After weeks of buildup and controversy, President Barack Obama gave his commencement address to, and received his honorary degree from, Notre Dame University in South Bend, Ind., yesterday. The fact a Catholic university would give a pro-choice politician an honorary degree sent many Catholic leaders into a tizzy, and the local bishop refused to attend. Obama’s appearance was so incindiary, in fact, that it apparently spanned its own Web site.
But despite the protests, Obama did speak, and he addressed the issue of abortion head-on (check out the full transcript here). He brushed off an interruption by a pro-life heckler by saying, “We’re fine, everybody. … We’re not going to shy away from things that are uncomfortable sometimes.” He called for cordiality, while acknowledging that the debate itself sometimes leaves very little room for middle ground:
“Now, understand — understand, Class of 2009, I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. Because no matter how much we may want to fudge it — indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory — the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.”
Did he accomplish anything? Convince anyone? Well, probably not, according to a panel of Catholic experts assembled by USA Today’s Cathy Lynn Grossman. Abortion is not an issue that lends itself to a great deal of grace, the stakes being what they are. Still, I would like to think that there are better ways to engage the issue than we’ve seen at times.
“Angels & Demons,” the sequel/prequel to “The Da Vinci Code” (”Angels” is a prequel in Dan Brown’s novels, but a sequel on screen) unfurls itself in thousands of theaters today to just a fraction of the hubbub that “Da Vinci” was released to in 2006.
