Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Law Students Blogs -> Irish Law

Law Students

: Irish Law

What profit a man

Watching the ND Commencement on television Sunday, my first thoughts were that Fr. Jenkins and President Obama were going to come off very well in most subsequent reviews. They were clearly a hit with the students, and they did very well in seizing their moment. That, of course, made it all the worse for Notre Dame, the pro-life movement, and the Catholic Church.

Jenkins sounded confident in his speech, but I wondered as I was listening in the beginning, as he kept talking about dialogue, reason and faith, truth in the abstract, dialogue again, and debate -- would he ever actually name the things we were meant to dialoguing about with the president? Jenkins kept going, and cited Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul II on dialogue and debate. Finally, in a single sentence he named the issue: "President Obama has come to Notre Dame, though he knows well that we are fully supportive of Church teaching on the sanctity of human life, and we oppose his policies on abortion and embryonic stem cell research." That's good, and direct. But Fr. Jenkins then immediately went on to cite more Church teachings on dialogue, respect for differing views, and dialogue again -- and finally he started into the glowing portrait of President Obama that I was expecting. Indeed the whole talk was more or less as expected: a single sentence confirming that ND disagreed with Obama on life issues, with the bulk of the enthusiastic remarks celebrating both Notre Dame's own openness and Obama's great list of admirable qualities. Throughout his own talk and Obama's, Fr. Jenkins was pretty much beaming the whole time.

Obama's speech also celebrated the value of dialogue, and he named the issue of abortion. In characteristic fashion, however, he said a lot of nice-sounding words that have no relation to his actual actions or (apparently) beliefs. He made the customary gestures toward abortion being "a heart-wrenching decision" with "moral and spiritual dimensions," without ever engaging any of those. He talked about finding common ground and dialogue, but while his language suggested he thought abortion was at least regrettable, he neatly avoided mentioning that he has never once supported a single legal restriction or qualification on abortion rights through all nine months of pregnancy. He talked about respecting even irreconcilable differences and rights of conscience, but he supports taxpayer (so forced) funding of abortion and ESCR, and he is actually repealing Bush-era conscience protections for physicians.

The president said, "I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away." What is his argument for abortion, though? He didn't actually say. Ultimately, his best anecdote on being open-minded and fair-minded was that he once agreed to stop calling pro-lifers "right-wing ideologues." So generous! But in the meantime he, like Fr. Jenkins, agreed debate and dialogue were great things.

The net result of both talks was that both parties celebrated their openmindedness and tolerance, while neither engaged the actual issues. Listening to Fr. Jenkins, one would think that dialogue was a higher virtue in the Catholic Church than protecting innocent life. Listening to President Obama, one would think he was a reasonable moderate on abortion and other life issues, when in fact he's been remarkably extreme in his support of unlimited abortion rights. There's no doubt the president emerged triumphant from this visit, because most observers would think, again, that he sounded perfectly moderate -- and by all lights he had the endorsement of the nation's premier Catholic university in addressing these issues. One line from Fr. Jenkins was hardly enough to save Notre Dame's credibility here, no matter how sincerely he believed it.

Looking hard, there may be some good things to come out of this. The fact that the Catholic Church stands for life was prominently disseminated, and maybe in the course of the national debate some people have become more aware of what Obama actually stands for on life issues. ND Response's efforts certainly helped in that regard, and the networks did cover their prayer vigils (although not as much as the outside protesters). But I'm not so optimistic that the end result isn't just Notre Dame tarnishing its own image as a Catholic institution, hurting its relationship with the institutional Church, and providing the means for Obama to continue his outstanding tradition of getting credit for his pretty words while his actions are relentlessly the opposite.

Full post as published by Irish Law on May 22, 2009 (boomark / email).