by Mark Silva
President Barack Obama will not be the first president to address the graduates of Notre Dame when he sends off 2,000 undergraduates, 420 MBA recipients and 214 new lawyers on Sunday -- with an unknown number sitting out in protest.
He wil be the sixth.
And the ninth to collect an honorary degree.
Dwight Eisenhower gave the first presidential commecement address in South Bend. Jimmy Carter spoke there, and so did Ronald Reagan.
President George H.W. Bush focused on family values and service to society in his address. His son, President George W. Bush, used his, during his first year in office, to call the nation's faith-based organizations central to the war on poverty.
The folks at Christian Newswire, who aren't too happy about a pro-abortion rights president speaking at the Catholic university have the wording of Obama's degree:
"At the 164th Commencement The May Exercises The University of Notre Dame Confers the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, on the 44th president of the United States, whose historic election opened a new era of hope in a country long divided by its history of slavery and racism. A community organizer who honed his advocacy for the poor, the marginalized and the worker in the streets of Chicago, he now organizes a larger community, bringing to the world stage a renewed American dedication to diplomacy and dialogue with all nations and religions committed to human rights and the global common good. Through his willingness to engage with those who disagree with him and encourage people of faith to bring their beliefs to the public debate, he is inspiring this nation to heal its divisions of religion, culture, race and politics in the audacious hope for a brighter tomorrow. ''
On June 5, 1960, President Dwight Eisenhower delivered Notre Dame's first presidential Commencement speech, interrupting the 45th reunion of his class at the U.S. Military Academy to make the trip. In his 20-minute address, Eisenhower foreshadowed a U.S. government on the verge of social and political change.
President Jimmy Carter made what many regard as the key foreign policy address of his presidency at Notre Dame's 1977 Commencement exercises. He spoke of a diminishing threat from the Soviet Union, a notion dismissed as naive at the time but which proved prophetic. He also advocated for the creation of new global alliances and championed human rights, policies built upon the "new reality of a politically awakening world."
In May 1981, President Ronald Reagan made his first public appearance after the attempt on his life in March of that year. Like Carter, Reagan proved prescient in his remarks on foreign policy, saying: "The West will not contain communism, it will transcend communism. We'll dismiss it as a sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written."
President George H.W. Bush, was the University's principal Commencement speaker in 1992. The elder Bush used the occasion to focus on family values and service to society.
Bush's son, President George W. Bush, delivered his first presidential commencement address at Notre Dame in May 2001, declaring that the nation's faith-based organizations were central to the war on poverty.
President John F. Kennedy -- the nation's only Catholic president -- received the Laetare Medal, Notre Dame's highest honor, in a White House ceremony in 1961, and as a U.S. senator in 1950 delivered the winter Commencement address and received an honorary degree.
Notre Dame also awarded honorary degrees to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Gerald Ford, but those were at special academic convocations, not at commencement ceremonies.
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Comments
"President George W. Bush, used his, during his first year in office, to call the nation's faith-based organizations central to the war on poverty."
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Yes, and then Bush proceeded to give huge tax cuts to the richest 2%, big corporations and big oil. And to top it off, he started a war based on lies that we're still paying for in blood and treasure.
Heckuva Job, Repuglicans!
An honorary degree from Notre Dame isn't worth the paper that it's printed on seeing as how they already gave one to that village idiot Shrub Jr.
Posted by: Teresa party gal Kathy | May 15, 2009 3:01 PM
The "holier than thou" attitude exhibited by the thundering horde threatening to protest Notre Dame's commencement speaker selection simply reeks of hypocrisy.
It is true that the Roman Catholic Church's teachings on abortion are absolute - abortion is ALWAYS wrong. However, the Church's teachings on capital punishment are equally absolute: government-imposed capital punishment is ALWAYS wrong - and against the official policy of the Roman Catholic Church.
Funny, though, isn't it, that governmental officials (like President Bush) who have given commencement speeches at Notre Dame and who are pro-capital punishment haven't been subjected to the protests of those "good Catholics" who now so rabidly object to Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama?
Rabid pro-lifers will try to deflate such comparisons: "How can you compare the execution of rapist-murders and serial killers who are subjected to the death penalty (Bush's pro-capital punishment position) to the killing of innocent, unborn life (Obama's pro-abortion/pro-choice position)?"
The short answer is, the Catholic Church DOES equate the act of imposing capital punishment to the act of committing an abortion - according to the Church, both are equally morally reprehensible.
When I see the news clips of "appalled" Catholics direct their ire at Notre Dame's President - Fr. Jenkins, I ask myself - why weren't you protesting when President Bush gave the commencement address at "America's pre-eminent Roman Catholic university"? Bush's personal participation in the violation of Catholic teachings is even more culpable than Obama's - while Bush was governor of Texas, he had the power to commute the death sentences prisoners on Texas' death row. In other words, he actually had the power to "live the Word" that the Catholic Church teaches - he had the authority to stop the imposition of the death penalty while he was Texas governor. Did Bush use this power (even once) to commute such a sentence? Nope. In fact, Bush presided over 155 executions during his term as Texas governor, the most of any governor since the death penalty's reinstatement in 1976. However, those yapping loudest today about Notre Dame abandoning its principles sat awfully quiet about President Bush's invitation. (And don't even get me started on President Bush's lying America into the War in Iraq and violating Church teachings by authorizing "enhanced interrogation techniques" (torture).
Compare the hurricane of protest experienced by the Notre Dame due to the Obama invitation, the dearth of dissent over Notre Dame's invitation to a sitting President (Bush) who - through the exercise of his previous (gubernatorial) office - more directly, and with more personal culpability violated, those principles held dear by Catholics who claim to follow the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. When I think about the difference in treatment of these two invitations, I come to the conclusion that it really isn't about the protesters' desire to remain true to Catholic teachings (because they haven't), but rather it's about a desire to make notorious conservative political statement against a more liberal politician - cloaked in the teachings of the Church.
Similarly hypocritical is the tendency of some American bishops and cardinals to threaten withholding communion from elected officials who support abortion rights - yet don't do so with respect to elected officials who support capital punishment.
Posted by: Benjamin | May 15, 2009 5:09 PM
Teresa,
Wrong - President Bush gave income tax cuts to ALL that pay income taxes. Yes, the higher income tax payers rec'd a greater tax break (in terms of dollars) than the lower income payers.
Posted by: Terry | May 15, 2009 5:25 PM
Wrong - President Bush gave income tax cuts to ALL that pay income taxes. Yes, the higher income tax payers rec'd a greater tax break (in terms of dollars) than the lower income payers.
Posted by: Terry | May 15, 2009 5:25 PM
***************
Teabbager,
Shrubby Jr gave tax cuts to the rich and then he tried (and failed) to make them permanent. What he gave to the middle class and the poor was the left-over crumbs from the caviar and champaign parties that rich girls like you were having on a daily basis during the BushCo reign of terror.
This isn't 1980, girlfriend. You wingnut deadenders can't just make stuff up and expect people who live in the real world to believe it anymore.
Posted by: you | May 15, 2009 5:41 PM
The key difference here is the 2001 declaration (or whatever it's called) by US Catholic bishops to NOT give a platform to or otherwise honor those whose beliefs run contrary to those of the Catholic church. Obama is pro-choice (as am I, by the way), so his selection for an honorary degree, at least, is completely contrary to that decree. And it is this aspect that most news stories completely overlook.
Posted by: beth | May 15, 2009 6:26 PM
WRONG - Catholic Church doesn't ALWAYS oppose death penalty. Please read the Catechism before writing about Catholic Church doctrine.
The issue with Obamolatry and Obama in general is his radical views and actions on fostering mass abortions. Man, we count them by the millions and he wants more. That is why (1) he now funds abortion programs overseas, (2) coerces doctors to commit these murders.
Being European myself, I would remind you that during our nationalsozialism time many people didn't know where human race started and were tolerant with those eliminating the "unwanted race". The numbers from pro-abortionist Obama are a lot bigger.
Posted by: Javier | May 16, 2009 2:59 AM