President Obama is scheduled to arrive in South Bend, Ind., on May 17, to speak at the University of Notre Dame’s commencement, amid great controversy and fanfare. Though the school has a long tradition of inviting sitting presidents to speak, Obama’s extreme views on abortion and other right-to-life issues make him an eyebrow-raising selection for the Catholic school with a crucifix in every classroom.
I know just how eyebrow-raising it is, because I spent last weekend in South Bend. The very day I arrived at the South Bend Regional Airport, on a small 20-seater out of Chicago, anti-abortion activist Randall Terry landed himself in jail for trespassing. He and six other protesters were pushing blood-spattered dolls in baby carriages across Notre Dame’s campus, just after police warned him not to.
And only days earlier, another anti-abortion group made headlines with some graphic demonstrations of their own. The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform flew a 50-by-100 foot banner of a dead 10-week-old fetus behind it over Notre Dame’s campus, and promises to circulate similar banners on trucks around the area through May 17.
Catholic groups have organized their own responses. The Cardinal Newman Society and CatholicVote.com have collected more than 350,000 signatures for a petition to Notre Dame's president, the Rev. John Jenkins, to stop Obama from coming.
Some student groups are protesting as well. A group called NDResponse.com has organized a “prayerful and constructive” demonstration on the South Quad on commencement day “in defense of the unborn.”
And, as is fairly well-known by now, Mary Ann Glendon, former ambassador to the Vatican, declined a Laetare award from the university in response to Obama’s participation. Fort Wayne-South Bend Bshop John D’Arcy will not attend the commencement either, in a boycott of the event.
This isn’t some kind of partisan “gimmick” or “hissy fit,” as Time magazine has coined the so-called histrionics of the reeling right. These are folks on both sides of the political aisle who are understandably confused – and concerned – by the devout and august Catholic institution’s plans to honor a leader so staunchly in favor of pro-abortion policies.
Whether it’s President Obama’s support of partial-birth abortion, his opposition to born-alive protection for infants, his suggestion that doctors could be forced to perform abortions even if it is against their religious convictions, or repealing President Bush’s stem cell limitations, even though embryonic stem cells have already been proven unfavorable to adult stem cells, his views are extreme, even to many liberals and non-Catholics.
I toured the campuses of Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s during my visit. I attended a Friday evening Mass; I lighted a candle at the famous grotto; and I checked out Notre Dame’s “touchdown Jesus.” And then I spoke with a group of students from both schools as well as some of the local GOP leadership. Needless to say, they are not looking forward to President Obama’s arrival.
But they are, astonishingly, in the minority. So are Randall Terry, Mary Ann Glendon, Bishop D’Arcy, NDResponse.com, and all the groups planning to protest that day. Notre Dame, like South Bend, like Indiana, is in the surprising but unmistakable throes of deep Obamamania. And when you look at the numbers, the school’s invitation was actually pretty predictable.
Right before the election I visited a coffee shop in Crown Point, Indiana, just south of Chicago. Dave Beckham, the congenial but no nonsense owner of A Conservative Café, as it’s called, was worried that his state would go blue for the first time since 1964 – and it turned out he had reason to. Fifty percent of the state voted for Obama, edging out the 48 percent that voted for McCain. Though Obama only carried 15 counties, and John McCain carried a whopping 77, Obama’s 15 account for 44 percent of the state’s population. And one of those counties was Saint Joseph’s, home to South Bend and home to Notre Dame. The county voted for Obama by 58 percent.
And at Notre Dame, which, in spite of being 90 percent Christian is also a typical college campus in many politically relevant ways, students are by and large in Obama’s corner. According to the school paper, 70 percent of students are in favor of his participation in commencement.
One graduating senior, Matt Degnan, is selling T-shirts he designed that say “Obama? Fine By Me.” When I asked him whether the shirts represented enthusiastic support of the president or merely tacit ambivalence, he simply responded, “I think that the shirts speak for themselves.”
But he told the paper that faculty members have been the most frequent buyers, which comes as no surprise to anyone who’s ever met a college professor.
Furthermore, Catholics themselves helped put Obama in office, after voting for him 53 percent. Obama secured the largest advantage among Catholics for a Democrat since Bill Clinton.
So although I’m empathetic toward the outrage — and a Catholic school honoring a pro-choice activist like Obama is nothing short of outrageous — the numbers tell a different picture. The state of Indiana, St. Joseph’s County, South Bend, and the University of Notre Dame all supported candidate Obama, with alacrity, as did Catholic America.
Right-to-life issues are important, but this supposed scandal is muddied by the inconvenient underlying facts: Obama has huge support here, and some of the groups that are railing against his visit are the very groups that helped put him in office, in a position to then be invited.
But voting him into office was apparently one thing, and allowing him to speak at a college commencement, another. Catholics should get their message straight if they want to regain the kind of influence that makes them a credible voice of reason, compassion, clarity, and morality. Right now they just seem tongue-tied.
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