Digest of Today's Posts (30 April 2009)

Missed Opportunities: Justice David Souter Retires

Have I Mention Lately ...

REPOSTED and UPDATED: "... Dollars to Doughnuts ..."

Steve Earle Takes Songwriting Break to Honor Van Zandt (and to Write a Novel about Roe v. Wade?)

(Digest of Yesterday's Posts (29 April 2009))

Missed Opportunities: Justice David Souter Retires

The retirement of Associate Justice David Souter from the U.S. Supreme Court represents the same thing as did his appointment 20 years ago: another missed opportunity to overturn Roe and return American jurisprudence to some semblance of sanity.

President George H.W. Bush missed out on the opportunity to shape the direction of the Court for a generation by his "stealth" nomination of the little-known Souter (upon the recommendation of pro-abort Sen. Warren Rudman of Souter's home state of New Hampshire). It was a nomination Bush and conservatives would later come to regret, as Souter turned out to be one of the most consistently liberal Justices on the Court over the last 2 decades.

(DO NOT fall for the media descriptions of Souter as part of a "moderate" bloc on the Court; I can't think of a single major constitutional decision in which Souter could be claimed to have come down on the "conservative" side, surely something a "moderate" would have done at least on occasion, as O'Connor and Kennedy often did.)

And now, with Souter's retirement, pro-lifers and constitutional conservatives have missed out on yet another opportunity to shape the Court, as a newly elected President hostile to our interests will get - a mere few months into his term - what will surely be the first of at least 2 or 3 Supreme Court vacancies that he will have the opportunity to fill (look for Stevens and Ginsburg to go at some point) in the next 3-and-a-half years.

Have I Mentioned Lately ...

... that I will NEVER. UNDER. ANY. CIRCUMSTANCES. EVER. cast a vote for Mitt Romney for any office?

Especially the office of President of the United States.

That is all.

REPOSTED and UPDATED: "... Dollars to Doughnuts ..."

[NOTE: Be sure to read today's UPDATE #3, in which Michael Sean Winters, himself, decides that Ambassador Glendon isn't such a worthy recipient of the Laetare Medal after all.]

Anyone else remember Michael Sean Winters' ridiculous prediction at America a few weeks ago?

"Now, of course, the stage at Notre Dame will be shared by someone whom the right has seen as a champion, Ambassador MaryAnn Glendon. There is no denying her credentials either as a conservative or as a pro-life advocate. I will bet dollars to doughnuts the next few weeks will make clear, however, that some on the right will begin attacking Dr. Glendon. Of course, Dr. Glendon, like the University of Notre Dame, is a source of pride for all Catholics, not just for conservatives. I view the world through very different lenses from Dr. Glendon, but I would be blind not to admire her accomplishments, her intellectual force, and her love for the Church. Whatever disagreements I have with her are disagreements within the family. (Of course, the right wing doesn’t view Notre Dame with the same "All in the Family" spirit.) And, in any event, here is a chance to fight another battle in the culture wars so who cares if Dr. Glendon must be thrown overboard?"

(emphasis added)

(Hat tip: Creative Minority Report)

Of course, the imagined "right-wing" attacks on Ambassador Glendon never materialized (not surprisingly).

But, interestingly enough, since yesterday's announcement of Ambassador Glendon's decision to decline Notre Dame's Laetare Medal, a subset of "enlightened Catholics" (who, no doubt, read Michael Sean Winters religiously) has decided that it's open season on Ambassador Glendon (as these comments at Amy Welborn's blog bear out):

Has long-time commenter RP wrapped it up and tied it tight, or does he drop it?

To grasp, as Glendon is doing here, for the moral high ground in opposition to a pro-abortion-rights president even as she has most recently been the public representative -- to the Vatican, no less! -- of an administration that had, as unapologetic policy, such intrinsic evils as torture: well, it is more ironic than I could ever have imagined.

Todd, another long-time commenter at Amy's, thinks this assessment is "Brilliant!"

And another commenter adds:

As Ambassador to the Vatican, Glendon was representing President Bush and his torture policy. She was also representing President Bush, the most prolific executioner of those on death row in American history. She also represented President Bush, who was carrying out an unjust war in addition to torturing.

Her hands are not clean.

Fortunately, Tom K is there to call the detractors on their hypocrisy:

Did I just miss all the criticism of Mary Ann Glendon prior to yesterday's open letter?

I remember a lot of "deservedly" and "no question" and "fitting balance" when she was announced as the Laetare Medal winner a few days after President Obama was announced as the commencement speaker and honorary law degree recipient. There must have been some "dirty hands" and "bishops' pawn," but I don't remember seeing any of it.

Exactly. I'm thinking Michael Sean Winters was somewhat guilty of projection in criticizing pro-life "right wingers" for something they never did, but which turned out to be exactly the tack the Catholic left immediately took as soon as Ambassador Glendon acted in a manner inconsistent with humble obeisance to The One.


UPDATE (29 April)
Here's another "right winger" who has turned on Ambassador Glendon. Uh ... wait ... never mind:

Suzette Martinez Standring: Mary Ann Glendon was the wrong recipient of the Laetare Medal anyway

Hmmm. What have you to say to that, Michael Sean Winters? Will he admonish these new attackers of Ambassador Glendon in the same way he tsk-tsked pro-lifers for predicted attacks on her that never transpired? Think he'll continue to defend Ambassador Glendon as "a source of pride for all Catholics, not just for conservatives" and continue to express admiration for "her accomplishments, her intellectual force, and her love for the Church" in the face of such criticism from his fellow Obamaphile Catholics?

I'm not holding my breath.


UPDATE #2 (29 April)
Fr. Z fisks an attack on Ambassador Glendon by the anti-Catholic hate group calling itself Catholic Democrats.

(Hat tip: Don McClarey at The American Catholic)


UPDATE #3 (30 April 2009)
And now, Michael Sean Winters, himself, joins in on the left's anti-Glendon feeding frenzy:

... Dr. Mary Ann Glendon certainly seems to think it a moral impossibility to share the stage with the President. [ED.: I don't believe she ever said that. What she said was that the University had put her in an awkward position by using her as the "And from the right ..." foil to Pres. Obama's presence on the commencement platform. But don't let the facts get in the way of a good partisan rant.] Given the fact that her last employer, the Bush administration, committed torture which is, last time I checked, an intrinsic moral evil, it is rich to hear her lecturing about moral outrage. I do not doubt Dr. Glendon acted sincerely. She just acted as a sincere Republican. [ED.: Never mind that Amb. Glendon is, apparently, a Democrat.] I hope the bishops who are in such high dudgeon about Obama will demand that Dr. Glendon be forbidden from receiving any Catholic honors until she renounces her association with the Bush administration. [ED.: Last I checked, it wasn't guilt by association with which the Bishops were concerned, but rather actual acts taken and beliefs held by Pres. Obama, himself.] Unlike Obama, after all, she is a Catholic and clearly falls under the prohibition of such awards to those who violate the Church’s fundamental moral beliefs made in the 2004 document "Catholics in Political Life." [ED.: Pres. Obama "clearly falls" within the meaning of "Catholics in Political Life", as the Bishops who have spoken on the matter have clearly stated. Relying over and over again on Jenkins' weak and completely discredited talking point doesn't make the talking point true.]

(editorial commentary added)

This, from the same ridiculous individual who only a few weeks ago attempted to appropriate the moral high ground to himself by declaring what a travesty it would be when the so-called "right wing" inevitably went on the attack against such a worthy Laetare honoree as Ambassador Glendon.


UPDATE #4 (30 April)
Dale Price has Winters' number, as well:

Say what you will about Michael Sean Winters...

...the America Magazine blogger has no shame or sense of irony whatsoever.

***
What a two-faced jackass. Not to mention a brazenly dishonest shill, but you can't make a revolutionary omelette without the occasional crass falsehood.

Where your heart is, there your treasure is, also. Looks like Winters' is in the Presidential Seal. "In all things charity"--unless you do something that makes the baby Caesar cry...

UPDATE #5 (1 May)
FYI. Here's the comment I left at Winters' blog yesterday:

Hmmm. Didn't take long for you to go on the attack against Amb. Glendon. Put aside the irrelevance and fallaciousness of your tu quoque argument, as well as the fact that Amb. Glendon is, apparently, a Democrat. Let's focus instead on the petty hypocrisy of your comments. Back when you thought Amb. Glendon was going to merrily go along with providing cover for Notre Dame's decision to honor the President, you were gushing: ''There is no denying her credentials either as a conservative or as a pro-life advocate. I will bet dollars to doughnuts the next few weeks will make clear, however, that some on the right will begin attacking Dr. Glendon. Of course, Dr. Glendon, like the University of Notre Dame, is a source of pride for all Catholics, not just for conservatives... I would be blind not to admire her accomplishments, her intellectual force, and her love for the Church...'' But a funny thing happened on the way to the commencement stage: your predicted groundswell of ''right-wing'' animosity toward Amb. Glendon never materialized. Instead, what you predicted the ''right wing'' would do turned out to be exactly what you and the rest of the Catholic left did as soon as Amb. Glendon acted in a manner inconsistent with humble obeisance to Pres. Obama.

Steve Earle Takes Songwriting Break to Honor Van Zandt (and to Write a Novel about Roe v. Wade?)

Steve Earle is one of those people for whom I have decidedly mixed feelings, which causes me great consternation every time I have to decide whether to plop down some money to buy a CD.

On the one hand, I recognize Earle's brilliance as a singer-songwriter and a performer. His album with the Del McCoury Band, The Mountain, for example, is one of the BEST albums in the Americana/Bluegrass/Roots Country genre that you'll ever find. And I'm thrilled with the prospect of his upcoming release, Townes, which is a tribute to his mentor (and one of the greatest songwriters of all time), Townes Van Zandt.

On the other hand, Earle's Che-loving brand of leftism is hard to take. But there's no question that he has something to say and, whether you agree with his message or not, it makes him who he is and his music what it is. So, I just suck it up and listen to a great musician making some fine music.

HOWEVER, there is one political line that, should Earle cross it, would make it difficult for me to remain a fan. On the basis of something he said in this interview, it looks like we'll find out fairly soon whether that line gets crossed:

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Steve Earle knew the singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt so well that he watched him play Russian roulette one night when he was drunk and admires him so much that he named his son after him.

***
Earle honors Van Zandt's influence on "Townes," which comes out May 12 on New West Records, by playing his songs in the same stark style in which they were originally recorded.

"Townes was, literally, my mentor," says Earle, who picked up Van Zandt's talent for songwriting and his propensity for hard living. "This may be the best record I've ever done," he adds. "And that hurts my feelings because I'm a singer-songwriter."

Billboard: Why did you decide to record an album of Townes Van Zandt songs?

Steve Earle: I did it now to facilitate finishing my novel -- I started the novel six years ago and writing songs for this album would take a few (more) months out of that process. I had thought of doing this a few times, but I talked myself out of it every time because I'm a singer-songwriter and I had something I wanted to say.

Billboard: Why Van Zandt instead of, say, Woody Guthrie?

Earle: I didn't know Woody Guthrie. I was in Texas, and by the time I was 17 I knew Townes Van Zandt and Jerry Jeff Walker and Guy Clark. There were a lot of really good songwriters in Texas when I was growing up, and the people you can sit in the same room with are going to affect you more than the people you just hear on records. Every single one of these tracks, my heart rate went up when I did it. And I realized that of course I have an emotional stake in these songs -- this is the reason I became a songwriter.

[ED.: So far, so good. Lots of good stuff about Texas Music and some of my favorite singer-songwriters. But then, a few questions and answers later, we get to the money quote.]

***
Billboard: What's your novel about?

Earle: It's my second book -- it's about a defrocked doctor who's a heroin addict who lives in San Antonio in 1963. Ten years before, he was traveling with Hank Williams when he died. And Hank Williams' ghost shows up. The short answer is it's about Hank Williams' ghost and heroin and Roe v. Wade. I may get my ass kicked for this, but no one can say I'm not going for it.

[ED.: Oh, dear Lord. Cringing at first. And then rolling my eyes, wondering if roots-country-rock's ultimate rebel is really just a conventional party-line leftist who is so beholden to taking the "politically correct" position on things that he can't see the plight of the unborn as THE civil rights issue of our time. And by whom is he expecting to "get [his] ass kicked for this"? That really isn't the style of the vast majority of pro-lifers; even the violent extremists who were involved in things like clinic bombings in decades past don't seem to be around much these days. Or, is Earle perhaps talking about some of the folks on the left who might not be so forgiving should one of their cultural icons decide to "betray" them by writing a book that fails to pay homage to Roe? I'm hoping he'll buck the conventional wisdom and get on the right side of history (but I'm not holding my breath). I guess we'll just have to wait until the book comes out to find out.]

(emphasis and editorial commentary added)

Digest of Today's Posts (29 April 2009)

Cardinal Rigali Calls Out Kmiec on His ESCR Lies

Elizabeth Lev: "Why My Mother Turned Down Notre Dame's Laetare Medal"

Yep, That Pretty Much Describes Him

(Digest of Yesterday's Posts (28 April 2009))

Cardinal Rigali Calls Out Kmiec on His ESCR Lies

The Catholic Key has the story:

... Apparently [Kmiec] went too far last week with his [Catholic News Service] column titled, and I'm not kidding, "New ethically sensitive stem-cell guidance from the Obama administration". Cardinal Rigali as head of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities has responded with his own column this week:

New stem cell guidelines not ‘ethically sensitive’

By Cardinal Justin Rigali
Catholic News Service

On April 17 the National Institutes of Health released new draft guidelines for federally funded embryonic stem-cell research. Federal tax dollars will now be used, for the first time, to encourage the destruction of innocent human beings for their stem cells.

Law professor Douglas Kmiec states in an opinion piece distributed by Catholic News Service that the new policy is “ethically sensitive” and in important respects “more strict” than President George W. Bush’s policy that preceded it.

The truth is the opposite.

The policy issued by Bush in August 2001 allowed the federal government to fund research using embryonic stem cells only if the embryos had already been destroyed for these cells before the date of his policy announcement. Thus no researcher could destroy embryos in the future to qualify for federal stem-cell grants.

The new NIH guidelines are more sweeping, encouraging the destruction of new embryos, including those not yet conceived. While Kmiec says embryos will be donated using a “strict” process by which the parents give consent, that is surely broader than not allowing them to be donated for destruction at all.

Kmiec says the new guidelines are limited to embryos created for fertility treatment that “would have been discarded if not devoted to medical research.”

That is also not true.

Parents will be invited to consider donating their embryonic sons or daughters for research at the same time that they are considering whether to save them for their own later reproduction or donate them so another couple can have a baby. The new guidelines will encourage destruction of some embryonic human beings who could otherwise have lived and grown up to adulthood.

In key respects, these guidelines are broader than any proposed in the past for destructive embryonic stem-cell research by any president or Congress.

Through his executive order of March 2009, President Barack Obama also authorized the NIH to broaden the policy later, to include, for example, the use of stem cells from cloned embryos specially created for research. Tragically there is significant support in Congress for such further expansion as well, and pro-life Americans will be called upon to defeat such legislation.

Here Kmiec applauds Obama for taking “off the table” the option of “reproductive cloning.” But that only means cloned human embryos will be created solely for stem cells and other research uses, and not be allowed to survive and be born. That cannot be called a sensitive or pro-life policy.

With all due respect to Kmiec, then, on this and other issues relating to the destruction of unborn human life, the federal government is not moving “in a noticeably more Catholic-friendly direction.” Nor is it moving in a human-friendly direction.

The values and ideals of our nation on the equality of all human beings are at stake when we discuss such issues, for people of all religions or no religion.

Respect for human life at every stage must govern our treatment of all human beings in law and medical research. To the extent that it does not, we are no longer talking about authentic human progress.

(Cardinal Rigali is archbishop of Philadelphia and chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities.)

(emphasis added)

My Comments:
Hey, Prof. Kmiec, I think Cardinal Rigali - in so many words - just called you a liar.


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Prof. George Schools Prof. Kmiec ... Again

Scholar vs. Hack: Prof. George Schools Prof. Kmiec re: "Did Obama Allow Human Cloning?"

Elizabeth Lev: "Why My Mother Turned Down Notre Dame's Laetare Medal"

(Hat tip: Amy Welborn)

Writer and art historian Elizabeth Lev writes:

... The Laetare Medal is the highest honor conferred on Catholics in the United States. For a Catholic, it has greater prestige than a Nobel Prize for a scientist or an Academy Award for an actor, as the award is given for career-long achievement, for "staying the course" in the words of St. Paul. It doesn't just showcase a single discovery or film role.

To renounce it, therefore, is not the lightest of matters. Professor Glendon has spent a month thinking, consulting, and given her deep faith, praying about this decision. (This, for those of you who don't know, means asking God to help one put aside one's own personal concerns and act in the way that will produce the greatest good). (Kaitlynn) Riely's dismissive "thanks, no thanks" rendering of her decision, while pithy, is reductive.

Professor Glendon was to have been honored for not only for her scholarship, but for her second career, her pro-bono work -- ranging from the civil rights movement of the 1960s to the great civil rights issues of the present day -- namely, the defense of human life from conception to natural death. Her concerns range from the aging and dying population to the unborn to the well-being and dignity of every life, regardless of race, religion, or economic status. Her outstanding work in this field has earned her the respect of the most brilliant minds of the international community, regardless of whether they agree with her position. So again, to see her merely as "strongly anti-abortion" instead of as a tireless defender of the dignity of life, is to reveal not only a lack of understanding of the subject's work, but also the writer's real interest in this question.

Furthermore, during his first 100 days in office, President Obama has worked tirelessly to undermine Professor Glendon's lifetime of work; he is funding abortion out of the bailout package and planning to suppress the protection of conscience for health care workers.

Your notion that her "training in diplomacy" might somehow ease this situation does not take into account that she has a five-minute acceptance speech and he will have a lengthy commencement speech. There is no "engaging" here. Diplomacy generally teaches that if you have a rapier and your opponent has a missile launcher, try not to engage.

That Professor Glendon "did not like that Notre Dame was claiming her speech would serve to balance the event" is again facile and simplistic. What is there to like in being the deflector screen for inviting a profoundly divisive figure to give the commencement speech? What is likeable about a Catholic University named for the most important woman in Christianity exploiting a woman who has already dedicated her life to protecting the Church's teaching by turning her into a warm-up act for a grotesque twist on a reality show?

Finally, after 50 Catholic bishops condemned the university for its direct defiance in honoring a man in open conflict with the Church's teaching, it is right that Professor Glendon let her silence speak louder than her five-minute allotment of words would have.

Readers might be wondering how I know all this. Well, for one I am her daughter, but more to the point, I read her letter with the careful consideration it deserves.

Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
"... Dollars to Doughnuts ..."

Desperation Time at ND

Ambassador Glendon Declines Laetare Medal [UPDATED]

Notre Dame Should Be a Witness for Human Life

Bishop D'Arcy Publicly Corrects President Jenkins' "Flawed Justification for His Actions" [UPDATED]

Notre Dame's President Jenkins: "We Are Tremendously Proud" to be Acting in Defiance of the US Catholic Bishops

Bishop D'Arcy Speaks on Notre Dame and Obama; Bishop Will Not Attend Boycott Ceremony

President Obama Invited to Give Commencement Address at Notre Dame; Catholics Respond to the Scandal [UPDATED]

Yep, That Pretty Much Describes Him

Today's National Review editorial perfectly sums up Arlen Specter:

Arlen Specter belongs to a type familiar to Congress: the time-serving hack devoid of any principle save arrogance. He has spent three decades in the Senate but is associated with no great cause, no prescient warning, no landmark legislation. Yet he imagines that the Senate needs his wisdom and judgment for a sixth term. He joined the Republican party out of expediency in the 1960s, and leaves it out of expediency this week.

Those who attribute his defection to the rise of social conservatism are deluding themselves. It is not as though he has been a reliable vote for any other type of conservatism. He has stood apart from the mainstream of his party on welfare reform, trade, taxes, affirmative action, judicial appointments, tort reform, and national-security law...

(emphasis added)

I'm really not into party politics, so whether the pro-abort Specter has an "R" or a "D" next to his name is of little import to me. But if I were a Republican, I'd be wishing good riddance to bad rubbish.

Digest of Today's Posts (28 April 2009)

"... Dollars to Doughnuts ..." [UPDATED]

Desperation Time at ND

(Digest of Yesterday's Posts (27 April 2009))

"... Dollars to Doughnuts ..." [UPDATED]

Anyone else remember Michael Sean Winters' ridiculous prediction at America a few weeks ago?

"Now, of course, the stage at Notre Dame will be shared by someone whom the right has seen as a champion, Ambassador MaryAnn Glendon. There is no denying her credentials either as a conservative or as a pro-life advocate. I will bet dollars to doughnuts the next few weeks will make clear, however, that some on the right will begin attacking Dr. Glendon. Of course, Dr. Glendon, like the University of Notre Dame, is a source of pride for all Catholics, not just for conservatives. I view the world through very different lenses from Dr. Glendon, but I would be blind not to admire her accomplishments, her intellectual force, and her love for the Church. Whatever disagreements I have with her are disagreements within the family. (Of course, the right wing doesn’t view Notre Dame with the same "All in the Family" spirit.) And, in any event, here is a chance to fight another battle in the culture wars so who cares if Dr. Glendon must be thrown overboard?"

(emphasis added)

(Hat tip: Creative Minority Report)

Of course, the imagined "right-wing" attacks on Ambassador Glendon never materialized (not surprisingly).

But, interestingly enough, since yesterday's announcement of Ambassador Glendon's decision to decline Notre Dame's Laetare Medal, a subset of "enlightened Catholics" (who, no doubt, read Michael Sean Winters religiously) has decided that it's open season on Ambassador Glendon (as these comments at Amy Welborn's blog bear out):

Has long-time commenter RP wrapped it up and tied it tight, or does he drop it?

To grasp, as Glendon is doing here, for the moral high ground in opposition to a pro-abortion-rights president even as she has most recently been the public representative -- to the Vatican, no less! -- of an administration that had, as unapologetic policy, such intrinsic evils as torture: well, it is more ironic than I could ever have imagined.

Todd, another long-time commenter at Amy's, thinks this assessment is "Brilliant!"

And another commenter adds:

As Ambassador to the Vatican, Glendon was representing President Bush and his torture policy. She was also representing President Bush, the most prolific executioner of those on death row in American history. She also represented President Bush, who was carrying out an unjust war in addition to torturing.

Her hands are not clean.

Fortunately, Tom K is there to call the detractors on their hypocrisy:

Did I just miss all the criticism of Mary Ann Glendon prior to yesterday's open letter?

I remember a lot of "deservedly" and "no question" and "fitting balance" when she was announced as the Laetare Medal winner a few days after President Obama was announced as the commencement speaker and honorary law degree recipient. There must have been some "dirty hands" and "bishops' pawn," but I don't remember seeing any of it.

Exactly. I'm thinking Michael Sean Winters was somewhat guilty of projection in criticizing pro-life "right wingers" for something they never did, but which turned out to be exactly the tack the Catholic left immediately took as soon as Ambassador Glendon acted in a manner inconsistent with humble obeisance to The One.


UPDATE (29 April)
Here's another "right winger" who has turned on Ambassador Glendon. Uh ... wait ... never mind:

Suzette Martinez Standring: Mary Ann Glendon was the wrong recipient of the Laetare Medal anyway

Hmmm. What have you to say to that, Michael Sean Winters? Will he admonish these new attackers of Ambassador Glendon in the same way he tsk-tsked pro-lifers for predicted attacks on her that never transpired? Think he'll continue to defend Ambassador Glendon as "a source of pride for all Catholics, not just for conservatives" and continue to express admiration for "her accomplishments, her intellectual force, and her love for the Church" in the face of such criticism from his fellow Obamaphile Catholics?

I'm not holding my breath.


UPDATE #2 (29 April)
Fr. Z fisks an attack on Ambassador Glendon by the anti-Catholic hate group calling itself Catholic Democrats.

(Hat tip: Don McClarey at The American Catholic)


UPDATE #3 (30 April 2009)
And now, Michael Sean Winters, himself, joins in on the left's anti-Glendon feeding frenzy:

... Dr. Mary Ann Glendon certainly seems to think it a moral impossibility to share the stage with the President. [ED.: I don't believe she ever said that. What she said was that the University had put her in an awkward position by using her as the "And from the right ..." foil to Pres. Obama's presence on the commencement platform. But don't let the facts get in the way of a good partisan rant.] Given the fact that her last employer, the Bush administration, committed torture which is, last time I checked, an intrinsic moral evil, it is rich to hear her lecturing about moral outrage. I do not doubt Dr. Glendon acted sincerely. She just acted as a sincere Republican. [ED.: Never mind that Amb. Glendon is, apparently, a Democrat.] I hope the bishops who are in such high dudgeon about Obama will demand that Dr. Glendon be forbidden from receiving any Catholic honors until she renounces her association with the Bush administration. [ED.: Last I checked, it wasn't guilt by association with which the Bishops were concerned, but rather actual acts taken and beliefs held by Pres. Obama, himself.] Unlike Obama, after all, she is a Catholic and clearly falls under the prohibition of such awards to those who violate the Church’s fundamental moral beliefs made in the 2004 document "Catholics in Political Life." [ED.: Pres. Obama "clearly falls" within the meaning of "Catholics in Political Life", as the Bishops who have spoken on the matter have clearly stated. Relying over and over again on Jenkins' weak and completely discredited talking point doesn't make the talking point true.]

(editorial commentary added)

This, from the same ridiculous individual who only a few weeks ago attempted to appropriate the moral high ground to himself by declaring what a travesty it would be when the so-called "right wing" inevitably went on the attack against such a worthy Laetare honoree as Ambassador Glendon.


UPDATE #4 (30 April)
Dale Price has Winters' number, as well:

Say what you will about Michael Sean Winters...

...the America Magazine blogger has no shame or sense of irony whatsoever.

***
What a two-faced jackass. Not to mention a brazenly dishonest shill, but you can't make a revolutionary omelette without the occasional crass falsehood.

Where your heart is, there your treasure is, also. Looks like Winters' is in the Presidential Seal. "In all things charity"--unless you do something that makes the baby Caesar cry...

UPDATE #5 (1 May)
FYI. Here's the comment I left at Winters' blog yesterday:

Hmmm. Didn't take long for you to go on the attack against Amb. Glendon. Put aside the irrelevance and fallaciousness of your tu quoque argument, as well as the fact that Amb. Glendon is, apparently, a Democrat. Let's focus instead on the petty hypocrisy of your comments. Back when you thought Amb. Glendon was going to merrily go along with providing cover for Notre Dame's decision to honor the President, you were gushing: ''There is no denying her credentials either as a conservative or as a pro-life advocate. I will bet dollars to doughnuts the next few weeks will make clear, however, that some on the right will begin attacking Dr. Glendon. Of course, Dr. Glendon, like the University of Notre Dame, is a source of pride for all Catholics, not just for conservatives... I would be blind not to admire her accomplishments, her intellectual force, and her love for the Church...'' But a funny thing happened on the way to the commencement stage: your predicted groundswell of ''right-wing'' animosity toward Amb. Glendon never materialized. Instead, what you predicted the ''right wing'' would do turned out to be exactly what you and the rest of the Catholic left did as soon as Amb. Glendon acted in a manner inconsistent with humble obeisance to Pres. Obama.

Desperation Time at ND

Check out this item on CraigsList.

(Hat tip: South Bender)

Digest of Today's Posts (27 April 2009)

Ambassador Glendon Declines Laetare Medal [UPDATED]

Funny Line of the Day ...

(Digest of Friday's Posts (24 April 2009))

Ambassador Glendon Declines Laetare Medal [UPDATED]

(Hat tip: Amy Welborn)

Holy crap! Apparently, Ambassador Glendon is not pleased with how the University used her to justify its decision to honor President Obama:

Dear Father Jenkins,

When you informed me in December 2008 that I had been selected to receive Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal, I was profoundly moved. I treasure the memory of receiving an honorary degree from Notre Dame in 1996, and I have always felt honored that the commencement speech I gave that year was included in the anthology of Notre Dame’s most memorable commencement speeches. So I immediately began working on an acceptance speech that I hoped would be worthy of the occasion, of the honor of the medal, and of your students and faculty.

Last month, when you called to tell me that the commencement speech was to be given by President Obama, I mentioned to you that I would have to rewrite my speech. [ED.: Perhaps she was going to address the life issues head on. It's a pity that this speech will not be heard now.] Over the ensuing weeks, the task that once seemed so delightful has been complicated by a number of factors.

First, as a longtime consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, I could not help but be dismayed by the news that Notre Dame also planned to award the president an honorary degree. This, as you must know, was in disregard of the U.S. bishops’ express request of 2004 that Catholic institutions “should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles” and that such persons “should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.” That request, which in no way seeks to control or interfere with an institution’s freedom to invite and engage in serious debate with whomever it wishes, seems to me so reasonable that I am at a loss to understand why a Catholic university should disrespect it.

Then I learned that “talking points” issued by Notre Dame in response to widespread criticism of its decision included two statements implying that my acceptance speech would somehow balance the event:

• “President Obama won’t be doing all the talking. Mary Ann Glendon, the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, will be speaking as the recipient of the Laetare Medal.”

• “We think having the president come to Notre Dame, see our graduates, meet our leaders, and hear a talk from Mary Ann Glendon is a good thing for the president and for the causes we care about.”

A commencement, however, is supposed to be a joyous day for the graduates and their families. It is not the right place, nor is a brief acceptance speech the right vehicle, for engagement with the very serious problems raised by Notre Dame’s decision—in disregard of the settled position of the U.S. bishops—to honor a prominent and uncompromising opponent of the Church’s position on issues involving fundamental principles of justice.

Finally, with recent news reports that other Catholic schools are similarly choosing to disregard the bishops’ guidelines, I am concerned that Notre Dame’s example could have an unfortunate ripple effect.

It is with great sadness, therefore, that I have concluded that I cannot accept the Laetare Medal or participate in the May 17 graduation ceremony.

In order to avoid the inevitable speculation about the reasons for my decision, I will release this letter to the press, but I do not plan to make any further comment on the matter at this time.

Yours Very Truly,

Mary Ann Glendon

(emphasis and editorial commentary added)


UPDATED
Michael Denton (soon headed to LSU law school) provides some good analysis.

Others commenting on the story include:
Amy Welborn (here, here, and here)

National Catholic Register

InsideCatholic

Catholic Online

The Cranky Conservative

The American Catholic

Southern Appeal

Creative Minority Report

Opinionated Catholic

Vox Nova

American Papist (here and here)

dotCommonweal

The Curt Jester


UPDATE #2
Notre Dame replies:

The following statement from Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., president of the University of Notre Dame, is in response to the decision by Mary Ann Glendon to decline acceptance of the University’s Laetare Medal:

“We are, of course, disappointed that Professor Glendon has made this decision. It is our intention to award the Laetare Medal to another deserving recipient, and we will make that announcement as soon as possible.”

Ever defiant, that Jenkins. "Oh yeah? Well, we'll just find someone else!"

The sad thing is that they'll probably find some willing also-ran to sell out ... errr ... accept the award. But, as this commenter at Amy's blog points out, finding a replacement could be a no-win situation for Notre Dame:

One would think that the special PR team brought in by the administration would realize that this is a no-win situation. None of the really good candidates for the award will take it, out of respect for Professor Glendon, and a sub-par candidate will just unleash further firestorms. Watching Jenkins, et al. continue to dig themselves in deeper and deeper just makes me cringe.

Yep.


UPDATE #3
The general consensus for a replacement Laetare Medal recipient seems to have coalesced around the one person who appears shameless enough and ignominious enough to actually accept the award as a "re-gift":

None other than Prof. Doug Kmiec.

The man was made for this moment.


UPDATE #4
Prof. Beckwith on the unseemliness of "regifting" the Laetare Medal:

I am no expert in public relations, but regifting a prestigious medal should not even have been on the table. It runs the risk of adding injury to insult. For whoever is the runner-up recipient of the 2009 Laetare Medal will now undergo a level scrutiny that would have not occurred if he or she were the first choice under different circumstances. Very, very strange.

Yes, but that's what pride does to a person. And President Jenkins seems to have an overabundance of that particular vice.

Funny Line of the Day ...

... from a commenter at Creative Minority Report:

Obama is not the messiah. Historically speaking, it is understood that the messiah can build a frickin' cabinet.

Digest of Today's Posts (24 April 2009)

Proof that the Group Calling Itself "Catholic Democrats" is More "Democrat" Than "Catholic" [UPDATED]

Two Statements on What it Means to be a Catholic University

(Digest of Yesterday's Posts (23 April 2009))

Proof that the Group Calling Itself "Catholic Democrats" is More "Democrat" Than "Catholic" [UPDATED]

Go over to Rich Leonardi's blog to read the email that removes all doubt that the group calling itself "Catholic Democrats" puts its Democrat identity first and foremost.

It's right there on Democrat Party letterhead, sent "On behalf of Catholic Democrats". But it's the disgusting content of the email - which attacks the Catholic bishops, accusing them of being "partisan" for expressing the Church's pro-life views - that gives the game away.

Brought to you by the same "committed Catholic Democrat[s]" that gave us Eric McFadden.


(Hat tip: Chris Blosser, "Catholic Democrats of Ohio vs. the Catholic Bishops ")


UPDATE
The Cranky Conservative provides a good fisking of the Catholic Democrats email in "Party over Faith".


UPDATE #2
Fr. Z also provides his usual erudite analysis.


UPDATE #3
By the way, just in case anyone would like to counteract the Catholic Democrat efforts to affect the outcome of the Enquirer poll, here's the link so you can do your thing.

Two Statements on What it Means to be a Catholic University

Just to recap, in the past couple of days, we've seen 2 of the most eloquent and thoughful statements regarding the University of Notre Dame's decision to invite President Obama to deliver the university's 2009 commencement address and receive an honorary doctor of laws degree.

First is Bishop D'Arcy's "Statement to the Faithful", which seeks to publicly correct the errors and mistatements Notre Dame President John Jenkins has made in justifying the invitation.

Second is Bill McGurn's speech to the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture and The Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life.

Each, in their own way, seeks to lay out the duties and responsibilities of the nation's premiere Catholic university in living out its Catholic identity in a world that has become increasingly secularized and hostile to a culture of life. If you haven't read both already, I strongly encourage you to do so.

Digest of Today's Posts (23 April 2009)

Notre Dame Should Be a Witness for Human Life

Obama Culture of Death Update™: Administration Now on Record That Promoting "Reproductive Health" Equals Promoting Abortion Abroad

Surprise, Surprise: Reuters Makes Up News to Fit Pro-Abort Agenda

(Digest of Yesterday's Posts (22 April 2009))

Notre Dame Should Be a Witness for Human Life

(Hat tip: Feddie)

Bill McGurn delivered this powerful speech earlier this evening at the University of Notre Dame:

... The precipitate cause of our gathering tonight is the honor and platform our university has extended to a President whose policies reflect clear convictions about unborn life, and about the value the law ought to place on protecting that life. These convictions are not in doubt. In July 2007, the candidate spelled them out in a forceful address to a Planned Parenthood convention in our nation’s capital.

Before that audience, he declared that a woman’s “fundamental right” to an abortion was at stake in the coming election. He spoke about how he had “put Roe at the center” of his “lesson plan on reproductive freedom” when he was a professor – and how he would put it at the center of his agenda as president. He invoked his record in the Illinois state senate, where he fought restrictions on abortion, famously including one on partial-birth abortion. He said that the “first thing” he wanted to do as President was to “sign a Freedom of Choice Act.” And he ended by assuring his audience that “on this fundamental issue,” he, like they, would never yield.

These were his promises as a candidate. His actions as President – his key appointments, his judicial nominees, his lifting of restrictions on federal funding for abortion providers overseas, the green light given to the destruction of human embryos for research, his targeting of “conscience clause” protections for healthcare workers – all these actions are fully consistent with his promises. It is precisely this terrible consistency that makes it so dispiriting to see our university extend to this man her most public platform and an honorary doctorate of laws. There are good men and women working for an America where every child is welcomed in life and protected by law – and when they lift their eyes to Notre Dame, they ought to find inspiration.

So tonight our hearts carry a great sadness. But we do not come here this evening to rally against a speaker. We come to affirm the sacredness of life. And we come with a great hope: That a university founded under the patronage of Our Lady might be as consistent in the defense of her principles as the President of the United States has been for advancing his. In a nation wounded by Roe … in a society that sets mothers against the children they carry in their wombs … we come here tonight because however much our hearts ache, they tell us this: Our church, our country, and our culture long for the life witness of Notre Dame.

What does it mean to be a witness? To be a witness, an institution must order itself so that all who look upon it see a consonance between its most profound truths and its most public actions. For a Catholic university in the 21st century, this requires that those placed in her most critical leadership positions – on the faculty, in the administration, on the board of trustees – share that mission. We must concede there is no guarantee that the young men and women who come here to learn will assent to her witness – but we must never forget that the university will have failed them if they leave here without at least understanding it. That is what it means to be a witness.

This witness is the only real reason for a University of Notre Dame. We believe that there are self-evident truths about the dignity of each human life, and that this dignity derives from our having been fashioned in our Creator’s likeness. In this new century, these beliefs make us the counterculture. One does not need to be a Catholic to appreciate that abortion involves the brutal taking of innocent human life. To argue that this is a Catholic truth, or even a religious truth, is to overlook what science and sonograms tell us – and to insult the Protestants, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and, yes, even some atheists, who appreciate that a civilization which sanctions abortion as a human right is in some essential way writing its death warrant.

Over the years, the whole idea of truth – much less our ability to know it – has been rendered doubtful by the slow advance of a soft agnosticism that has itself become orthodoxy at so many universities. Not so at Notre Dame. All across this wondrous campus, we pass imagery that sings to us about the hope born of a Jewish woman in a Bethlehem stable. Yet we kid ourselves if we believe these images are self-sustaining. Without a witness that keeps these signposts alive, our crosses, statues, and stained-glass windows will ultimately fade into historical curiosities like the “Christo et ecclesiae” that survives to this day on buildings around Harvard Yard and the seal that still validates every Harvard degree.

***
With the idea that one human being has the right to take the life of another merely because the other’s life is inconvenient, our culture elevates into law the primacy of the strong over the weak. The discord that this year’s commencement has unleashed – between Notre Dame and the bishops, between members of the Notre Dame community, between Notre Dame and thousands of discouraged Catholic faithful – all this derives from an approach that for decades has treated abortion as one issue on a political scorecard. This is not the road to engagement. This is the route to incoherence, and we see its fruit everywhere in our public life.

Twenty-five years ago, on a similar stage on this campus, the then-governor of New York used his Notre Dame platform to advance the personally-opposed-but defense that countless numbers of Catholic politicians have used to paper over their surrender to legalized abortion. Eight years after that, the school bestowed the Laetare Medal on a United States Senator who had likewise long since cut his conscience to fit the abortion fashion.

Today we have evolved. Let us note that the present controversy comes at a moment where the incoherence of the Catholic witness in American public life is on view at the highest levels of our government. Today we have a Catholic vice president, a Catholic Speaker of the House, a Catholic nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, and so on. These are America’s most prominent Catholics. And they have one thing in common: The assertion that the legal right to terminate a pregnancy – in the chilling euphemism of the day – must remain inviolable.

For those who think this a partisan point, let us stipulate for the record one of the curiosities of the Republican Party. Notwithstanding the party’s prolife credentials, at the level of possible Presidential contenders, the most prominent pro-choice voices in the GOP arguably belong to Catholics: from the former Republican mayor and governor of New York, to the Republican Governor of California, the Republican former governor of Pennsylvania, and so on. Notre Dame must recognize these realities – and the role she has played in bringing us to this day by treating abortion as a political difference rather than the intrinsic evil it is.

***
Ladies and gentlemen, the unborn child’s right to life represents the defining civil rights issue of our day – and it ought to be a defining civil rights issue on this campus.

This is not a popular witness. In our country, those who take it must expect ridicule and derision and a deliberate distortion of our views. In our culture, so many of our most powerful and influential institutions are hostile to any hint that abortion might be an unsettled question. And in our public life, one of the most pernicious effects of the imposition of abortion via the Supreme Court is that it has deprived a free people of a fair and open debate. Notre Dame remains one of the few institutions capable of providing a witness for life in the fullness of its beauty and intellectual integrity – and America is waiting to hear her voice.

***
In her most public witness, Notre Dame appears afraid to extend to the cause of the unborn the same enthusiasm she shows for so many other good works here.

If, for example, you click onto www.nd.edu, you will often find a link for the Office of Sustainability, which happily informs you about all the things Notre Dame is doing to be green-friendly. You will find another link that defines the university with a series of videos that ask, “What would you fight for?” Each home game during the football season, NBC broadcasts one of these videos. They are more than a dozen of them – each highlighting members of the Notre Dame community who are fighting for justice, fighting for advances in medicine, fighting for new immigrants, and so forth.

Imagine the witness that Notre Dame might provide on a Fall afternoon, if millions of Americans who had sat down to watch a football game suddenly found themselves face to face with a Notre Dame professor or student standing up to say, “I fight for the unborn.”

[Read the whole thing]

(emphasis added)

Amen.


UPDATE (24 April)
You can also read the full text of the speech at the website for the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, which co-sponsored last night's event with The Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life.

Obama Culture of Death Update™: Administration Now on Record That Promoting "Reproductive Health" Equals Promoting Abortion Abroad

The Cathoholic reports:

... Today, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton essentially confirmed what pro-lifers have argued for years [that inclusion of "reproductive rights" and "reproductive health" into broader international documents was code for creating an international "right" to abortion]. In an appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Commttee, she primarily responded to questions related to U.S. foreign policy regarding Iran. However, an exchange with two pro-life congressmen elicited a revealing response from the new Secretary of State.

***
"Clinton was at her most emotional in batting down questions from Reps. Chris Smith, R-N.J., and Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., about the Obama administration's support for international family planning services. Smith and Fortenberry are among Capitol Hill's staunchest abortion opponents.

"Smith asked if the administration was seeking "in any way to weaken or overturn pro-life laws and policies in African and Latin American countries." Fortenberry asked: "Is forcing U.S. taxpayers to fund abortion in keeping with the highest values of the United States of America?"

"We have a very fundamental disagreement," Clinton told Smith, describing how she had seen women suffering in Africa, Latin America and Asia because of inadequate family planning and health care.

"It is my strongly held view that you are entitled to advocate, and everyone who agrees with you should be free to do so, anywhere in the world and so are we," Clinton said. "We happen to think that family planning is an important part of women's health and reproductive health includes access to abortion that I believe should be safe, legal and rare."

Now it's on the record: "reproductive health includes access to abortion."

***
[Rep. Smith later responded:] "They’ve been stealthy about promoting abortion, ..and emphasize other issues on which people can agree. Now this reveals unambiguously that the U.S. definition of reproductive health includes abortion."

[More]

(emphasis and bracketed material added)


This Obama Culture of Death Update™ has been brought to you by Prof. Douglas Kmiec, Eric McFadden, all the fine folks at Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good / Catholics United / Catholic Democrats, and countless other Catholics for whom "Hope" and "Change" trumped LIFE.







UPDATE
(Hat tip: Cranky Conservative)



You go, Rep. Fortenberry! Hillary, just go ...


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Obama Culture of Death Update™: President Lifts Ban on Federal ESCR Funding

Obama Culture of Death Update™: Obama Nominee for Deputy Sec. of State Says Taxpayers Constitutionally Obligated to Fund Abortion

Moral Accountability . com

Obama Culture of Death Update™: Abortion Necessary to "Ensure Our Daughters Have the Same Rights and Opportunities As Our Sons"

Obama Culture of Death Update™: "White House Web Site Becomes Pro-Abortion After Obama Takeover"

Obama Culture of Death Update™: Among President Obama's First Official Acts is Promoting Abortion Abroad [UPDATED]

Surprise, Surprise: Reuters Makes Up News to Fit Pro-Abort Agenda

Patrick Archbold provides details at Creative Minority Report: "Media Bias, No Media BS".

Digest of Today's Posts (22 April 2009)

Bishop D'Arcy Publicly Corrects President Jenkins' "Flawed Justification for His Actions" [UPDATED]

National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, May 8, 2009

MyHometownOhio Lists Ranking of Ohio County Seats; Norwalk Ranked a "Super County Seat"

(Digest of Yesterday's Posts (21 April 2009))

Bishop D'Arcy Publicly Corrects President Jenkins' "Flawed Justification for His Actions" [UPDATED]

“I consider it now settled,” writes Bishop D’Arcy, “that the USCCB document, ‘Catholics in Public Life,’ does indeed apply in this matter.”

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Recently, Father John Jenkins, CSC, in a letter of response to Bishop Olmsted of the Diocese of Phoenix, who had written him, critical of the decision to invite President Obama to speak and receive an honorary degree of law at Notre Dame, indicated that it was his conviction that the statement “Catholics in Political Life” (USCCB) did not apply in this matter. Father Jenkins kindly sent me a copy of his letter, and also at a later meeting, asked for a response.

In an April 15th letter to Father Jenkins, I responded to his letter.

Now the points made in his letter have been sent by Father Jenkins to the members of the Notre Dame Board of Trustees and have been publicized nationally, as well as locally in the South Bend Tribune. Since the matter is now public, it is my duty as the bishop of this diocese to respond and correct. I take up this responsibility with some sadness, but also with the conviction that if I did not do so, I would be remiss in my pastoral responsibility.

Rather than share my full letter, which I have shared with some in church leadership, I prefer to present some of the key points.

1. The meaning of the sentence in the USCCB document relative to Catholic institutions is clear. It places the responsibility on those institutions, and indeed, on the Catholic community itself.

“The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.” — “Catholics in Political Life,” USCCB.

2. When there is a doubt concerning the meaning of a document of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, where does one find the authentic interpretation? A fundamental, canonical and theological principal states that it is found in the local bishop, who is the teacher and lawgiver in his diocese. — Canon 330, 375 §§ 1 & 2; 380; 381 § 1; 391 § 1; 392, & 394 §1.

3. I informed Father Jenkins that if there was any genuine questions or doubt about the meaning of the relevant sentence in the conference’s document, any competent canonist with knowledge of the tradition and love for Christ’s church had the responsibility to inform Father Jenkins of the fundamental principle that the diocesan bishop alone bears the responsibility to provide an authoritative interpretation.

4. I reminded Father Jenkins that he indicated that he consulted presidents of other Catholic universities, and at least indirectly, consulted other bishops, since he asked those presidents to share with him those judgments of their own bishops. However, he chose not to consult his own bishop who, as I made clear, is the teacher and lawgiver in his own diocese. I reminded Father Jenkins that I was not informed of the invitation until after it was accepted by the president. I mentioned again that it is at the heart of the diocesan bishop’s pastoral responsibility to teach as revealed in sacred Scripture and the tradition. (“Lumen Gentium,” 20; and “Christus Dominus,” 2.) I reminded him that it is also central to the university’s relationship to the church. (“Ex corde ecclesiae,” 27 & 28; Gen. Norm., Art. 5, §§ 1-3.)

5. Another key point. In his letter to Bishop Olmsted and in the widespread publicity, which has taken place as the points in the letter have been made public, Father Jenkins declared the invitation to President Obama does not “suggest support” for his actions, because he has expressed and continues to express disagreement with him on issues surrounding protection of life. I wrote that the outpouring of hundreds of thousands who are shocked by the invitation clearly demonstrates, that this invitation has, in fact, scandalized many Catholics and other people of goodwill. In my office alone, there have been over 3,300 messages of shock, dismay and outrage, and they are still coming in. It seems that the action in itself speaks so loudly that people have not been able to hear the words of Father Jenkins, and indeed, the action has suggested approval to many.

In the publicity surrounding the points Father Jenkins has made, he also says he is “following the document of the bishops” by “laying a basis for engagement with the president on this issue.” I indicated that I, like many others, will await to see what the follow up is on this issue between Notre Dame and President Obama.

6. As I have said in a recent interview and which I have said to Father Jenkins, it would be one thing to bring the president here for a discussion on healthcare or immigration, and no person of goodwill could rightly oppose this. We have here, however, the granting of an honorary degree of law to someone whose activities both as president and previously, have been altogether supportive of laws against the dignity of the human person yet to be born.

In my letter, I have also asked Father Jenkins to correct, and if possible, withdraw the erroneous talking points, which appeared in the South Bend Tribune and in other media outlets across the country. The statements which Father Jenkins has made are simply wrong and give a flawed justification for his actions.

I consider it now settled — that the USCCB document, “Catholics in Public Life,” does indeed apply in this matter.

The failure to consult the local bishop who, whatever his unworthiness, is the teacher and lawgiver in the diocese, is a serious mistake. Proper consultation could have prevented an action, which has caused such painful division between Notre Dame and many bishops — and a large number of the faithful.

That division must be addressed through prayer and action, and I pledge to work with Father Jenkins and all at Notre Dame to heal the terrible breach, which has taken place between Notre Dame and the church. It cannot be allowed to continue.

I ask all to pray that this healing will take place in a way that is substantial and true, and not illusory. Notre Dame and Father Jenkins must do their part if this healing is to take place. I will do my part.

Sincerely yours in our Lord,
Most Reverend
John M. D’Arcy

(emphasis added)


UPDATE
Tom Peters provides analysis at American Papist.


UPDATE #2 (23 April 2009)
Additional analysis by Fr. Z. (Hat tip: Don McClarey at The American Catholic)

National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, May 8, 2009

(Hat tip: American Papist)

The 6th Annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast will take place on May 8, 2009:

6th Annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast

Mass

Thursday, May 7, 6:30 pm
The Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle
1725 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
----

National Catholic Prayer Breakfast

Friday, May 8 - 7:45 am
Hilton Washington
1919 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
(Doors open at 6:45 am - Rosary at 7:15 am)

Among those who already believe this event to be just some "right-wing" Catholic gathering organized by "stalwart Republican operatives" to "advance the divisive partisanship of the right and seek to hijack Catholic teaching for the Republican agenda", the line-up of speakers is sure to raise some hackles:

Our keynote speaker is His Excellency, Archbishop Emeritus of St. Louis, Raymond L. Burke, who serves as the Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura and President of the Commission for Advocates.

Our special guest speaker is The Honorable Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

I do hope that President Obama is invited and will attend. This type of event is EXACTLY the sort of forum at which Catholics should be "engaging the culture" and at which the sort of "dialogue" with President Obama of which we hear so much should be taking place.

MyHometownOhio Lists Ranking of Ohio County Seats; Norwalk Ranked a "Super County Seat"

From MyHometownOhio:

Ranking Ohio's County Seats

by Staff on Wed 22 Apr 2009 11:33 AM EDT Permanent Link

Some time ago, a member of an online forum compiled the following list of several of Ohio’s county seat towns, arranged by classification on how each respects and preserves its own built history. While you may agree or not agree with some of the selections made (nor do we at Preservation Ohio necessarily agree with them), it nevertheless provides an interesting point of discussion.

Super County Seats: Super County Seats have largely intact historic resources, have a strong preservation ethic (or at least one strong preservation project underway and which may include a preservation-based downtown revitalization program), convey a strong sense of place, have a downtown adjacent to one or more intact historic residential districts, are highly unique and potentially regionally or nationally important.

Greenville
Mount Vernon
Delaware
Circleville
Norwalk
Troy
Hillsboro
McConnelsville

[More]

(emphasis added)

Digest of Today's Posts (21 April 2009)

Notre Dame's President Jenkins: "We Are Tremendously Proud" to be Acting in Defiance of the US Catholic Bishops

A Personal Message from Bishop Blair

Creative Minority Report Quotes Walker Percy on the "Pro-Choice" Abortion Con

Rich Leonardi Reviews New Book on English Reformation: Supremacy and Survival

A New Front in the Church's Civil War

Toledo Dodges Another Bullet: It's Carlson, Not Blair, to St. Louis

(Digest of Yesterday's Posts (20 April 2009))

Notre Dame's President Jenkins: "We Are Tremendously Proud" to be Acting in Defiance of the US Catholic Bishops

I'm really beginning to dislike this guy, Jenkins:

SOUTH BEND, Indiana, April 21, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - University of Notre Dame president Fr. John Jenkins heaped fuel on the fire yesterday by gushing that President Obama's highly controversial platform at the school's commencement would be a "tremendous event" for Notre Dame.

***
"This is a tremendous event for us. We're tremendously proud [to be acting in defiance of the U.S. Catholic Bishops and their directives contained in 'Catholics in Public Life']," said the Notre Dame president. "President Obama clearly could have chosen any university in the country to give a commencement address, and they would have been just delighted to have him, but he's coming to Notre Dame, and we're exceptionally proud [to have been looked upon with favor by The One, and are thrilled to aid him in his ongoing efforts to divide and conquer Catholics by creating an alternative 'Magisterium' to that of the Bishops]."

[More]

Here's a list of Catholic Bishops (including Bishop D'Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend, USCCB President Cardinal George of Chicago, and my own Bishop Blair of Toledo) who have, to date, denounced Jenkins and Notre Dame for honoring Obama:

1. Bishop John D'Arcy - Fort Wayne-South Bend, IN
2. Bishop Samuel Aquila - Fargo, ND
3. Bishop Gregory Aymond - Austin, TX
4. Bishop Gerald Barbarito - Palm Beach, FL
5. Bishop Leonard Blair - Toledo, OH
6. Archbishop Daniel Buechlein - Indianapolis, IN
7. Bishop Robert Baker - Birmingham, AL
8. Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz - Lincoln, NE
9. Archbishop Eusebius Beltran - Oklahoma City, OK
10. Auxiliary Bishop Oscar Cantú - San Antonio, TX
11. Bishop Paul Coakley - Salina, KS
12. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo - Houston, TX
13. Archbishop Timothy Dolan - New York, NY
14. Bishop Thomas Doran - Rockford, IL
15. Auxiliary Bishop John Dougherty - Scranton, PA
16. Bishop Robert Finn - Kansas City-St. Joseph, MO
17. Cardinal Francis George - Chicago, IL; President, USCCB
18. Bishop Gerald Gettelfinger - Evansville, IN
19. Archbishop José Gomez - San Antonio, TX
20. Bishop William Higi - Lafayette, IN
21. Archbishop Alfred Hughs - New Orleans, LA
22. Bishop Joseph Latino - Jackson, MS
23. Bishop Jerome Listecki - La Crosse, WI
24. Bishop William E. Lori - Bridgeport, CT
25. Bishop George Lucas - Springfield, IL
26. Bishop Robert Lynch - St. Petersburg, FL
27. Bishop Joseph Martino - Scranton, PA
28. Bishop Charles Morlino - Madison, WI
29. Bishop George Murry - Youngstown, OH
30. Archbishop John J. Myers - Newark, NJ
31. Bishop R. Walker Nickless - Sioux City, IA
32. Archbishop John C. Nienstedt - St. Paul-Minneapolis, MN
33. Archbishop Edwin O'Brien - Baltimore, MD
34. Bishop Thomas Olmsted - Phoenix, AZ
35. Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk - Cincinnati, OH
36. Bishop Kevin Rhoades - Harrisburg, PA
37. Bishop Alexander Sample - Marquette, MI
38. Bishop Edward J. Slattery - Tulsa, OK
39. Bishop Richard Stika - Knoxville, TN
40. Bishop Anthony Taylor - Little Rock, AR
41. Bishop Robert Vasa - Baker, OR
42. Bishop Thomas Wenski - Orlando, FL

A Personal Message from Bishop Blair

A personal message from Bishop Blair:

Written by MOST REVEREND LEONARD P. BLAIR, Bishop of Toledo
Monday, 20 April 2009

On April 18, the Toledo Blade ran a story about the request that the Holy See has made of me to conduct a doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the United States.

The Blade took the occasion to solicit comments about me from persons totally unrelated to the news in question, including a comment from SNAP’s national outreach director in St. Louis, whom I have never met or heard of. She was quoted as saying that I am “a bishop with a terrible track record on child sex abuse and cover-up.”

Since becoming your Bishop in 2003 I have had to deal with many grave matters, including cases of clergy sexual abuse of minors. I want to assure you that I have never “covered up” anything. Each and every allegation, past and present, has been taken with the utmost seriousness and handled according to the requirements of civil and church law. Above and beyond the law, our diocese has reached out to victims, and the outcome of clergy cases has been made public.

Every person has a right to his or her good name. As your Bishop I want you to know that I reject as false the characterization that appeared in the Blade. At the same time I take to heart what our Lord said, that we are to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, and pray for those who persecute us.

© Copyright 2002 - 2009 Catholic Chronicle
The Official Newspaper of the Catholic Diocese of Toledo

My Comments:
Good for Bishop Blair. There is no end to the slanders and calumnies of the SNAP types, who seem more interested in using the priest scandals as a means of discrediting any efforts by the Church and her Bishops to speak with moral authority on any matter (see Anderson's Law, also known as the reductio ad pedophilium).


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Vatican Picks Bishop Blair to Direct Inquiry Into Nun Organization's Adherence to Catholic Doctrine

Anderson's Law

Creative Minority Report Quotes Walker Percy on the "Pro-Choice" Abortion Con

At Creative Minority Report, Matthew Archbold finds this gem from the late Catholic author Walker Percy:

... The current con, perpetrated by some jurists, some editorial writers, and some doctors is that since there is no agreement about the beginning of human life, it is therefore a private religious or philosophical decision and therefore the state and the courts can do nothing about it. This is a con. I will not presume to speculate who is conning whom and for what purpose. But I do submit that religion, philosophy, and private opinion have nothing to do with this issue. I further submit that it is a commonplace of modern biology, known to every high school student and no doubt to you the reader as well, that the life of every individual organism, human or not, begins when the chromosomes of the sperm fuse with the chromosomes of the ovum to form a new DNA complex that thenceforth directs the ontogenesis of the organism.

Such vexed subjects as the soul, God, and the nature of man are not at issue. What we are talking about and what nobody I know would deny is the clear continuum that exists in the life of every individual from the moment of fertilization of a single cell.

There is a wonderful irony here. It is this: The onset of individual life is not a dogma of the church but a fact of science. How much more convenient if we lived in the 13th century, when no one knew anything about microbiology and arguments about the onset of life were legitimate. Compared to a modern textbook of embryology, Thomas Aquinas sounds like an American Civil Liberties Union member. Nowadays it is not some misguided ecclesiastics who are trying to suppress an embarrassing scientific fact. It is the secular juridical-journalistic establishment.

Please indulge the novelist if he thinks in novelistic terms. Picture the scene. A Galileo trial in reverse. The Supreme Court is cross-examining a high school biology teacher and admonishing him that of course it is only his personal opinion that the fertilized human ovum is an individual human life. He is enjoined not to teach his private beliefs at a public school. Like Galileo he caves in, submits, but in turning away is heard to murmur, "But it's still alive!" ...

[Read the whole thing]

My Comments:
"Such vexed subjects as the soul, God, and the nature of man are not at issue. What we are talking about and what nobody I know would deny is the clear continuum that exists in the life of every individual from the moment of fertilization of a single cell."

Someone needs to send this along to Doug Kmiec who seems to recently have become "confused" on this matter, notwithstanding Prof. George's efforts to disabuse him of his confusion.

Can there any longer be any doubt that Prof. Kmiec is now "pro choice" when it comes to the legality of abortion and ESCR?


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Prof. George Schools Prof. Kmiec ... Again

Scholar vs. Hack: Prof. George Schools Prof. Kmiec re: "Did Obama Allow Human Cloning?

Rich Leonardi Reviews New Book on English Reformation: Supremacy and Survival

Yesterday, on the 500th anniversary of the coronation of Henry VIII, Rich Leonardi posted a review of Stephanie Mann's Supremacy and Survival, which "tells the compelling story of how 'English Catholics endured the Reformation'."

Rich and I share an affinity for the history of English Catholicism, and the one time I had the pleasure of meeting him was at a conference on the English Reformation. So, this is a book, based on Rich's review and recommendation, that I definitely plan on reading (assuming, of course, I can ever finally make it through the excellent, but very dense, The Stripping of the Altars).

A New Front in the Church's Civil War

At Catholics in the Public Square, Chris Blosser links to an excellent analysis of the efforts of alleged "pro-lifers" to make a "pro-life" case on behalf of the pro-abortion Catholic Kathleen Sebelius: George Neumayr on Sebelius - "A New Front in the Church’s Civil War".

Here's an excerpt:

Modern liberal Catholics chuckle at the history of casuistry in the Church even as they contribute grimly absurd new examples to it. They use tortured reasoning not to discuss the properties of angels but to cloud the records of abortion proponents.

How many dissenting, not very angelic Catholic politicians can dance with modernists’ approval at the head of a pro-abortion administration? An astonishing number, it turns out, and the list is growing. Kathleen Sebelius is the latest Catholic appointment to seize upon their strained sophistries.

No sooner had President Barack Obama nominated the governor of Kansas to head up the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) than “26 Catholic leaders, scholars, and theologians” started up a petition and website to support her.

The website is riddled with deceptions. The first one is the group’s self-description as pro-life and “faithful” to Catholicism. It isn’t. Most of its members—such as Lisa Sowle Cahill and Margaret O’Brien Steinfels—wish to liberalize magisterial teaching and falsely regard the Church’s pro-life stance as a sectarian claim (with which they happen to agree) and not a truth accessible to the reason of all.

Hence, Doug Kmiec, also a member of the group, can speak of the Church’s stance on abortion as an “opinion,” writing last year that it is proper for abortion law to “leave space for the exercise of individual judgment, because our religious or scientific differences of opinion are for the moment too profound to be bridged collectively.”

This is not a faithful representation of the Church’s teaching on abortion but a species of fideism that renders Kmiec’s “pro-life” credentials largely meaningless.

***
A new, disorienting front has opened up in the Church’s civil war and disguised dissenters rush into it. By comparison to the casuistry of Catholics for Kathleen Sebelius, the faded group Catholics for Free Choice looks almost honest. At least its former head Frances Kissling didn’t bother to work up a fantastical “pro-life” case for pro-abortion politicians. She paid the Church the small courtesy of open disagreement.

[Read the whole thing]

(emphasis added)