{"id":361,"date":"2009-03-24T15:44:45","date_gmt":"2009-03-24T15:44:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/2009\/03\/bishop-darcy-to-boycott-obama.html"},"modified":"2009-03-24T15:44:45","modified_gmt":"2009-03-24T15:44:45","slug":"bishop-darcy-to-boycott-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/03\/bishop-darcy-to-boycott-obama.html","title":{"rendered":"Bishop D’Arcy to boycott Obama at Notre Dame"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bishop John M. D’Arcy of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, which includes Notre Dame, has released a statement on the university’s invitation to President Obama<\/a> to deliver the main commencement address and receieve an honorary degree on May 17. (Full text is in the post below.)<\/p>\n

Bishop D’Arcy says ND president Father John Jenkins, CSC did not inform him of the invitation until shortly before Obama’s acceptance was announced, and that he will not attend the commencement, the first time he will boycott it in his 25 years as bishop. He also said he spoke with Mary Ann Glendon, who is to receive the Laetare Medal at the ceremony, and “encouraged her to accept this award and take the opportunity such an award gives her to teach.” <\/p>\n

He concludes with a jab at Notre Dame, saying it must ask itself “if by this decision it has chosen prestige over truth.”<\/p>\n

Peggy Steinfels pointed out that Archbishop Dolan has invited Obama to his installation in NYC, as indicated in this Newsday story<\/a>. As Tom Reese points out<\/a>, no one said anything much when Obama the Candidate was invited to the Al Smith Dinner by Cardinal Egan. But I wonder if that will change now. Maybe D’Arcy will boycott Dolan?<\/p>\n

First, a couple other links to flesh out the story:<\/p>\n

One is the CNS story in which Father Jenkins says he is standing firm<\/a> on the invitation:<\/p>\n

\n

“The invitation to President Obama to be our commencement speaker should not be taken as condoning or endorsing his positions on specific issues regarding the protection of human life, including abortion and embryonic stem-cell research,” said Holy Cross Father John I. Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame. “Yet, we see his visit as a basis for further positive engagement,” he said in a March 23 statement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He adds:<\/p>\n

\n

“We will honor Mr. Obama as an inspiring leader who faces many challenges — the economy, two wars, and health care, immigration and education reform — and is addressing them with intelligence, courage and honesty,” he said. “It is of special significance that we will hear from our first African-American president, a person who has spoken eloquently and movingly about race in this nation. Racial prejudice has been a deep wound in America, and Mr. Obama has been a healer.” <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As the CNS story indicates, not everyone agrees. In a column at The Catholic Thing<\/a>, Ralph McInerny, a philosophy professor at Notre Dame, writes: “For one whose 54-year career as a member of the Notre Dame faculty is coming to an end this June, it is a bitter thing to reflect on the 2009 commencement speaker.”<\/p>\n

Deal Hudson is rather scathing<\/a> towards Jenkins, and here, too<\/a>. The Cardinal Newman Society (which NCR’s Joe Feuerherd was fairly scathing about, calling its leader Patrick Reilly an “academic ayatollah<\/a>“–though his story was spot on) says it has collected 54,000 sigantures on its petition drive to disinvite Obama. And the blogosphere is rancid with all maner of anti-Obama and anti-Notre Dame invective.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the worst is Operation Rescue’s Randall Terry (oh, beware us converts!), who has set up a special website<\/a> with graphic photos and equally graphic language, such as saying Obama is worse than Herod. He titles it, “Our Lady of Guadalupe conquered Human Sacrifice. Notre Dame now Honors it”–sweet–and includes an odd locution: “…we will raze hell in this battle to keep Obama from speaking at Notre Dame.”<\/p>\n

Lest you think Terry is a fringe player, he just announced that he was given an interview with Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, formerly of St. Louis and now Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, and that he will broadcast it tomorrow: “Everyone who has seen this interview is stunned at Archbishop Burke’s candor and clarity. His words thunder, and are without equivocation.”<\/p>\n

Stay tuned.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bishop John M. D’Arcy of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, which includes Notre Dame, has released a statement on the university’s invitation to President Obama to deliver the main commencement address and receieve an honorary degree on May 17. (Full text is in the post below.) 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He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s. Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name \"Karol Wojtyla,\" and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States. When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation. Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism. Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a \"powerful\" and \"first-rate\" treatment of the crisis from \"an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber.\" His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as \"an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book\" from \"a master storyeller.\" Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/author\/dgibson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}