Notre Dame’s Honorary Degrees

GLEN COVE, NY —Some of President Obama’s supporters have
attempted to justify the honorary degree given him by Notre Dame by
comparing it to an honorary degree given by the same university to
the newly elected President George W. Bush. The cases are in no way
equivalent.

The objection to giving a degree to Bush is that he was Governor
of Texas when more than 100 murderers were executed, despite Papal
and Catholic pleas for clemency.

The objections to giving a degree to Obama are that he voted in favor
of legalizing the killing of babies born live as the result of unsuccessful
abortions, he has consistently spoken in favor of legal abortion, he
favors the expansion of federally funded embryonic stem cell research,
and he has taken other positions that favor abortion.

Serious Catholics across the board agree that abortion is always
wrong. The same is true of killing babies who have survived attempted
abortions. This is a matter of natural law. Men everywhere and throughout
time have known that murder is evil. Cain instinctively knew that his
killing of Abel deserved the death penalty, although that was not the
punishment God chose. Popes have consistently taught that abortion
is intrinsically evil. This teaching is supported by Scripture and
by the tradition received from the Apostles. Since the dawn of modern
understanding of reproduction, the Church has consistently taught that
this teaching applies without distinction at all stages of pregnancy.
The evils of abortion and the killing of newborn babies are simply
not open to negotiation for Catholics.

Catholic teaching on capital punishment is not comparable to that
on abortion and infanticide. Some Church teaching holds that capital
punishment is almost never appropriate in contemporary society. The
principle underlying this teaching seems to be that capital punishment
can be just, but it is to be resorted to only when necessary for public
safety. This is not dogmatic, however, and is not a teaching for all
places and all times; it is advice based on contemporary society and
not derived from natural law. The Church does not teach infallibly
when it teaches only for the present time. While such teaching has
authority, it does not require complete assent under all circumstances.
Popes and saintly kings and princes have sometimes imposed capital
punishment.

Bush dissented from the advice of the Church as to the appropriate
punishment of criminals in a system with modern prisons. Obama dissents
from the natural law binding on all men in all lands from the time
of Cain to the present day. Bush dissents from the Church’s particular
advice. Obama defends an intrinsic evil. No Catholic may believe that
Obama is right. To a limited extent, a Catholic may believe that Bush
is right.

Bush was faced with murderers whose crime was aggravated by factors
defined by the representatives of the people of Texas. Their death
penalty was decided by a jury and a judge, and confirmed by appellate
courts. It might well have been worse to overrule the ordinary decision
makers over a hundred times than to allow the executions to go forward.
It is hard to imagine a justification for voting to authorize the killing
of newborn babies on the ground that their abortion failed.

The two situations are also completely different from the perspective
of Notre Dame. Nobody suggested that awarding the degree to Bush was
inappropriate. In contrast, awarding the degree to Obama directly violated
a policy of the American bishops. Many dozens of American bishops expressly
asked that the invitation to Obama be withdrawn. The local bishop even
refused to attend the ceremony.

Apart from Notre Dame’s insult to Catholic doctrine is the matter
of loyalty. A Catholic institution may not defy its bishop unless morally
compelled, which is rarely the case. Notre Dame’s defiance was
a great scandal.

In insisting on honoring Obama, the administration of Notre Dame
acted in an arrogant and unChristian manner. It went forward stubbornly
without considering the possibility that the bishops, including the
Prefect of the Sacred Signatura, were right and the Notre Dame administration
was wrong. This can be seen by the heavy-handed use of campus police
to arrest peaceful protestors who did nothing more serious than try
to walk around the campus sidewalks praying. The arrest on national
television of an elderly priest for praying the rosary is an act of
fanatics—the kind of thing those who hate the Church do.

The degree given to Bush was a routine matter. The degree given to
Obama was a defiant act of those who want to re-make the Catholic Church
without its doctrine, traditions, and authority. The true purpose of
the Obama degree is to free the Catholic-in-name-only universities
from their duties to the Church and the Truth.

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