Since the announcement was made on Friday over 20,000 people have signed the petition asking Fr. Jenkins, president of Notre Dame, to revoke this invitation.
That is not likely to happen, but a group of students have come up with a good perhaps compromise solution (as reported on American Papist):
Myself and eight other students, with more co-signing literally by the hour, have submitted a letter to Fr. Jenkins, asking to make a public, vocal statement that the university strongly disapproves with the President's actions. I invite you to read it on our Web site here.
Meanwhile, NRO is hosting a symposium A Moral Exemplar? Should the University of Notre Dame honor our most anti-life president? with people like George Weigel and Fr. Schall weighing in.
Prof. McInerny's essay, which Edith linked to, is excellent and powerful, and provacative for all the right reasons: "One has groaned at previous selections, but the invitation to Barack Obama is far from being the usual effort of the university to get into warm contact with the power figures of the day. It is an unequivocal abandonment of any pretense at being a Catholic university..."
I think the answer is clear: alumni and current students should contiue to be vocal about their disappointment in the University. And the rest can be left up to God.
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Response to both posts:
How is it that after 100 days in office the Catholic leaders are still not getting it that this sort of invitation is going to be problematic? We have priests and bishops figuring out if they ought not to give communion to pro-choice politicians who approach the altar, Nancy Pelosi trying to smooth over her visit with the pope, and now "the" Catholic university in America inviting the president to speak at their commencement. What will Obama say? What of Our Lady in the background nearly everywhere on campus? If you have ever been to the campus, you will know that she can be found in the smallest of spaces but also in very visible places. What an odd sight that will be.
I don't know what to say, really. How is it that our Church continues to be divided by a person? Actually, I really don't think it's him, is it? It's what he stands for. How is it that many in our church, by subtle faults of logic and subtle persuasive rhetoric, believe that the ability to have an abortion is just? That is the issue, over and over and over again. How is it that so many of our brothers and sisters have been convinced (down to the deep recesses of their heart) that autonomy is to be safeguarded more than a soul? I do not get angry anymore; instead I feel pity and sorrow, that we have been duped by the devil in such a subtle (ah - sinister) way to believe that a virtue should be unrestricted (which indeed is a vice!) at the cost of everything else.
Pray, pray, pray, pray, pray...
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