RBWords - Volume 22 - Number 4: April 2009
Something to Think About
The recent controversy generated by the invitation of Notre Dame University to President Obama to speak at their commencement ceremony and receive an honorary degree has certainly given me much to think about. The few times I’ve ventured an opinion, I’ve had to duck behind the nearest piece of protective cover. Apparently it’s OK to “welcome sinners and eat with them” (cf. Luke 15:2) as long as you do it in private and don’t give them any “honor.” But Notre Dame is not the only university to give a bishop an excuse not to attend the commencement. One can only wonder what the prospective “honorees” feel about being at the center of a battle between a Catholic institution of higher education and the local bishop!
In the two most prominent cases, that of President Obama at Notre Dame and political activist, Donna Brazile, at Xavier University in New Orleans (the only private, predominately African-American Catholic university in the country), the issue is serious in terms of positions they have taken on the subject of abortion and/or embryonic stem cell research. One wonders if a local ordinary would attend if the honoree was an outspoken advocate of the war in Iraq, which the Pope himself denounced, or an advocate of stringent enforcement of immigration laws, which the bishops of the U.S.A. have denounced. For some very good people the question hinges on whether or not the position concerns an “intrinsic evil” such as abortion. I rather doubt that makes a difference to the average observer, but my own convictions about Cardinal Bernardin’s “consistent life ethic” would, if I followed the more strident voices in this debate, require me to advocate a longer list of “disqualifiers” for honors from a Catholic university. (I suspect some bishops would appreciate the longer list which would more easily excuse them from one more ceremony!)
There are too many issues involved in this controversy for this small space (i.e. the identity and role of a Catholic university, the role of the local bishop, an entire approach in moral theology which makes some lethal behavior more lethal than other lethal behavior – which leaves me and maybe even the good Lord scratching our respective heads). No matter what position one takes on the whole thing, it is truly SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT.
It Has Been Said
When you are really praying for what you really want you won’t be distracted – the prayers of people on sinking ships are rarely troubled by distractions, they know exactly what they want. The prayer of petition is a matter of bringing ourselves, in the form of our wants and needs, into the presence of the Father. If we come before the Father not in our true selves but in a disguised and respectable form, pretending to be high-minded and altruistic saints, then we will not make any contact at all.
From “Prayer” in GOD STILL MATTERS by Herbert McCabe, O.P. (edited and introduced by Brian Davies, O.P.)