President Obama gave the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame today, and also received an honorary doctor of laws. The decision to honor one of the country's most extreme abortion advocates at one of the country's oldest Catholic institutions was not without some controversy. And rightly so.
CNN showed the address live, and somehow we had full cable and were able to watch it. Obama spoke well (as usual) and talked about some of the controversial issues. To me, he seemed to justify his stance on abortion by saying he'll speak fairly about both sides, and called for more dialogue. And his reasoning for embryonic stem cell research (he omitted the "embryonic"): some people oppose it because of their view on sanctity of life, and some people are for it because they hold on to the sanctity of life of their child with juvenile diabetes who could be helped (by killing tiny unborn humans - my words there). But that's about all he said; no other rationale for his positions. Obama also talked about the economic crisis, climate change, and gave some encouraging words for the grads.
Somehow, Obama got standing ovations for a couple of his controversial points. Curiously, Father Hesburgh wasn't one of them. He's a former president of Notre Dame, and was mentioned several times in Obama's speech as a pioneer in "dialogue" in the sixties for racial justice.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the media. I look forward to the commentary on First Things... Maybe President Obama should read Healing the Culture (see previous post)!! That would do more for dialogue and fair treatment of the issue that all his rhetoric combined.
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