Archbishop Burke
opened with the following explanation:
Before the fundamental and great challenges which we as a nation are facing, how better to express our patriotism than by celebrating the teachings of our Catholic faith. The most treasured gift which we as citizens of the United States of America can offer to our country is a faithful Catholic life. It is the gift which, even though it has often been misunderstood, has brought great strength to our nation, from the time of its founding. Today more than ever, our nation is in need of Catholics who know their faith deeply and express their faith, with integrity, by their daily living.
Somehow he was able to do that without hollow rhetoric and without being partisan. But he also did not provide cover to anyone. “Over the past several months, our nation has chosen a path which more completely denies any legal guarantee of the most fundamental human right, the right to life, to the innocent and defenseless unborn,” Archbishop Burke said.
He also said: “Those in power now determine who will or will not be accorded the legal protection of the most fundamental right to life. First the legal protection of the right to life is denied to the unborn and, then, to those whose lives have become burdened by advanced years, special needs, or serious illness, or whose lives are somehow judged to be unprofitable or unworthy.” And Archbishop Burke warned: “Our laws may soon force those who have dedicated themselves to the care of the sick and the promotion of good health to give up their noble life work, in order to be true to the most sacred dictate of their consciences. What is more, if our nation continues down the path it has taken, health-care institutions operating in accord with the natural moral law, which teaches us that innocent human life is to be protected and fostered at all times and that it is always and everywhere evil to destroy an innocent human life, will be forced to close their doors.”
Archbishop Burke talked, too, about marriage and the “confusion and error about marriage” that is rooted in “the contraceptive mentality,” which, he said, “would have us believe that the inherently procreative nature of the conjugal union can, in practice, be mechanically or chemically eliminated, while the marital act remains unitive. It cannot be so. With unparalleled arrogance, our nation is choosing to renounce its foundation upon the faithful, indissoluble, and inherently procreative love of a man and a woman in marriage, and, in violation of what nature itself teaches us, to replace it with a so-called marital relationship, according to the definition of those who exercise the greatest power in our society.”
You get the idea. It was very different from what we heard at Notre Dame on Sunday.
Was the president of the University of Notre Dame supposed to say all of this in front of the president of the United States? Well, he shouldn’t have been lending the president the school’s credibility in the first place. And once he did — once invited, the president could not have been uninvited — he didn’t help foster a culture of life by demonizing those who thought his decision to honor Barack Obama was an outrage. “Outrage” didn’t come just from Alan Keyes, Obama’s former Senate opponent; it came, in a much more civil and instructive style, from a Vatican official who provided leadership in a time of confusion on the campus of Notre Dame and in the watching nation.
This incident in the life of the University of Notre Dame, the Catholic Church, and the United States will not end with the passage of the weekend, or even when the talking heads stop chattering about it. In an interview with National Review Online last week, Archbishop Burke urged those who are concerned about what has happened at Notre Dame to let their views be known. (Some did just this on campus, with varying degrees of effectiveness and prudence.) Write Fr. Jenkins. Write Bishop D’Arcy, who did not attend the commencement exercises but did attend an on-campus protest. Write the Vatican.
I might add: If you have occasion to, encourage the schools that are doing the right things. Encourage those who do not sow and water yet more moral confusion.(And thank former Vatican ambassador Mary Ann Glendon for providing real leadership for refusing to be used at the commencment.)
“Dialogue” has been the apparent cardinal virtue during this Notre Dame affair, as so often is the case when higher education and religion get controversial. True dialogue can be fruitful (Pope Benedict said just this on the South Lawn of the White House, as Fr. Jenkins reminded us Sunday). But it wasn’t there on Sunday at the commencement exercises, and to pretend that it was is a continued outrage.
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