Catholic Courage – Mary Ann Glendon’s Letter to Notre Dame

You may have already seen this on Newsweek or Zenit, but here is the full text of Mary Ann Glendon’s letter, sent just a day or so ago, to the president of Notre Dame, Father John Jenkins. She has declined the university’s offer to give her the Laetare Medal at this year’s commencement. She is the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See. A prominent Catholic and one of the few who seems to actually live what she professes.

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Dear Father Jenkins,

When you informed me in December 2008 that I had been selected to receive Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal, I was profoundly moved. I treasure the memory of receiving an honorary degree from Notre Dame in 1996, and I have always felt honored that the commencement speech I gave that year was included in the anthology of Notre Dame’s most memorable commencement speeches. So I immediately began working on an acceptance speech that I hoped would be worthy of the occasion, of the honor of the medal, and of your students and faculty.

Last month, when you called to tell me that the commencement speech was to be given by President Obama, I mentioned to you that I would have to rewrite my speech. Over the ensuing weeks, the task that once seemed so delightful has been complicated by a number of factors.

First, as a longtime consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, I could not help but be dismayed by the news that Notre Dame also planned to award the president an honorary degree. This, as you must know, was in disregard of the U.S. bishops’ express request of 2004 that Catholic institutions “should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles” and that such persons “should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.” That request, which in no way seeks to control or interfere with an institution’s freedom to invite and engage in serious debate with whomever it wishes, seems to me so reasonable that I am at a loss to understand why a Catholic university should disrespect it.

Then I learned that “talking points” issued by Notre Dame in response to widespread criticism of its decision included two statements implying that my acceptance speech would somehow balance the event:

• “President Obama won’t be doing all the talking. Mary Ann Glendon, the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, will be speaking as the recipient of the Laetare Medal.”

• “We think having the president come to Notre Dame, see our graduates, meet our leaders, and hear a talk from Mary Ann Glendon is a good thing for the president and for the causes we care about.”

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.

It is with great sadness, therefore, that I have concluded that I cannot accept the Laetare Medal or participate in the May 17 graduation ceremony.

In order to avoid the inevitable speculation about the reasons for my decision, I will release this letter to the press, but I do not plan to make any further comment on the matter at this time.

Yours Very Truly,

Mary Ann Glendon

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Life…. Imagine the Potential

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

A Stranger in a Strange Land

I’m packing my bags. This is going to be a way of sorrows. A long walk through a valley of death. We have just elected, as a people, the most abortion-minded politician in decades.

“The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing that I’d do.” – Barack Obama, speaking to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, July 17, 2007

The Freedom of Choice Act? What’s that all about? Healing the economic crisis, bringing peace to the war in the Middle East? Finding solutions to issues like immigration or health care? No, it’s about destroying our unborn children, America’s future generations. Is this the change you wanted America?

From the National Committee for Human Life Amendment: The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) … is a radical bill. It creates a “fundamental right” to abortion throughout the nine months of pregnancy. No governmental body at any level would be able to “deny or interfere with” this right, or to “discriminate” against the exercise of this right “in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.” For the first time, abortion would become an entitlement the government must condone and promote.

FOCA would go well beyond the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in imposing an extreme abortion regimen on our country. No other piece of legislation would have such a destructive impact on society’s ability to limit or regulate abortion. It would eliminate a broad range of laws – informed consent laws; parental involvement laws; laws promoting maternal health; abortion clinic regulations; government programs and facilities that pay for or promote childbirth and other health care without subsidizing abortion; conscience protection laws; laws prohibiting a particular abortion procedure (e.g., partial birth abortion); laws requiring that abortions only be performed by a licensed physician; and so on. For a careful legal analysis of FOCA by the USCCB’s Office of General Counsel, see: www.nchla.org/docdisplay.asp?ID=190. A summary fact sheet for general distribution can be found at: www.nchla.org/docdisplay.asp?ID=194

In a September 19 letter to Members of Congress, Cardinal Justin Rigali, Chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities, raised grave concerns about any possible consideration of FOCA. The Cardinal declared: “We can’t reduce abortions by promoting abortion.” He urged all Senators and Representatives “to pledge their opposition to FOCA.” For full text of the letter, see: www.usccb.org/prolife/FOCArigaliltr.pdf.

Recommended Actions: Contact your U.S. Representative and two U.S. Senators by FAX letter, e-mail, or phone. Call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at: 202.224.3121; or call Members’ local offices. Full contact info can be found on Members of Congress’s web sites, at: www.senate.gov and www.house.gov

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

A Song for Grace Elizabeth

Anyone who knows my wife Rebecca knows her gift for music. This is a song she composed for our unborn daughter, Grace Elizabeth, diagnosed with a terminal condition and not expected to live outside of the womb. The first image is of Grace and her siblings at the embryonic level, just prior to their transfer through the miracle of embryo adoption (click here for the original post of our story). Only Grace survived, and for this and for our time with her to date, we are eternally grateful.

As we near an election that could spell hope or doom for the most vulnerable among us, the unborn, may this music stir our hearts into a true and lasting love for human life. Thank you all for your continued prayers!

“Everything is a grace.”
– St. Therese of Lisieux

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Abomination

A couple of nights ago, while our beautiful baby boy slept in mommy’s arms after a good dose of formula, Rebecca and I caught a few minutes of a documentary on PBS. It was on terrorism and the Taliban.

It’s a mad world, isn’t it? There are wicked things that take root in men’s hearts and blossom in chaotic acts of violence. There are eyes blinded by hate that do not see. There are hands clenched in rage that will not receive. There are swords in the minds of many that want only to cut and to desecrate with their ideologies. For them, human life is cheap. People are means to an end; either obstacles or opportunities in a process they think will end as a good for them; for their agenda, their cause, their country.

But that approach never works, because people are not means to an end but ends in themselves. “The reason for the world… you and I” in the words of The Riddle, a favorite song of mine. But the TV told otherwise, and the sanctity of humanlife was again desecrated. In the warmth of our home, deeply disturbing images flashed on the screen. Women stoned for not wearing a full burka, a man tortured and killed for drinking alcohol, mutilated bodies, explosions and burned out cars. Buildings were caved in and carved out, looking like open mouths, screaming. Desert landscapes were filled with throngs of bearded men, waving guns, chanting and burning flags. And then I looked back to our newly adopted son, breathing softly in Rebecca’s arms.

In the essay The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis said “Next to the Blessed Sacrament Itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.” These words should be sounded from the rooftops. Now that we have a little boy in our midst, and Grace in the tabernacle of Rebecca’s womb, I am touched more so than ever before by the breathtaking beauty of human life, and by its fragility.

“Behold, you are worth more than many sparrows” was Our Lord’s tongue in cheek way of saying that we are… priceless; worth more than our weight in gold, more that the weight of the whole created universe. Your hairs are counted, your fingerprints are yours alone, you and only you are making the choices of your everyday life every day. And you have been ransomed from destruction and death and decay by the passion of a loving God.

Thank God we see things differently here in America than these sadly misguided terrorists. Thank God we honor every one as a unique expression on the Face of God, that we cherish every human life because in every human heart the Spirit of the Living God lives and moves and gives us being.

Then again…

In the next few days, reflect on the sad truth that we have our own abominations, seemingly neater and cleaner than the images on the TV. With surgical precision, the horrors of abortion are nipped and tucked away from the eyes of most Americans. And yet, 50 million lives have been abruptly and most violently ended by abortion since 1973 in these “United” States. God, save us from this abomination.

“A country that murders its own children has no future.”
– Pope John Paul II

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

The Catholic Vote

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

An Inconvenient Truth

The following is from an e-mail that began circulating in March of last year. I received it yesterday from a friend. It was checked on snopes.com for authenticity and is in fact accurate! Kind of funny, kind of sad. I put it here on the blog because it puts a new spin on the spin doctors. They never tell us this stuff…. and I just wonder why.

Two Houses

House #1
A 20 room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house, all heated by gas. In one month this residence consumes more energy than the average American household does in a year. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2400 per month. In natural gas alone, this property consumes more than 12 times the national average for an American home. This house is not situated in a Northern or Midwestern ‘snow belt’ area. It’s in the South.

House #2
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university. This house incorporates every ‘green’ feature current home construction can provide. The house is 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on a high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat-pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F) heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape.

HOUSE #1 is outside of Nashville , Tennessee ; it is the abode of the ‘environmentalist ‘ Al Gore.

HOUSE #2 is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas; it is the residence of the President of the United States , George W. Bush.

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You can verify it at snopes.com

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Nancy Pelosi is Misrepresentin’

I don’t often get political in this blog for two reasons; 1. I don’t follow politics, and 2. When I do, it seems like endless repetition without any fruition (like Ecclesiastes). But yesterday, a friend pointed out to me a little video clip of Nancy Pelosi, first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives, giving her answer to the question “When does life begin?” (Please take 3 minutes and 23 seconds to view the video clip above).

In watching this clip, I was stunned at the ignorance displayed and at the completely distorted picture of Catholic theology she offered. I actually laughed out loud once, but not a happy laugh. I don’t want to attack this woman, or belittle, or throw sarcastic remarks around like little daggers. She is a daughter of the Father and loved deeply by Jesus. I just need to say that this is NOT what the Catholic Church teaches…. at all….. ever, never, past, present, future.

Nancy, before this interview, you should have skimmed through the Bible (Jeremiah 1:5), the Catechism, and the real Doctors of the Church (not the spin doctors). And you should formerly apologize to St. Augustine too, for misrepresentin’.

Our own Cardinal Rigali (here in Philadelphia) has posted a statement on the US Bishops website, and there are links to other Catholic teachings on the issue of the sanctity of life in the womb.

I pray this is ignorance on Nancy’s part, but her words tell me something else. That she is a tool. Rebecca thinks that Madame Speaker was dragged in and asked to throw her “Catholic” face behind Obama in light of his recent and equally foggy “answer” to the question of life’s origins. He claimed that knowing when human life begins is “above his pay grade.” What does that mean anyway? If someone gives you more money, you’ll give us a more adequate answer?

Madame Speaker claims to be an “ardent, practicing Catholic” in this interview with Tom Brokaw, and she says that this is an issue she has “studied for a long time.”

I can’t believe it.

She said in the interview: “What I know is that over the centuries, the Doctors of the Church have not been able to make that definition…. St. Augustine said at three months… We don’t know.”

OK… let’s look at just one of the earliest teachings of the Church. This is from the Didache, written about oh…. 70 A.D.!

“You shall not procure [an] abortion, nor destroy a newborn child.”
– Didache 2:1-2

And let me quote St. Augustine, who by the way, did not have the chance to live in the 21st century, where 4D ultrasound and MRIs have given us an unprecedented window into the womb. He lived 1600 years ago…. they had candles, and sliced bread, and it was really dark when the sun went down. They made the best judgements they could on the mystery of life’s origins (while always defaulting to respect for life and a clear stance that abortion was always a grave evil).

“And therefore the following question may be very carefully inquired into and discussed by learned men, though I do not know whether it is in man’s power to resolve it (now it clearly is, thanks technology!): At what time the infant begins to live in the womb: whether life exists in a latent form before it manifests itself in the motions of the living being. To deny that the young who are cut out limb by limb from the womb, lest if they were left there dead the mother should die too, have never been alive, seems too audacious.
– Enchiridion 23.86, St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

Therefore brothers, you see how perverse they are and hastening wickedness, who are immature, they seek abortion of the conception before the birth; they are those who tell us, “I do not see that which you say must be believed.”
– Sermon 126

Clearly, Augustine believed it.

Tertullian, aka the Father of the Latin Church (who lived c. 155 – 222 AD), is as clear as crystal on this issue as well:

“In our case, a murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from the other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed”
– Apology 9:8, A.D. 197

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ADDITION:
Please consider taking two minutes to sign in and send a signed petition to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the Bioethics Defense Fund website by clicking here. The statement is ready and only needs your click to send a message of LIFE.

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org