By Kathleen Gilbert
NEW YORK, March 25, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – William McGurn, former chief editorial writer with The Wall Street Journal and now the newspaper’s regular “Main Street” columnist, decried in a recent column the “moral incoherence” of the University of Notre Dame’s invitation to host President Obama as commencement speaker on May 17.
“In the end, the result is moral incoherence,” wrote McGurn yesterday, commenting on the invite. “It is an incoherence in which abortion-rights advocates have the most to gain, because it demoralizes those who support the cause of life while removing fears of even the slightest social sanction for those who do not. And it is an incoherence we see all across American Catholic life today.”
Following a late Friday announcement of the school’s plan to honor Obama, Notre Dame alumni and other Catholics unleashed a deluge of protest, calling Obama’s deeply anti-life agenda incompatible with the prestigious university’s Catholic identity. A fast-moving petition launched by the Cardinal Newman Society protesting the honor had been signed by over 130,000 people as of Wednesday afternoon.
Notre Dame’s Bishop D’Arcy released a statement yesterday criticizing the move as contrary to U.S. bishops’ policy, and confirming he would boycott the graduation. Notre Dame President Fr. Jenkins has insisted the invitation will stand despite protests.
McGurn, a prominent writer and editor who served as chief speechwriter for George W. Bush, is a University of Notre Dame alumnus.
Commenting on Jenkins’ rationale that the invite would be a “catalyst for dialogue” with Obama, McGurn said: “Now, if the president were going to Notre Dame to engage in dialogue, that would be one thing. But Mr. Obama will not be going to Notre Dame to ‘dialogue.’ He will be going to help advance his agenda.
“At the center of that agenda is abortion,” McGurn continued, who went on to list the Obama administration’s many early policy changes that are hostile to legal protection for the unborn.
McGurn criticized Notre Dame, often regarded as the nation’s most prestigious Catholic university, for its history of having “opted for the inner Cuomo” – referring to the school’s infamous decision in 1984 to welcome pro-abortion Catholic Gov. Mario Cuomo.
McGurn said Notre Dame’s plan to honor prominent pro-life leader Mary Ann Glendon with the Laetare Award at the same ceremony Obama will attend “appears less a firm stand for life than a cynical PR move aimed at blunting the criticism they no doubt expected if Mr. Obama accepted their invitation to speak.”
This “moral incoherence,” he said, “has brought us to a day where the most prominent Catholics in America – from Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to virtually every well-known Irish Catholic in the Senate – now defend the snuffing out of tens of millions of innocent human lives as the exercise of a fundamental right.
“And on the Midwestern campus of the Golden Dome, it allows administrators and professors to tell themselves they are in ‘dialogue’ with the spirit of John F. Kennedy when they are in fact surrendering to a Ted Kennedy reality they themselves have helped create,” McGurn concluded.
(To view McGurn’s editorial in full, go to: https://online.wsj.com/article/SB123785146238319263.html)
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Notre Dame’s Bishop Will Not Attend Obama-Honoring Graduation, Criticizes University’s Decision
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09032408.html
Notre Dame Faces Groundswell of Outrage after Announcing Plan to Honor Obama
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09032312.html
Notre Dame President: School “Honored” by Obama’s Acceptance to Speak and Receive Honorary Degree
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09032306.html
Catholic Notre Dame University to Give Obama Honorary Degree on May 17, Against USCCB Policy
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09032005.html