Notre Dame, Obama, and Life

The past couple of weeks I have received numerous emails, Facebook messages, and community alerts notifying me about the "Notre Dame Scandal". Notre Dame's president Fr. John Jenkins C.S.C has invited President Obama to speak at the universities commencement ceremonies in May. I have numerous friends, classmates, professors, alumni, and fans of the university that have voiced their opposition or support for this invitation. I have never witnessed this level of activism at the University or in the community. At the center of the controversy is the big 'A' word... abortion.

Notre Dame, arguably being our nations flagship Catholic university, would only rise to such levels of polarization when this subject rears its ugly head. Obama being an advocate for pro-choice policy and Notre Dame as a Catholic institution being morally opposed to abortion would, of course, stir things up a bit. I have many liberal friends at ND who are in disbelief of the uproar it has caused. I would like to remind them that they would have been burning effigies of Bush if he had come to Our Ladies University. President Bush's social and foreign policy was so corrupt( in their eyes) that they would have probably done unspeakable atrocities to block a similar invitation had it been extended.

On the other hand my ultra conservative and religious friends are up in arms against the universities administration. They have for years felt the 'Catholic identity' of the university has been in decline and an invitation to the 'baby killing' darling of the left Obama would be the last straw. As a conservative and devout Catholic I slightly share more empathy for their argument but their extreme emotionalism is hypocritical because it mirrors the ridiculous attitudes of the radical liberals. Establishing reasonable dialogue with those who do not share ones perspective is a simple step to finding pragmatic solutions to the problems that veil our modern society. It is questionable whether it is appropriate or not to host this dialogue at commencement but a dialogue must be set by an institution like Notre Dame with liberal leaders of our nation.

I neither support or oppose Obama speaking at Notre Dame. While I oppose Obama and his misguided policies I believe the hollowed academic setting and Catholic identity of Notre Dame is a perfect place to debate the morality and constitutionality of abortion. What is more important than protesting Obama or protesting the protest is to pray for our leaders who are in the position to make life and death decisions for the born and unborn in this country.

Here is the petition in support of the invitation http://www.wesupportnotredame.org/

Here is the petition in opposition to the invitation http://notredamescandal.com/

Here is a prayer for our elected leaders and judges http://www.priestsforlife.org/prayers/courtsandjudges.htm