Notre Dame's And Obama's Catholic Values

Some prominent Catholics have objected to Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama to speak at its commencement in May and receive an honorary degree.

In an editorial in the LA Times, the university's president, the Rev. John Jenkins, emphasized that the invitation to Obama "should in no way be taken as condoning or endorsing his positions on specific issues regarding the protection of life, such as abortion and embryonic stem cell research."

The editorial concludes, "in resisting that campaign, Notre Dame has kept faith with both its religious and its academic missions." I would make a stronger case: Notre Dame is keeping faith with Catholic values. In the 2004 election, I convinced one of my stalwart anti-choice sisters that she could vote for John Kerry despite his position on abortion by referring her to an op-ed in the NYTimes by the Dean of Notre Dame's College of Arts and Letters entitled "Voting Our Conscience, Not Our Religion". In this piece, Dean Mark Roche argued that Catholics could and should vote for pro-choice Democrats citing evidence from around the globe that liberal abortion laws result in fewer abortions. He also noted that Democrats favor many other policies that are in sync with Catholic views, eg, opposition to the death penalty and the war in Iraq, etc.