If Notre Dame thought they scored a big one

….many are thinking own goal. And wincing, or worse.

The internet and air waves are burning up with forums and debates and commentaries and calls on the news about the commencement address deal.

My younger son will be graduating from the University of Notre Dame in May. Last Friday, he informed me that President Obama will be giving the commencement speech and will be awarded an honorary degree. I was, frankly, stunned. The joyful event of our son’s graduation has now been overshadowed by a dark cloud. I am proud of my son and of all he achieved at Notre Dame, but I am ashamed of Notre Dame itself.

How can an institution that purports to be Catholic honor as a “doctor of law”—literally a “teacher of law”—a President who has made it very clear by word and deed that he intends to remove from the laws of this nation anything that defends unborn human life? Of course, there is more to Obama than his position on abortion and the life issues. There are things about him that anyone, Catholic or non-Catholic, can respect and admire. But can they justify overlooking his appalling stance on abortion?

Abortion is a defining issue of our time, in the way that slavery was in the mid-nineteenth century and segregation and racial discrimination were in the mid-twentieth century. Overlooking the pro-abortion views of a politician now would be analogous to overlooking pro-slavery or segregationist views in those eras. Would Notre Dame have invited a champion of segregation to be a commencement speaker in the 1960s, however brilliant or talented, however well-meaning in other ways and on other issues he or she may have been?

No. And everyone knows that, so people refuse to accept that equivalence and instead, revert to a false one of openness to dialogue with people who disagree. As if this is about that.

It’s actually about status.

There is a Faustian bargain being struck. President Obama has been feeling great heat on the life issues due to the courageous stands by many of the country’s Catholic bishops. Speaking at and being honored by Notre Dame is a way for him to insulate himself from that heat. In return, Notre Dame gets to seem important, by basking in the glory of a presidential visit. The university is willing to sacrifice the integrity of the Church’s moral witness on the central social-justice issue of our time to pursue its institutional ambitions.

And the explanation for it only raised more questions. And ire. I heard about it on the air yesterday, from a caller who said the letter from ND president Fr. Jenkins was wholly unconvincing and even confusing. Carl Olson says that, too.

Nope, I’m not tracking well with this “Persuasion By Praise” approach…

This is sad. Worse, it is scandalous. A friend of mine who is a student at the Notre Dame law school wrote to me the other day: “Though the school is by no means perfect, I have been proud of ND until now. [My wife] and I are both disgusted.” Obviously he isn’t persuaded by Fr. Jenkins’ methods. Nor am I.

(Referring to that NRO symposium…I only got as far as George Weigel yesterday…)

And Fr. George Rutler states, “This is a highly cynical act, contemptuous of the Church’s prophetic voice in civil society and wagering that there will be no retribution. If a midwestern school seeks attention by granting Mr. Obama an honorary doctorate in law, the next logical step would be to grant Judas Iscariot posthumously an honorary doctorate in business administration.”