Religion & Law

It was a beautiful day -- for me, a sad one, but also, strangely, a somewhat hopeful one -- at Notre Dame. 

There will be, in the days to come, a lot said and written about the various events and speeches at Notre Dame this weekend. (Try to find the text or video of the remarks given on the South Quad, at the event sponsored by ND Response, by Fr. John Rafael, of St. Augustine High School in New Orleans,  Moving stuff.)  I was not able to attend the main ceremony, so I had to follow President Obama's and Judge Noonan's remarks online. 

I admire Judge Noonan immensely, but wish -- on this particular occasion -- he had been a bit more direct.  For the careful listener, intimately familiar with Noonan's work and American history, there were some powerful thoughts.  I worry that the commencement audience, though, did not hear the challenge to President Obama's unfortunate embrace of injustice that, in my view, Judge Noonan's remarks contained.  

The President said, almost word-for-word what I expected he would be advised to say, and what was politically astute for him to say, and he did so well.  To my regret, he did not say "by the way, I've been a doofus when it comes to school choice, and I hereby resolve to put my popularity and charm to good use -- helping kids and promoting religious freedom -- and to appreciate the fact that I don't actually have to kow-tow to the teacher-unions.  Oh, and I also now understand -- having come to Notre Dame -- that it really is not such a good thing to constitutionalize a right to private violence against the most vulnerable human beings."  Maybe next time.

Over at America, Michael Sean Winters has this review of the President's address:  "[t]he speech handed the President?s opponents plenty of ammunition and showed the extent to which the Obama White House is tone deaf to Catholics and our concerns."  Fr. James Martin's take is more glowing.

So . . . what next?  Will Notre Dame do some honest self-assessment, and ask whether it really has done the kind of things that would make true what we were assured was true, namely, that Notre Dame is entirely and unswervingly pro-life, and "everyone knows" this, so there is no danger of the public getting the wrong idea that the honors accorded the President (the thunderous, sustained applause, the rhapsodic tributes, etc.) indicate an indifference on Notre Dame's part to the seriousness of the injustice involved in our abortion-law regime?  Perhaps.  I hope so.