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Church Must Prevent Repeat of Notre Dame Betrayal Says Top American Prelate in Vatican

By Peter J. Smith

VATICAN CITY, June 17, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Archbishop Raymond Burke, the highest ranking American prelate in the Vatican has given an interview in a Catholic magazine, in which he says that Notre Dame’s decision to honor President Barack Obama was not only “profoundly shocking,” but also underscores a grave situation requiring action to ensure the incident is never repeated.

Burke is the prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest court of appeal in the Church next to the Pope, and an outspoken advocate for life and family values. He has made headlines repeatedly for his insistence that ministers of communion should deny the sacrament to publicly and obstinantely pro-abortion individuals, especially politicians. He told the Catholic periodical, Inside the Vatican, that a number of lessons must be taken from Notre Dame’s high-profile conferral of an honorary doctorate on Obama, the most aggressive pro-abortion president in American history.

Burke said that the “betrayal of the Catholic identity of Notre Dame University” grew out of the danger of “pursuing a kind of prestige in the secular world, which leads to a betrayal of the sacred aspect of its work, namely the fidelity to Christ and His teaching.”

“So I think everybody now realizes the gravity of the situation. Also I believe that the whole situation has sensitized more people with regard to the gravity of the practice of procured abortion in our nation, that is, they realize even more how far we have gone away from God’s will for human life,” continued Burke.

“That the premiere Catholic university in the United States would give an honorary doctorate of law to one of the most aggressive pro-abortion politicians in our history is profoundly shocking.”

“Now, we cannot forget what has happened at Notre Dame,” said Burke. “We need to take the measures that are necessary so that this is not repeated in other places. If it could happen at Notre Dame, where else could it happen?”

Burke praised the witness of Bishop John D’Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, whose diocese encompasses Notre Dame, for his “very powerful witness” to the “Gospel of Life.” D’Arcy had boycotted the Notre Dame graduation ceremonies in protest and rebuked the school’s president, Fr. John Jenkins for honoring a President who has made “laws which are against innocent life.”   

Burke added that D’Arcy was working hard to encourage a spiritual renewal among students at Notre Dame, “while at the same time correcting what is gravely wrong.”

“I have friends who are professors or students at the university who tell me that there are a great number of the students are very devout in their practice of the Catholic faith, and strive in every way to live their faith and grow in it,” said Burke. “We certainly want to save that and promote it.”

Read the Inside the Vatican report “Overseer of Justice”: http://insidethevatican.com/newsflash/2009/newsflash-jun-13-09.htm  

See related coverage by LifeSiteNews.com:

Vatican Official: Bishops Have no Choice But to Refuse Communion to Pro-Abort Politicians
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/feb/09020402.html

Exclusive Interview: Leading Vatican Prelate Says Document of US Bishops Partly to Blame for Election of “Most Pro-Abortion" President”
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jan/09012805.html

Commentary: Catholic Church in America Has Bred Her Own Destroyers: Obama Exploiting it
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09033002.html

Notre Dame's Bishop Rebukes Jenkins' Defense of Obama Honor
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09042205.html

Notre Dame's Bishop on Obama's Pro-Abortion Views: "No One Is Allowed to Say Who Sits at Table of Life"
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09040804.html

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