OBAMA GETS STANDING OVATIONS TO A PACKED STADIUMAT NOTRE DAMEBy: Cynthia L. Butler, Esq.
Obama called for "fair minded words" in discussing the hot
button issue of the Catholic world: Abortion, which he confronted head on not shying from controversy. If ever there were a resounding thumbs down to what Patricia McGuire, President of Trinity College in DC (Former Assistant Dean of Georgetown Law School) DAME OF MALTA calls "religious vigilantism" (
Washington Post, p.A5, Monday, May 18, 2009) of vicious name calling it was demonstrated by this Fair Minded
Notre Dame class of 2009 who didn't listen to the ranting
ragefest from the religious wrong and packed the stadium to listen to the 44
th President of the United States.
No one in recent memory can recall Obama taking a knife to the throat of an innocent in-womb child or even one born alive, yet the moniker "
infanticidal" was thrown at him like mud patties thrown by an incontinent toddler. Except adults were doing this. That is where the real scandal is. No one thinks Randall Terry (Operation Rescue) ranting "baby killer" from the gates outside
Notre Dame gets changes in public policy or does anything other than deeply
embarrass the thoughtful catholic world. I used to think that these people were just out of their minds on too many anti-depressants, until I heard Randall Terry try to defend his strategy in which he argued that no social movement came without this sort of in your face insulting verbal throwing up. I have news for him- Martin Luther King didn't run around calling people vituperative ugly names. He spoke intelligently, eloquently and mobilized people by loving them into humility if not a little shame. I don't recall the in-your-face strategy being employed by
Ghandi or
Mandella either. The greatest people in the world are the most humble- like Jesus. Obama spoke about "courtesy" which is a concept rather alien to the self-righteous crowd.
"Before a downfall the heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor." – Proverbs 18:12 Only about 50 students showed up to pray at the Grotto with Frank
Pavone- who the rest were is
anyone's guess- my guess, some clerical staff at
Notre Dame and community members from South Bend who want in on the excitement to say they were there at the next parish picnic. They could just as easily have been petty republican operatives there to try to
embarrass the President. The two reported (apparently only two) visible verbal protesters inside the stadium of thousands were quietly escorted out.
The most responsible TV commentary came from people like Father James Martin, S.J. who was very impressed with
Obama's speech and gave him credit for taking on the issue thoughtfully and with a desire to reconcile toward common ground. Surely, we all can agree that reducing unintended pregnancies and promoting sexually responsible behavior is a good strategy and there is much work we need to do along those lines. That moots the issue- and isn't that better than labeling people with pure slander. Obama sounded more like Cardinal
McCarrick in his calls for responsible rhetoric and civil dialogue than did Frank
Pavone.
There are moving aspects to the Obama catholic connection. He spoke how Cardinal Bernadine led him to Jesus. Obama is in fact a Christian convert from an
unchurched background-and he openly credits Cardinal Bernadine for his conversion. He spoke of his deep gratitude to "Fr. Ted", now 92 years young and still standing, a
Notre Dame Icon and the only surviving member of the Civil Rights Commission established by Eisenhower that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Bill of 1964. God Bless Him.
The
demonization of people who hold thoughtful views and come out the other way on strategy is just wrong. It is evil. It is
unChristian and it is inexcusable. It not only turns people off the issue but it turns people away from Jesus. It is a pathetic example. Refusing to talk to people, banning, evicting, and ostracizing people who hold the same ultimate value of respect for life and wish to see abortions eliminated from the planet because such people think there are more effective strategies than vituperative name calling, trashing and
impugning their morality, slandering their virtue, and the Republican platform which has only ever argued for penalizing only women (not men/boys in violation of our Constitutional Equal Protection principles) and doctors, when abortion stats ROSE under Bush like a toddler with his fingers in his ears refusing to listen to reason is counterproductive, not helpful or effective and just
juvenile. Kudos to Father Jenkins for tipping his hat to
Fides et Ratio and calling all to a faith tempered by reason. I repeat, the slander is UNCHRISTIAN. It offends everyone. The fact that it made no headway on a Catholic Campus should tell those Randall Terry and
Pavone devotees just how offensively off the wall and ineffective they are.
The comments I routinely heard were "those people need to get a life" and worse. Dr. Harvey a noted academic physician from,
inter alia, Georgetown Medical School, and Pro-Life expert on the life issues commented at Holy Trinity's coffee hour on Sunday that such people are "complete ignoramuses."
That said, what is all the fuss about?
It is responsible to look at the statistics in a calm manner in effort to appreciate where all the emotion comes from.
It has been reported that every year 1.3 million in-womb children are aborted. Their lives are ended before they see daylight. During the Holocaust 6 Million Jewish people were murdered between the years 1941 and 1945. You can do the math comparisons. To put this in current perspective, if 1.3 Million in-womb children are murdered every year (the taking of innocent life being a murder that some believe and at least one Archbishop of the Church maintains is never justified) then every two years a population the size of the city of Philadelphia is wiped off the planet. Every three years a population the size of Los Angeles is wiped off the planet.
Now think about the magnitude of the issue. These are children that no one is protecting. They are separate from their mother and thus not merely an extension of their mother. They can have different gender, blood and phenotype. They always have different DNA-their own unique DNA.
This is therefore, a critical social problem that demands a social response, not just an individual response at the individual level. Moreover, it is an URGENT critical social problem. The people who did nothing and turned a blind eye to the Holocaust were considered guilty by their neglect. There is a moral responsibility to not only speak out against but do whatever is in one's power to stop an evil like the slaughter of innocent Jews.
These are children. The problem with the ongoing mass murder of innocent in-womb children is that it is not being dictated by a visible "
Furer." There is no Hitler to kill to stop the war. There is no one person who can be stopped to end the murder of innocent in-womb children. It is a much more pernicious evil.
The "
Furer" in this case is the Devil himself, who works through the minds and hearts of the women who get abortions - such that they are held captive by their hopelessness, despair, hatred in some cases, and fear- all demonic influences. Obama recognizes that this is a spiritual battle with spiritual repercussions. So how do you combat those influences? One responsible way is of course, to combat the physical world's properties that lend themselves to those emotions to fight those influences. Fighting Poverty fights despair- Providing free education and day care creates a world more hospitable to young women with children. Health Care reform tells a woman that we as a society will take care of you when you are pregnant and with infant care needs. This is not only a more loving approach, it is a more effective responsible approach.
In this approach, there is no room for people feeling spiritually superior or condemning others as presumably less spiritually superior because you get it and no one else does and you love children more, and the rest of the world must not love Jesus. We will be judged by the DEEDS we DO in the body not the rhetorical carpet bombing we do.
The Culture of Slander is Over. Try learning to knit a baby quilt.
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