How a state school sees the honor thing
It provokes thought, this one. While so many schools confer honorary degrees on high-profile speakers these days that we hardly think of what it means, the Notre Dame controversy brings that question back into focus. Especially when a state school takes another tack on sheer intellectual reasoning.
Even as the University of Notre Dame has angered Catholics and pro-life advocates nationwide with its plan to bestow an honorary doctorate of laws on President Barack Obama on May 17, Arizona State University has declined to do the same when the President speaks at its commencement ceremony the prior Wednesday.
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ASU spokeswoman Sharon Keeler told The Associated Press: “It’s our practice to recognize an individual for his body of work, somebody who’s been in their position for a long time. His body of work is yet to come. That’s why we’re not recognizing him with a degree at the beginning of his presidency.”
Simple and straightforward.
After all, what body of work is Notre Dame recognizing?
In his first 11 weeks in office, President Obama has allowed taxpayer funding for abortions and embryonic stem cell research, nominated pro-abortion Catholic Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services, announced anti-Catholic activist Harry Knox as an advisor on faith-based partnerships, and threatened conscience protections for Catholic healthcare workers.
OK. Not that body of work. Maybe…..winning the election, ascending to the office of the presidency, and promising that his policies will always try to ‘take care of the least of these.’
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Ever notice there are 2 types of Catholics. There are the Rerum Novarum Cathalics. I name them that since they look upon that encyclical from Pope Leo xiii as the most important work of the Church. Others I call the Humanae Vitae Catholics. These say that this encyclical trumps all others since the protection of human life is more important than the dignity of that life once born. The Apostle Paul writes in 1st Corinthians 3, that such arguments are foolish. We are not followers of Pope Leo or of Pope Paul but of God who uses the works of holy men as water and nourishment to grow the whole Church. Rerum Novarum Catholics should understand that we are also the ambassadors of the unborn, that while we are fervent in our prayers and works to bring dignity to all, so we must also understand and support the pro-life movement. So Humanae Vitae Catholics should understand as they fight for the dignity of the unborn, that they are not in a GM assembly plant working to make a car, and once off the assembly line, move on to another. Their obligation to children saved from abortion is that each one has enough food, a good education, and an equal opportunity to succeed. They should also fight for a dignified wage for that child’s parents since dignity in the workplace leads to dignity in the home.
I guess where I differ with the pro-life community is in their approach. The Apostle Paul talks about the Church as a Body. 1 Corinthians 12:12 states: “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all are members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.” The pro-life movement tries to control the entire body. It is as if they are convinced that their movement cannot succeed by itself unless it controls the discussion and controls the agenda.
I put forth that the foot cannot be a hand, that politicians cannot be moral leaders. If the foot could be a hand, we would have no problem loosing a hand since the foot could accomodate, and while sometimes it does (Joni Erickson Tada notwithstanding), this is not the most favorable of conditions. What I mean is this. Iif politicans could be moral leaders there would be no need for the religious, priests, nuns and apolstolates. But this is not so. Indeed politicians can provide food on the table to a needy family. They can ensure that workers have dignity in the workplace with dignified wages. But it is the moral Christian leadership that must lead the fight for life from conception to natural death. This leadership cannot be cowardly, seeking to coerce politicians by intimidation and threats. Indeed a politician will always side with the majority when it comes to moral legislation. No, the moral leaders of our country are not in the legislature but in the Church. Moral leadership is their domain and they should not cede it to politicians. To do this is to assume their inadequacy in the fight and a certain surrender. It is as if the saying, “Make the hand do my work since I, the foot, cannot go on.”
In order to accomplish the tasks, the body’s parts must work together. Politicians will pass legislation that the majority will want. It is the responsibility of the workers in the pro-life community to convince that majority of the movement’s moral justness in the marketplace of ideas and not the marketplace of coercion.
The greatest social justice issue of our time is abortion. Catholics should work to both end abortion and promote social justice. Chuck, you say here that we should not have 2 types of Catholics (Rerum Novarum and Humanae Vitae), and you are right. Yet even within this comment you have set yourself apart from the pro-life community, saying that you are fighting a different cause. Does that then distinguish you into a particular group of Catholics, precisely against St. Paul’s teaching that you pointed out here?
The pro-life movement is not a movement of coercion. We speak with conviction because we know the truth and we firmly believe ‘the truth will set you free.’ John 8:32 There is a lot of propoganda and false information being transmitted through various media sources, and so those who know the value of life must do everything in their power to communicate that truth to others. And that value of life is not confined to children in the womb, but it does start there because if we can’t gaurantee life, what’s the point of gauranteeing food, shelter, health care, etc?