Few Things Can Constitute a More Explicit, In-Your-Face, Denial of Catholic Seriousness than the Choice of Pro-abortion Commencement Speakers

Father Richard John Neuhaus, the late editor of First Things wrote the following in 1999 about pro-abortion commencement speakers:

It is exceedingly tiresome when college and university administrators protest that they don’t do what they so obviously do do. While effusively affirming their devotion to their ‘Catholic identity,’ they deny it by the most egregious of actions. One university president assures me that it has been made perfectly clear that this year’s commencement speaker will not be ‘honored’ in any way.' What twaddle. Being chosen as commencement speaker is as great an honor as most institutions provide. Chatter about ‘Catholic identity’ or, even more tenuously, ‘education in the Jesuit tradition’ is, a Jewish friend observes, comparable to advertising ‘kosher-like’ hot dogs. Few things can constitute a more explicit, in-your-face, denial of Catholic seriousness than the choice of pro-abortion commencement speakers. (First Things, August/September 1999)

Obviously, Father Neuhaus would have a lot to say about Notre Dame University's invitation to pro-abortion Presiden Barack Obama if Neuhaus was alive today.