Notre Dame President: Obama Protesters Are Religions Vigilantes
In his speech at the university Obama called for “fair minded” debate between the two sides of the abortion issue. As soon as the speech was over, Notre Dame’s president called the protesters “religious vigilantes.”
Can you feel the hope and change?
Speaking on Trinity’s campus in Northeast Washington, McGuire said that “a half-century of progress for Catholic higher education is at risk of slipping back into those insular, parochial pre-Vatican II days” when academic freedom was not valued within the Catholic Church.
“The real scandal at Notre Dame today is not that the president of the United States is speaking at commencement,” McGuire said. “The real scandal is the misappropriation of sacred teachings for political ends. The real scandal is the spectacle of ostensibly Catholic mobs camping out at Notre Dame for the specific purpose of disrupting the commencement address of the nation’s first African American president. This ugly spectacle is an embarrassment to all Catholics. The face that Catholicism shows to our new president should be one marked with the sign of peace, not distorted in the snarl of hatred.”
McGuire continued, “The religious vigilantism apparent in the Notre Dame controversy arises from organizations that have no official standing with the church, but who are successful in gaining media coverage as if they were speaking for Catholicism. . . . They have established themselves as uber-guardians of a belief system we can hardly recognize. Theirs is a narrow faith devoted almost exclusively to one issue. They defend the rights of the unborn but have no charity toward the living. They mock social justice as a liberal mythology.”
I’m no Catholic, but it’s pretty clear even to me as an outsider that opposition to abortion is a key component of the Catholic faith. It is a part of their religious doctrine, and expecting that universities that claim to be Catholic actually adhere to and respect Catholic doctrine doesn’t seem terribly unreasonable to me.
Most of the people upset by Obama’s visit to Notre Dame are not vigilantes. They’re people who feel betrayed by an abandonment of principle.
It just seems to me that since the number of protesters was such a small facet, that the whole thing seems to be blown out of proportion. Everyone is entitled to their rights, including the protesters, but come on…its graduation. Don’t put that upon students at that moment.
This video highlights both sides of the debate:
http://www.newsy.com/videos/commencement_controversy/
Lefties interrupt conservative speakers all the time but I guess that’s okay since they’re not dissenters but patriots. /sarc
Hey Rob, your title for this post is incorrect. The speech you cite was given by Trinity University’s president Patricia Maguire, not Notre Dame’s.
I would hardly call these protesters vigilantes and they do not have the right to disrupt the President’s speech at Notre Dame, of course what that has to do with his being the first African American President is beyond me. They do however, have the right to show up there (of course while adhering to trespass laws) to protest something guaranteed in our Constitution.
Wow another group of dissenters gets another dangerous label – religious vigilantes. Is that code for right-wing extremists? Obama should never have been chosen to give this address. And he never should have accepted. Why does this one chimp’s ego have to trump a sacred part of the Catholic faith? Why is this one chimp’s ego so big that he just had to give that commencement addres where he obviously did not belong and was not wanted? Obama is one petty little tyrant.
It sounds like Trinity President McGuire is trying to drive a wedge that doesn’t exist. Defense of the unborn trumps “charity for the living?” Newsflash, lady: the unborn are just as alive. Charity towards the weakest and most vulnerable is part of being Catholic. There’s plenty of us Catholics to take care of both and do so voluntarily. If there’s one person whose face is twisted in a snarl of hatred, it’s hers.
It’s no wonder why people who behave in this manner are criticized harshly. Rob did it when it was the left and now he defends those on the right who do it.
So the proper response should be to prevent the commencement of the President Of The United States?
You are unhinged. And these people who are acting outside of the policy of the School are vigilantes by taking the regulation into their own hands.
“I’m no Catholic, but it’s pretty clear even to me as an outsider that opposition to abortion is a key component of the Catholic faith.”…clinging to their guns and religion.
It isn’t obama who will be tested, it is us.
…wait, I uh… I don’t get why his race comes into this one.
Everyone who dissents from leftie ideology is a “dangerous extremist”, don’t you know?