Notre Dame sticking with Obama for commencement speaker

SOUTH BEND – The University of Notre Dame is sticking with its invitation to President Barack Obama to speak at its May 17 commencement despite criticism from some Roman Catholics that his views on abortion and stem cell research run counter to Catholic teachings.

“I don’t foresee a circumstance in which we would rescind the invitation,” Notre Dame spokesman Dennis Brown told The Associated Press on Monday in an e-mail message.

The Cardinal Newman Society, an advocacy group for greater orthodoxy on Catholic college and university campuses, has set up a protest Web site, www.notredamescandal.com, that includes the phone number, e-mail and mailing addresses of Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John Jenkins.

The group calls Obama’s upcoming commencement appearance “an outrage and a scandal.”

Jenkins issued a statement Monday saying the invitation did not mean that Notre Dame supported all of Obama’s positions.

“The invitation to President Obama to be our commencement speaker should not be taken as condoning or endorsing his positions on specific issues regarding the protection of human life, including abortion and embryonic stem cell research,” Jenkins said.

Notre Dame’s invitation to Obama came at a sensitive time. Theologically conservative Catholics were upset by the president’s decision earlier this month to reverse Bush-era restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Obama had said that “as a person of faith,” he felt a duty to work to ease human suffering.

Obama has also said his Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships would make it a priority to help reduce the abortion rate. But shortly after taking office, the president lifted restrictions on federal funding of international family planning groups that perform abortions or provide information about the procedure.

The nation’s bishops have warned Catholic colleges and universities against honoring lawmakers who dissent from church teachings on major moral concerns such as abortion. It’s a thorny issue for the schools, which have long struggled to balance their Catholic identity with academic freedom and a desire to place themselves at the center of American life.

But the Rev. Thomas Reese, a Washington-based Jesuit, said Monday that the “controversy over commencement speakers at Catholic universities pops up every spring along with the tulips.”

He called the uproar over the president’s visit “absurd.”

“If Cardinal Edward Egan of New York can invite Obama to speak at the Al Smith dinner in October of 2008 when he was only a presidential candidate, then there is certainly nothing wrong with Notre Dame having the president speak at a commencement,” said Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

Bishop John D’Arcy of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend issued a statement March 9 critical of Obama’s embryonic stem cell research decision.

“This decision by the president is an imposition of a utilitarian ideology, which allows a group of human beings that some believe do not share human dignity, to be used and exploited,” D’Arcy said.

Jenkins has spoken with D’Arcy about the matter, Brown said, declining to provide details.

The Cardinal Newman Society, in an online petition to Jenkins, said that by inviting Obama, the university “has chosen prestige over principles, popularity over morality.”
As of Monday evening, the group said more than 33,500 people had signed its petition.

“Whatever may be President Obama’s admirable qualities, this honor comes on the heels of some of the most anti-life actions of any American president,” the group’s petition states.

Brown, when asked about the volume of complaints to the university, said it was “nothing beyond what we anticipated.”

In 1960, Dwight Eisenhower became the first sitting U.S. president to deliver the Notre Dame commencement address. Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush have also delivered the Notre Dame commencement speech while in office.

Obama will also be the ninth U.S. president to receive an honorary degree from Notre Dame.