick to rebuke Notre Dame if the man who appointed her to ambassadorship, George W. Bush, was receiving the honorary degree and delivering the commencement speech?

Bush received his honorary degree and delivered the commencement address in May of 2001, but I do not recall a great wail of protest from the Catholics then. Bush, a staunch proponent of the death penalty (152 executions took place in Texas while Bush was governor) was welcomed with open arms in South Bend, despite the fact that the late Pope John Paul II and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (#2267 to be exact) both condemn the death penalty vehemently.

This was not a religious quarrel, it was a political protest.

P.S.
The protests at the school were headed by conservative political activist, completely unqualified three-time presidential candidate and loser in every election he has entered, Alan Keyes. Keyes is also the man who filed a lawsuit seeking to challenge Obama's eligibility for the U.S. Presidency because he was not a natural born citizen of the United States. Oh, and much to his chagrin, his daughter Maya is a lesbian.

The title quote comes from George Orwell.