Notre Dame 'inappropriate:' Steele

What, are we in a theocracy, or a democracy ? Is the University of Notre Dame an institution of higher learning, or a seminary ? Why was ex-President Bush extended a warm reception? He was practicer of capital punishment, supposedly a practice that the Catholic Church is firmly against !!? The Catholics claim their right to free speech, but they would deny it to anyone, who does not share their beliefs. That is also against church teachings: hypocrisy!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.

Mario Cuomo, a practicing Catholic this morning on C-SPAN said that it is appropriate for the simple reason it is a LAW degree not a theological degree. If it had to do with religion it would be a different story. He also said laws should be written with common sense and with the greatest good for all people. He also said the person who invited Obama was absolutely right to do so.

One of the callers spoke of our freedom and our free thought. His example was if he decided that a law should be passed that everyone was to eat Twinkies and drink a coke every morning for breakfast just because that is what he believed is best for everyone, would be wrong. The same goes for abortion or what religion you practice or not.

Seems Steele is busy digging up the ol' wedge issues. Guns, Gays, Abortion.......He certainly is moving the republican party in a new and different direction.......NOT!

The Tribune front page headline says Steele is calling the speech inappropriate, while the blog entry says Steele is calling the honorary degree inappropriate. Maybe the Tribune web editors should read the stories before writing the headlines.

Steele ought to take a look at the last eight years of inappropriate Presidential Medals of Freedom awarded. Bush turned that honor into a payoff trinket for those who were complicit in his lies.

Catholics should not rule our laws any more than Muslim extremist should have a say in our freedoms.

I'm sure that an honorary degree from Notre Dame is not the most important thing either Obama wants...I pray it isn't.

Catholics are by and large Democrats. The protesters are whipping a dead horse.

Steele is an idiot. Everything he does or says in inappropriate.

The protest has very little to do with religion and a whole lot to do with politics.

yes I agree lets take everybody that disagrees out into the street and flogg them.
opps wrong religon.

I wonder if Notre Dame cares as much about the abortion stances of their football players. Would they be willing to cut players who are pro-choice? Something tells me football will always trump religion in South Bend.

A university is a marketplace of ideas. All this nonsense protesting Obama's abortion stance doesn't make any sense. Bush was welcomed at ND without problem. People raising a fuss about this need to ask themselves a fundamental question. That is, "Why is a president who waged an unjust war okay to me yet the pro-abortion president isn't?" The answer to this question should make one pause. Even if it doesn't, Bush was such a disaster on so many levels, especially in a moral sense, that in the end these supposed "pro-life" protesters would just walk away from campus and go take a long, hard look in the mirror.

Lochness, I'm not following the twinkie law analogy you cited. There is no law at issue here. Not only is this a private institution, but one who's official policy decision is to let Obama speak and give an honorary degree. What this is about is students who believe abortion is murder, and they have every right to protest a pro-abortion speaker invited to the private school they chose that supposedly opposes abortion. The comments I see on these threads accusing ND of hypocrisy for inviting GWB are off the mark. Yes they invited GWB despite his support for capital punishment. They are also inviting Obama despite his abortion policies. Accusing the individual student protesters is over the top as well. Why didn't they protest GWB? I don't know. They were probably not even there when Bush spoke. Steele, on the other hand, is a partisan who obviously just wants to stir the pot. I don't think its fair to lump him, the ND Administration, and the protesting students all in one group.

If it's inappropriate to award Obama an honorary law degree, than it's inappropriate to award an ACTUAL degree to any graduating student that disagrees with the official catholic stance on any issue. So any student who is pro-choice, pro-birth control, pro-women's rights, anti-child molestation, and believes the earth is more than 6,000 years old should not graduate. Any faculty member that feels the same should be fired. If you're gonna go down this path, protesters, you can't stop with Obama.

Who's opinion are you going to believe: The President( or whatever the Catholics call him) of Notre Dame, or a wacko like Michael Steele. who can't even do the low level job of the RNC Chairman without daily GAFFES?

Tough Choice(?) there between the two opinions of Steele and the President of Notre Dame!

Herbie H wrote "Not only is this a private institution, but one who's official policy decision is to let Obama speak and give an honorary degree. What this is about is students who believe abortion is murder, and they have every right to protest a pro-abortion speaker invited to the private school they chose that supposedly opposes abortion. "

I have yet to see a student be arrested during these protests, or for that matter, any leading the protests. Seems to me that it's 'outsiders' making all the fuss.

tb,

the Catholic church believes in evolution and the big bang as acceptable tenants of faith. Use facts to deride something, not spurious attacks.. I am a pro-choice Catholic, and except the unique concept of when life begins, most official social teachings in the Catholic church favor the Democrats. If it wasn't for the abortion issue, Dems would get 70% of Catholics. As it is, it's 50/50.

This at Notre Dame isn't about Catholics. It's about a handful of Catholic bishops along with a very vocal minority trying to politicize what is normally not a political occasion,

Steele is the biggest air head I have ever heard. He is the appropriate head for a party that is obsolete.

Is this hypocritical or what??? Let me see if I understand this!

The RNC and your traditional conservatives are upset because President Obama is receiving a honorary degree from Notre Dame? They believe that his "values" do not reflect the Catholic Church, ie abortion.

Yet, it is the RNC that created TWO WARS that have cost tens of thousands of human lives! What happened to Right to Life? What happened to the fact only GOD can take life? Isn't President Obama trying to END THE WAR? What about waterboarding? Is torture considered acceptable be the Catholic Church?

Common! This is why the Catholic Church, as well as the Republicans are a bunch of hypocrites who are only out for themselves. The Catholic Church sure doesn't practice what they preach, do they?

Where did the GOP find Steele? He's dumber than a bag of rocks!

Who cares what Rush Limbaugh's butler says?

The RNC chairman says Obama's honorary degree at Notre Dame is inappropriate? That is just shocking. SHOCKING, I tell you.

Would Jesus have ever authorized water boarding, the tortune of a living human being? NEVER!

Conservatives take note: Since 1980, Evangelical Christians have assisted in the election of 20 years of Republican White Houses and in the past 4 years a decidedly Conservative leaning Supreme Court. And yet you have done nothing to end abortion! This abortion idea, of which you cling to is red herring. Conservatives are not serious about ending abortions - they would loose the one moral/social issue for which a good portion of Americans actually care about. Why loose your bread and butter when you can go on forever "fighting" to end abortion.

I find most conservatives funny as they claim to be Pro-Life and yet have no qualms about putting people to death in prisons and fighting wars in which many innocent people die - many of whom are the so-called children they want to see born.

Pro-Life is not selective pro-life and until Conservatives grasp that idea, and "moral" leadership they have to offer is completely pointless

Obama should not have gotten any degree from Notre Dame. In addition to hiding information about himself, he has also sealed each and every document related to his adult education, and now he proudly accepts this degree. Although a lot of people don't care that he sealed all kinds of routine documents from the public, they should. It means he is hiding something very serious. He didn't deserve that degree and shouldn't have happily accepted it.

We need much more property tax cuts.
It has definitely not "dropped like a rock".

Universities are handing honorary doctorates willy-nilly, a trend that began in the mid-1980s and has continued to this modern day.

Someone donates a huge sum of money to a university -- the next thing you, that person receives an honorary doctorate.

Obviously Steele is not on the list to receive an advance embargoed copy of the address.

It was the most "appropriate" commencement address I think I've ever heard.

No Republican could ever get an honorary degree from Notre Dame because they are all pro-Death Penalty which is against the doctrine of the Catholic Church.

Rush Limbaugh's butler! Priceless!

WHEN ARE YOU IDIOTS AT THE TRIBUNE GOING TO HAVE PEOPLE WITH OPPOSITE VIEWS ALLOWED TO POST? SEEMS LIKE YOU ARE A BRANCH OF THE NEW YORK TIMES. (THE FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK WAS, IS, AND ALWAYS WILL BE A JERK)

What's it to ya, bub, that Notre Dame gave the president an honorary degree? Just trying to get a sound bite in, eh? That's all I can figure.

Please continue to stay irrelevant.

"What this is about is students who believe abortion is murder and they have every right to protest a pro-abortion speaker invited to the private school they chose that supposedly opposes abortion."

Please. It's about a fringe element seeking to impose its warped views on everyone else despite the fact that these views aren't credible nor consistent.

The "twinkie" analogy is completely irrelevant to the abortion issue for one simple reason - twinkie abuse doesn't harm anyone but the user. Abortion is not about a woman's choice, it's about a child. If we cannot acknowledge that abortion is the termination of a life, then there is no common ground between the two sides.

One million abortions are done each year in the US, which far outnumbers the current death toll from the war in Iraq. Like many of you, I don't think that we should have gone to war, but there are no corollaries to be drawn here.

My wife and I recently adopted a child through CPS. If Obama's proposals (parental notification, government funding, etc) had been available, my son would not be alive today. Abortion is a genocide, the likes of which have never been seen.

Steele is a buffoon and certainly not the sharpest knief in the drawer. A suggestion to the RepubliCON party...replace him. The sooner the better.

"Would JESUS ever authorize waterboarding, the torture of a living human being? NEVER!"

The above statement directly reflects the lackadaisical and whimsical idea of who JESUS is and in the manner in which HE will return. Many people have been spoon fed this "love the sinner not the sin" ideology and the whole kumbaya mentality. I hate to break it to you my fellow men and women but the LORD JESUS CHRIST is no longer the suffering servant on the cross but KING of kings and LORD of lords. JESUS is no longer on the cross people and HE is not coming back to hold hands and play nice. HE is coming to give unto every man according to his deeds. JESUS is not coming to make peace but to make war. Your right he won't be water boarding he will be sifting the wheat from the tares. Wake up people, when JESUS CHRIST returns HE will be returning with the hosts of heaven (billions of angels) in power and great glory, the sky will roll back like a scroll and every eye shall see HIM including those whom pierced HIM. Men will seek the rocks to fall upon them and they will try to hide but there is no hiding from the LORD your GOD. The days of grace will be over and the Great and terrible day of the LORD will commence. If you love a "sinner" then you should love them enough to warn them of the judgement to come. There will be no defense for those who stand before a HOLY and JUST GOD without the covering of CHRIST JESUS.

As for the catholic church led school giving obama an honorary doctorate I am not surprise. The leaders of the catholic church have fallen by the wayside giving heed to words of the devil in order to satisfy their itching ears. And for those of you who still donate to this church you should be ashamed of yourselves. They are the largest pedophile machine on the planet and people still financially support this horrid wretched beast. How can catholics protest abortion when they have not shaken the perverts and whore mongers out of their congregation. What a shame, you wish to protect the unborn but have done nothing to protect the young children you have sent like sheep to the slaughter. Instead you threw money at them and the pedophiles are still ruling the roost. The inquisition should start with the pope, that blasphemous creature of a man that takes the title of the LIVING GOD for himself. calling men "father" have you not read it is written call no man father for your FATHER is in heaven. Stop reading the catechisms and open up a BIBLE.

"My wife and I recently adopted a child through CPS. If Obama's proposals (parental notification, government funding, etc) had been available, my son would not be alive today. Abortion is a genocide, the likes of which have never been seen."

Posted by: Phillip | May 18, 2009 7:03 AM

No, no no. Genocide is the destruction of a culture, a race. You know, like what the missionaries and "good" Xtains did to the Native Americans and tried to do to the "barbaric" Muslims in the Christian crusades? Not to mention countless "witch" hunts and deaths?
Abortion is a very personal issue. I have sadly seen too many young, single women who can barely handle it, and therefore, abuse their babies, have "grandma" raise them all, or hey, let's throw them in the dumpster instead, yeah what a great idea...at least they did not abort them.

Anyone after Bush has a tough time ahead of them...give our new President a break....and a chance. If you love America, give him a chance.

Michael Steele is a liar who doesn't deserve to have his lying opinion put out there. This is the man who bussed homeless people to his district to pass out misleading flyers when he was trying to get elected in 06. The flyers implied he had the support of local democrats even though he's a Repub. He had bumper stickers that said, "Steele - Democrat." He couldn't even give his true party affiliation because he knew he wouldn't win if he did. He didn't win anyway.
Also, President Obama isn't pro-abortion. The term is pro-choice. No one is pro-abortion you morons. That's a term righties use to inflame their base. Pathetic. The truth is we all must have domain over our own bodies.
What would Jesus do? I truly cannot think of anything less relevant! Just go sit down and be quiet.

It is a wonderful article,i like it,thank you very much!

Good review. I agree lets take everybody that disagrees out into the street and flogg them.

Please. It's about a fringe element seeking to impose its warped views on everyone else despite the fact that these views aren't credible nor consistent.

Your idea is novel,I like it,Thank you for sharing.Waiting for your new ideas!

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No Republican could ever get an honorary degree from Notre Dame because they are all pro-Death Penalty which is against the doctrine of the Catholic Church.

No Republican could ever get an honorary degree from Notre Dame because they are all pro-Death Penalty which is against the doctrine of the Catholic Church.

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No Republican could ever get an honorary degree from Notre Dame because they are all pro-Death Penalty which is against the doctrine of the Catholic Church

nice article!