A lady with whom I am acquainted at a Catholic web forum moved with her husband to Michigan awhile ago and dropped out of sight. It has come to my attention that she is not doing too well. Please say a prayer for Carleen.
I also learned that her husband has purchased an old Catholic church building. He is quoted in this article, “I came by and saw the
for sale sign in front of the church and inquired and realized I’d
probably have to take a mortgage out on it so that’s what I did[.]”
There is a GoFundMe fundraiser for Mr. Price's efforts. Check it out. Pictures and a Youtube interview are posted along with updates. Please say a prayer for Bill and Carleen and the restoration efforts and give something if you are a fan of old church buildings like me.
With Election Day past and its aftermath continuing to play out with several states' vote counting being contested, Archbishop Viganò has a new message to the people of the United States. After a recapitulation of the situation and how it came to pass, the archbishop calls upon faithful Christians to pray the Rosary.
In
these hours, while the gates of Hell seem to prevail, allow me to address myself
to you with an appeal, which I trust that you will respond to promptly and with
generosity. I ask you to make an act of trust in God, an act of humility and
filial devotion to The Lord of Armies.
I ask that all of you pray the Holy Rosary, if possible in your families or
with your dear ones, your friends, your brothers and sisters, your colleagues,
your fellow soldiers. Pray with the abandonment of children who know how to
have recourse to their Most Holy Mother to ask her to intercede before the
throne of the Divine Majesty. Pray with a sincere soul, with a pure heart, in
the certainty of being heard and answered. Ask her – she who is the Help of
Christians, Auxilium Christianorum – to
defeat the forces of the Enemy; ask her – she who is terrible as an army set in battle array (Song 6:10) – to grant the
victory to the forces of Good and to inflict a humiliating defeat on the forces
of Evil.
He goes on to further this call for prayer and concludes by reminding his readers that those who pray to the King of Kings will have their faith rewarded. “Ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened unto you” (Lk 11:9)
Archbishop Viganò has sent another open letter (pdf) to the president of the United States ahead of the coming election on November 3. The letter is dated October 25, the Feast of Christ the King according to the old calendar. For those of you unfamiliar with the archbishop, the article on him at Wikipedia has a summary of his career.
The context of all this is Archbishop Viganò's description of the corrupt forces within the Church and the world at large, especially in light of quarantines and lockdowns ordered under the pretext of the COVID-19 virus, but according to Viganò efforts to control and overthrow the old order in favor of the New World Order.
The letter's theme is clear:
[I]t is necessary that all people of good will be persuaded of the
epochal importance of the imminent election: not so much for the sake of this
or that political program, but because of the general inspiration of your
action that best embodies – in this particular historical context – that world,
our world, which they want to cancel by means of the lockdown. Your adversary
is also our adversary: it is the Enemy of the human race, he who is “a
murderer from the beginning” (Jn 8:44).
The description of the current pontiff's place in current events is stark:
In
Sacred Scripture, Saint Paul speaks to us of “the one who opposes” the
manifestation of the mystery
of iniquity,
the kathèkon (2
Thess 2:6-7). In the religious sphere, this obstacle to evil is the Church, and
in particular the papacy; in the political sphere, it is those who impede the
establishment of the New World Order.
As is now clear, the one who occupies the Chair of Peter has
betrayed his role from the very beginning in order to defend and promote the
globalist ideology, supporting the agenda of the
deep church, who chose him from its ranks.
The opening summary of the latest from Sandro Magister at www.chiesa:
The responses of the Japanese and central Europeans to the questionnaire
for the synod on the family register the yielding of Catholics to the
dominant “uniform thought.” But also the pastors' inability to lead
In the post, the author links to an article by Michael Leahy at The Washington Post and quotes a bit of it. Here is a small portion of that quote:
[T]o this day, Notre Dame remains a political and social battleground
for American Catholics. The university’s invitation for President Obama
to deliver the 2009 commencement address became a national controversy,
with conservative Catholics opposing the president’s positions on
abortion rights and stem-cell research. And last year, the university
filed suit against the federal government, seeking to overturn a
requirement in Obama’s health-care law that employers offer insurance
plans including contraception coverage — a move that more politically
moderate church members resented, concerned that Notre Dame would seek
to deprive women, Catholic or not, of such coverage.
The rest of the quote at Hotair.com goes on with Leahy positing that due to its Catholicness and ethics as far as recruiting players who are academically capable (as opposed to the SEC schools who are just out to gain talented football players at any cost), ND is somehow carrying on the tradition of the Church of his youth with its nagging, dogged adherence to standards of old.
That's an interesting narrative Leahy (and Hotair.com by extension) is pushing, but it's also wrong. I'm not going to go out of my way to illustrate why beyond just looking at the excerpt I give above. Leahy says that the invitation to the president became a national controversy with conservative Catholics opposing the president's positions on abortion and stem-cell research (his words). He misses the fact that conservative Catholics (let's just ignore his use of secular terminology) were as much up in arms with Notre Dame itself as they were with Obama and his well-known positions. ND invited Obama and when it blew up in its face, it gave out a wishy-washy justification about dialogue. Then it went so far as to prosecute eighty-eight people for their protesting Obama's speech.
Leahy asks if Catholics have a duty to root for the Irish? The answer is only if Catholics are willing to accept the Notre Dame narrative at face value.
Merry Christmas! Happy Epiphany! Happy birthday to the Maid of France!
Tonight I saw an interesting commercial on the US cable channel TNT. It was for CatholicsComeHome.org, a website with a rather self-evident mission. The commercial I saw was the US national spot that can be viewed by running the cursor over the 'About' button on the main page, then clicking on 'Commercials' which should bring up a page with the commercials. Effective? It looked okay to me, but I'm sure sound would add a lot to the message.
There is a new movie in theaters now in the US, The Devil Inside. I caught the TV teaser for the very first time today, despite the fact the movie opens today. It claims to be a documentary with actual forbidden footage of exorcisms. This documentary style for horror films is in the grand style of The Blair Witch Project. The teaser for The Devil Inside had all the Hollywood trappings for the Catholic Church: priests in cassocks, sisters in habits, a priest genuflecting before a main altar (against the wall).
CatholicsComeHome.org might want to take notes: the visual trappings of traditional Catholicism sell.
WHILE THE CULTURE COMMISSION of the Vatican originally approved sketches of the sculpture, it is now arguing that the "mantle almost looks like a sentry box, topped by a head of a pope which comes off too roundish." L'Osservatore Romana, the main Vatican newspaper, described the statue as looking like it had been exploded by a "violent gash, like a bomb" had struck. According to the Associated Press, various passersby have even noted that the Rainaldi's artwork rather resembles Italy's former dictator, Benitohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif Mussolini.
In the world of traditional Catholics, the loss of what is now known as the Extraordinary Form was keenly felt in a Church gone crazy as it threw aside the old ways in favor of the new.
In the last half of the twentieth century, that phenomenon was not restricted solely to the Church. Even in the world of sports, things changed, not necessarily for the better. In baseball, the mound was lowered and the designated hitter was introduced. In basketball, the skilled teamwork of bygone eras was replaced by a more free-flowing style that was perhaps more entertaining, but at the expense of basic fundamentals.
So it went in the world of figure skating. Figure skating had for a long time been composed of two elements, the compulsory figures and the free skate. The free skate is of course what we see on television today, men and women skating around at various speeds, performing jumps and spins throughout. Compulsory figures was a portion of the competition that involved the drawing of figures on the ice with the edges of the blades of one's skates. The figures' exactness in terms of how they were made and their shape were judged and marks were given. Watch the video below, a clip from coverage of the 1988 Winter Olympics at Calgary, Canada for more information along with interviews on the change going on in the sport as the idea of removing compulsory figures from international events was first considered.
Over time, the figure skating changed as the free skate gained in importance, especially with the advent of television coverage of premiere events. Compulsory figures did not translate well in the medium as the above clip demonstrates (though by the late eighties, much had been done to make it as appealing as possible); audiences watched the jumps and spins of the free skate and then were left confused by the compulsory figures and the winners of competitions who excelled at the latter and beat the favorite of the general public who watched for the skaters who excelled at jumping and spinning.
The clip below from a documentary on the 1972 Winter Olympics at Sapporo, Japan happens to document not just the games themselves, but the turning point for the sport of figure skating. The first skater shown, Beatrix Schuba of Austria, is considered to be one of the greatest compulsory figure skaters ever. The second skater shown, Janet Lynn of the United States, was known to American audiences for her free skating ability.
Schuba received a 5.0 for her figures, a high mark that was what I have read extremely rare at senior international events and placed first. Lynn was tentative as the clip shows so well (more on the second video later) and placed fourth. The situation was reversed though for the free skate as Lynn placed first and Schuba seventh. Due to the weight given compulsory figures, Schuba won the gold medal and Lynn the bronze. After that result, a new short program was introduced and the weight of compulsory figures was slowly reduced over the years until in 1990 they were removed from international competitions altogether.
Today, compulsory figures have been largely forgotten by the viewing public and in the skating community at large as well, though there is debate in some circles as modern skaters are seen by some as having lost the skills needed for fundamental footwork that even the mediocre compulsory figure skaters of yesteryear displayed in their jumps and spins due to their training in the discipline. Whether this is actually true, I cannot say, not being an expert myself, but it stands to reason that something has been lost.
Having started to watch curling during the Winter Olympics a few olympiads ago and having watched the clips above, could there be an audience for compulsory figures, if not as a component, then as a sport unto itself? Certain people are willing to sit through curling, thought by others to be exceedingly boring, not because they are well versed on the ins and outs of the sport, but due to the human drama unfolding on the ice. Especially on television with the close-ups of the participants, viewers can get a very good sense of the tension of the back-and-forth match of wits and skill. The second clip above demonstrates that there certainly was tension in compulsory figures. With high-definition televisions and modern technology demonstrating the sport, I would suggest that the viewing experience today would be far different from all those years ago.
This obviously isn't a blog dedicated to the sport of figure skating and this post is pretty much for me alone, but it's something I have thought about and wanted to share. Make of it what you will.
From Deadline | Hollywood, Nikki Finke reported this morning that actor Neal McDonough was replaced by former JAG star David James Elliott as the husband of an upcoming TV show's matriarch played by Virginia Madsen.
But, in fact, McDonough was sacked because of his refusal to do some heated love scenes with babelicious star (and Botox pitchwoman) Virginia Madsen. The reason? He's a family man and a Catholic, and he's always made it clear that he won't do sex scenes.
Good for him. Though if I were some TV actor, I wouldn't have gotten involved in the project in the first place.
But today, the head of Greater Grace Temple [Charles Ellis III] in Detroit looks out over his flock on Sunday mornings and gazes at a scene where women outnumber men about 2-1. The demographic shift worries him and other Christians looking for ways to draw men back to church. [...]
To bridge the gap, churches are developing nontraditional programs to reach out to men — from sponsoring hunting trips and car clubs to holding annual men’s conferences. Some have toughened their messages to emphasize power, using masculine imagery in their services.
Longtime readers of Father Z's blog know that Father frequently blogs about how over time a correlation can be drawn between things like Mass attendance and vocations for the priesthood and the entry of women into what were traditionally male roles.
Despite all the ballyhoo attempting to prove some kind of causation between priestly celibacy and the decline in vocations, the number of vocations in the Catholic Church started falling off just when women were being introduced into the sanctuaries as readers and music leaders and communion ministers.
The most obvious and visible expression of this trend can be seen in the altar servers (/altar boys being now out of fashion/). As dioceses across the US one by one started allowing girls to join the ranks of servers, the boys who had always enthusiastically sought the job started coming out less and less. The raw material of the Catholic priesthood has been cut off at the source.
Most of the comments at T19 come from Protestants in churches that may or may not have a female clergy, so the comments on the post covering the Detroit story reflect that outlook. One in particular had this to say:
I strongly disagree with the idea that men follow men because they’re men. I think that men generally don’t choose to follow women pastors because women pastors tend to focus on a damp, huggy, indistinct, kumbaya unitarian Christ who accepts you as you are, so there’s nothing to do. Men would rather focus on the rules and how to “win,” thereby.
While the Catholic Church does not have a female clergy and I wouldn't be so bold as to offer such an all-encompassing generalization, the Church has been undergoing since Vatican II a fight between traditional elements of the faith and what the above describes as a "focus on a damp, huggy, indistinct, kumbaya unitarian Christ who accepts you as you are, so there’s nothing to do." At the same time as noted above, women have taken a greater role, not least of which is the catechizing of Catholic youth. When I was in CCD, I was taught mostly by women. Most of them were pious and devout, but in a few classes, the "touchy-feelly" was pronounced.
Coupled with Father Z's points, an explanation arises for the following given in another comment:
OK, I was able to track down the data and found a nerd’s dream site:
Denomination Percent of parishes with 56% or more female ROMAN CATHOLIC 73.2% BAPTIST 69.1% METHODIST 80.1% LUTHERAN 76.1% PRESBYTERIAN OR REFORMED 77.8% PENTECOSTAL 77.9% OTHER MODERATE OR LIBERAL PROTESTANTS 86.1% EPISCOPAL CHURCH 85.1% OTHER CHRISTIAN, NOT OTHERWISE SPECIFIED 56.0% OTHER CHRISTIAN, NOT OTHERWISE SPECIFIED 60.1% NON-CHRISTIAN 57.6%
To have a lot of geeky fun, do the following steps:
# Go to the National Congregations home page. # Clicked “explore the survey data” # Under “Create Cross-tabulations of Two Variables”Wave 2: 2006-2007 data # Clicked under the first Variable. “Denomination.” For the second variable choose “Percent of regular adult attendees are Female”
May mix it up. Caution: data junkies can spend a lot of time with this site. # Clicked: “I want my tables to reflect the number of persons in congregations” # Clicked: Create Frequency Table.
Bolding my own. Let's rearrange those from greatest to least:
OTHER MODERATE OR LIBERAL PROTESTANTS 86.1% EPISCOPAL CHURCH 85.1% METHODIST 80.1% PENTECOSTAL 77.9% PRESBYTERIAN OR REFORMED 77.8% LUTHERAN 76.1% ROMAN CATHOLIC 73.2% BAPTIST 69.1% OTHER CHRISTIAN, NOT OTHERWISE SPECIFIED 60.1% NON-CHRISTIAN 57.6% OTHER CHRISTIAN, NOT OTHERWISE SPECIFIED 56.0%
The Catholic Church isn't at the top of that list, but it can certainly do better that three-fourths.
Remembering the 1921 slaying of Father James E. Coyle [From Columbia, the magazine of the Knights of Columbus.]
Father James E. Coyle, an extraordinary priest and Knight of Columbus in the early 20th century, courageously stood up against widely-held anti-Catholic views at the risk, and then cost, of his life.
The Irish-born priest was scarcely in his 20s when, after his ordination in Rome, he was dispatched to Alabama to begin his priesthood. The Catholic population in Alabama had exploded with a promise of jobs, especially in and around Birmingham’s network of coal mines, steel mills and iron foundries. Father Coyle arrived in the city shortly before a wave of anti-Catholicism flooded the country, and the revived Ku Klux Klan (KKK) rebranded itself as a “patriotic” fraternity, targeting blacks, Catholics, Jews and foreigners.
(ANSA) - Rome, March 17 - Italian soccer's new crackdown on blasphemous comments by players and coaches should be applied "with common sense," the head of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) said Wednesday.
Responding to protests from clubs, CONI President Gianni Petrucci recalled that blasphemy is a crime under Italian law and he was glad to have suggested the campaign to Italian Soccer Federation chief Giancarlo Abete.
Petrucci, whose organisation oversees all Italian sport, said the campaign to give offending players red cards would go ahead but "FIGC will apply it with common sense".
"Blasphemy is not at all a secondary thing," he insisted, "but we have to handle it with care".
The drive to stamp out irreligious oaths has claimed international headlines and spurred protests from coaches including Juventus's Alberto Zaccheroni who said "championships could be altered by this overzealous campaign". [...]
In an amateur match, three red cards were handed out for sacrilegious language, leaving one team with ten men and the other with nine.
I'm impressed. When I first glanced at the headline on the main English page, I thought it would be an article about a Muslim majority country in the Developing World, but Italy! That surprised me. Yeah, I know Italy is fighting the crucifix ruling from the EU, but a crucifix in a classroom seems pretty tame compared to referees handing out red cards for blasphemy. True, it's not the state mandating this...
But if it's a law and the sport wants to regulate itself and its players, I'm all for it.
I am interested in what constitutes blasphemy under Italian law and if it is specific to the Judeo-Christian God.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday that crucifixes should be removed from Italian classrooms, prompting Vatican anger and sparking uproar in Italy, where such icons are embedded in the national psyche.
"The ruling of the European court was received in the Vatican with shock and sadness," said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, adding that it was "wrong and myopic" to try to exclude a symbol of charity from education.
Read the whole thing for various responses, etc. Will Italy tell the EU courts to stick it or will it knuckle under? Only time will tell.
EDIT; Zenit's in my inbox, so here are more links...
"It ignores or neglects the multiple meaning of the crucifix, which not only is a religious symbol, but also a cultural sign," a communiqué from the conference stated. "It does not take into account the fact that, in reality, in the Italian experience, the display of the crucifix in public places is in harmony with the recognition of the principles of Catholicism as part of the historical patrimony of the Italian people, confirmed by the Concordat of 1984."
While the Catholic blogosphere has been doing its thing lately in looking at Notre Dame and all that, I've found interesting the look by 'secular' blogs at the Catholic divide.
The real question here isn’t whether Notre Dame is still Catholic in any meaningful sense, it’s what it means to be “Catholic” in America today. 54 percent of Catholics voted for The One last fall and 67 percent approved of his job performance as of three weeks ago; majorities approve of torture in at least some circumstances and say they’re more likely to consider common sense and experience when making decisions than Church teachings; a narrow plurality think priests should be allowed to marry. Even on abortion and stem cells, those calling themselves Catholic are almost indistinguishable from non-Catholics (although there are sharp differences between non-Catholics and Catholics who attend mass regularly). And of course the Vatican itself is as squishy as can be when it comes to taking on Obama for his stances. The Church, ironically, seems to have the opposite problem from the GOP these days: They’re so comfortable with “centrists” that it’s no longer clear what American Catholicism stands for. Which puts Notre Dame squarely inside the mainstream.
While the traditional, orthodox elements of the Church work on renewal and are seeing signs of life from the US episcopate, at the same time, what should be the Church's allies in political life look in from the outside and they don't seem that encouraged, especially by the Vatican itself and the whole deal with L’Osservatore Romano's efforts of late in wooing Obama.
(CNSNews.com) - Georgetown University says it covered over the monogram “IHS”--symbolizing the name of Jesus Christ—because it was inscribed on a pediment on the stage where President Obama spoke at the university on Tuesday and the White House had asked Georgetown to cover up all signs and symbols there. [...]
“In coordinating the logistical arrangements for yesterday’s event, Georgetown honored the White House staff’s request to cover all of the Georgetown University signage and symbols behind Gaston Hall stage,” Julie Green Bataille, associate vice president for communications at Georgetown, told CNSNews.com.
“The White House wanted a simple backdrop of flags and pipe and drape for the speech, consistent with what they’ve done for other policy speeches,” she added. “Frankly, the pipe and drape wasn’t high enough by itself to fully cover the IHS and cross above the GU seal and it seemed most respectful to have them covered so as not to be seen out of context.”
1. What exactly was the policy that Obama was speaking on?
2. If setting is important to the point of asking host institutions to cover up all signage and symbols, what's the point of even giving speeches outside of settings where the White House can control everything according to its whim?
3. Was this little talk by the president scheduled before or after the Notre Dame thing came up? Can we say, 'PR disaster?'
PRINCETON, NJ -- According to Gallup Poll trends on church attendance among American Christians, weekly attendance among Protestants has been fairly steady over the past six decades, averaging 42% in 1955 versus 45% in the middle of the current decade. However, attendance among Roman Catholics dropped from 75% to 45% over the same period.
Most of the decline in church attendance among American Catholics occurred in the earlier decades, between 1955 and 1975; however, it continued at a rate of four percentage points a decade through the mid-1990s, and church attendance has since leveled off at 45%. [...]
[Conclusion:] Whatever the causes, it is clear that U.S. Catholics' once-nearly uniform obedience to their church's requirement of weekly mass attendance has faded, and Catholics are now no different from Protestants in their likelihood to attend church. This has occurred among Catholics of all age categories, but is most pronounced among those under 60. The good news for the Catholic Church is that the drop in attendance seems to have slowed or abated altogether in the last decade, spanning a most difficult period for the church around 2002, when attendance did suffer temporarily.
Unless something else happens, have we reached our 'smaller, more pious' Church, at least in the US, as suggested by Benedict? Of course, nowadays, Mass attendance doesn't exactly correlate with following Catholic doctrine...
Chris Carrington, a political science major from the Chicago area, said he doesn't see how Obama's appearance at Notre Dame contradicts Catholic values.
"To not allow someone here because of their beliefs seems a little hypocritical and contradictory to what the mission of the university and church should be," he said.
I find this quote to be quite entertaining. Let's look at what Mr. Carrington is driving at here more closely, shall we? The parts I've bolded are the key points.
Mr. Carrington labels as hypocritical and contradictory what he feels the Church's and the university's mission should be. Note: he is not labeling as hypocritical and contradictory what the Church's mission really is (given that they've invited Obama, it's fair to say that the mission of Notre Dame and the Catholic Church have diverged...).
So let's review: Mr. Carrington is criticizing the Catholic Church as hypocritical and contradictory because of the mission he thinks it should have, not its actual mission. So I put it to Mr. Carrington: What do you actually think about the Church's mission as it exists now, not what you think it should eventually morph into to suit your tastes?
And no, Mr. Carrington, you cannot claim that you misspoke or that this is all just semantics. You're a student in what is perceived to be a one of the better universities in the United States. No cop outs here.
The movement, called Quiverfull, is based on Psalm 127, which says, "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them."
Those in the Quiverfull movement shun birth control, believing that God will give them the right number of children. It turns out, that's a lot of kids. [...]
"I think, help! Imagine if we had had more of these children!" Campbell says, adding, "My greatest impact is through my children. The more children I have, the more ability I have to impact the world for God."
A Christian God, that is. Campbell says if believers don't starting reproducing in large numbers, biblical Christianity will lose its voice.
"We look across the Islamic world and we see that they are outnumbering us in their family size, and they are in many places and many countries taking over those nations, without a jihad, just by multiplication," Campbell says.
Still, Quiverfull is a small group, probably 10,000 fast-growing families, mainly in the Midwest and South. But they have large ambitions, says Kathryn Joyce, who has written about the movement in her book Quiverfull: Inside The Christian Patriarchy Movement.
"They speak about, 'If everyone starts having eight children or 12 children, imagine in three generations what we'll be able to do,' " Joyce says. " 'We'll be able to take over both halls of Congress, we'll be able to reclaim sinful cities like San Francisco for the faithful, and we'll be able to wage very effective massive boycotts against companies that are going against God's will.' "
Aside from the religious arguments, I dare you readers to read this from USAToday and then try and tell me why this is not a good idea.
At the White House’s celebration of Greek Independence Day Wednesday afternoon, President Obama got a little unexpected flattery from Archbishop Demetrios, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church in the United States
Listing a series of challenges Obama will need to deal with as president, Demetrios predicted: Demetrios to Obama: "Following the brilliant example of Alexander the Great...you will be able to cut the Gordian knot of these unresolved issues."
Obama responded by making a face to the crowd, prompting laughter. And when he took the mic, he speculated on what the compliment could do for him at home.
"I will tell Michelle I have been compared to Alexander the Great. I will see if that gets me a little more respect,” said Obama, who conceded: “She's still the boss."
While the Greeks in the US seem to have no problem hanging out with the president, the Romans are having difficulties. President Obama has accepted an invitation to speak at the commencement at Notre Dame later this spring and Catholics who actually care about their faith are up in arms. A coalition of student groups from the university have coordinated and put together a website: Notre Dame Response.
In defense of the unborn, we wish to express our deepest opposition to Reverend John I. Jenkins, CSC’s invitation of President Barack Obama to be the University of Notre Dame’s principle commencement speaker and the recipient of an honorary degree. Our objection is not a matter of political partisanship, but of President Obama’s hostility to the Catholic Church’s teachings on the sanctity of human life at its earliest stages. Further, the University’s decision runs counter to the policy of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops against honoring pro-choice politicians. We cannot sit by idly while the University honors someone who believes that an entire class of human beings is undeserving of the most basic of all legal rights, the right to live.
Additionally, Fr. Jenkins has put some of his students into a position of moral dilemma as to whether they can attend their own graduation. Many pro-life seniors, along with their families, now feel personally conflicted about participating in the commencement. The lack of concern for these devoted sons and daughters of Notre Dame, who love this University and the Catholic principles on which it was built, is shameful.
And of course there is a petition from the Cardinal Newman Society here protesting the invitation. About 140,000 people have added their names so far, including myself.
