600 Clergy Decry Notre Dame Obama Invite

LifeSiteNews:

The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, a national association of 600 priests and deacons, has issued a statement urging the University of Notre Dame to rescind the invitation to President Obama to be the commencement speaker for this year's graduation and receive an honorary law degree May 17...

..."If need be, a Catholic University must have the courage to speak uncomfortable truths which do not please public opinion, but which are necessary to safeguard the authentic good of society," the Pope wrote in the 1990 document, going on to cite the "responsibility to try to communicate to society ... principles which give full meaning to human life" as "a specific priority" of Catholic schools.

"The decision ... to afford an openly pro-abortion politician the privilege of speaking to graduating seniors at the commencement violates every principle of Catholic education insofar as it violates both Divine and Natural Law," said the Confraternity. "We are therefore saddened and outraged that any Catholic institution, let alone a prestigious university like Notre Dame, would afford a public gesture of acceptance and endorsement to a politician who openly supports the so-called legal 'right' to 'choose death', i.e., the direct killing of an unborn human being."

The Confraternity called the reasoning that the invitation would foster "dialogue" with the President on life issues "a non sequitur." "Speaking at Commencement is not an open debate, it is a monologue," said the clergymen. "Parents did not pay tuition for celebrities to speak at their son or daughter's graduation, they paid it to ensure a Catholic education."...