Mary Ann Glendon declines Latare Medal from Notre Dame

The circus continues at Notre Dame--hat tips to Deacon Greg, Rocco, Amy Welborn and First Things who all got the early word on this.

Former Vatican Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon has declined receiving the Laetare Medal from Notre Dame in light of the hoopla surrounding President Obama's commencement speech. A snippet alongside some commentary from yours truly.

A commencement, however, is supposed to be a joyous day for the graduates and their families. It is not the right place, nor is a brief acceptance speech the right vehicle, for engagement with the very serious problems raised by Notre Dame’s decision—in disregard of the settled position of the U.S. bishops—to honor a prominent and uncompromising opponent of the Church’s position on issues involving fundamental principles of justice.

Finally, with recent news reports that other Catholic schools are similarly choosing to disregard the bishops’ guidelines, I am concerned that Notre Dame’s example could have an unfortunate ripple effect.

OK two things here:

If you think it's not the right venue than let's get the right one and have her come and let her voice the church's cause so that the President and everyone else for that matter will hear it.

Secondly, I disagree that it's not the right venue. After 4 years, graduation is not merely about celebrating an achievement of making it through the tough grind but it's also about inspiring students to stand up for justice, for their moral principles, for engaging the world's problems. They are heading into a world where many of them will be doing exactly that. Commencement speeches should have in their tone a sense of "as you leave here...keep this in mind. Don't forget about the unborn, the poor, the world beyond not just this school but this country."

I think that it a shame that Ms. Glendon will not be gracing the students at Notre Dame with her remarks. I do wonder if there is some way to salvage this. The groundswell has started and it seems to me that at this point Notre Dame is facing a public relations disaster. I would offer the following solution:

Give the Laetare medal to New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Archbishop of Santa Fe Michael Sheehan who just ended the death penalty in their state. The topic we can ask them to address is: How can we dialogue together, despite our disagreements in order to influence each other to create change.

Because that's what everyone is missing here.

Intrinsic Evil as Opposed to Plain Old Evil

Deacon Greg quoted the Pope (when he was Cardinal Ratzinger) on the intrinsic evil over at the Deacon's Bench:

"Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia."

OK, I agree and want to honor the church's teaching on the moral weight of these issues but when we think about capital punishment, just because the church has taught that there may be some instances in which capital punishment may be permissible doesn't mean that any of those cases actually exist in the United States. President Bush executed many prisoners in Texas and none of those cases were morally right.

So while something may be intrinsically evil like abortion we can say that nobody should ever hold the position that would say otherwise. But evil is still evil--intrinsic or otherwise. We need to judge the actions of those who have actually taken the power given to them directly by the state to take the life of someone else as evil--and once we recognize that evil we need to hold them to the same standard that we do when we see evil being done in other areas--intrinsic or otherwise.

I could go on with an analysis of war in the same way but the US Bishops already did so by saying the war in Iraq did not meet the standards for a just war.