K.C.’s bishop says Notre Dame president may lose job over Obama invite
Bishop Robert Finn of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph
“We are at war,” declared Bishop Robert Finn of the Roman Catholic diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in Missouri at the Gospel of Life Convention in Overland Park, Kan. on Sat. Finn called himself and those gathered to hear his keynote address “warriors - members of the Church on earth - often called the Church Militant.”
“We are engaged in a constant warfare with Satan, with the glamour of evil, and the lure of false truths and empty promises,” Finn continued.
Finn, who has been mentioned as a possible successor to Archbishop Raymond Burke to lead the St. Louis Archdiocese, also predicted the president of Notre Dame will lose his job.
The gathering was co-sponsored by the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas and the Diocese of Kansas City - St. Joseph and Finn went on to discuss the current controversy at the University of Notre Dame, which has invited President Barack Obama to address its graduates next month.
Finn said that at his first U.S. Bishops’ Conference meeting in June, 2004 “the bishops passed what seemed to me to be a compromise statement as a result of our lengthy debate on politicians and Communion.”
He continued:
There we stated that pro-choice leaders (and specifically, Catholic leaders were mentioned) should not be given public platforms or honors. As we all know the eminent American Catholic University, Notre Dame, is poised to bestow such an opportunity and honor on President Obama, who is, of course, not Catholic. But it doesn’t take another Bishops’ Conference statement to know this is wrong: scandalous, discouraging and confusing to many Catholics.
God knows what all motivates such a decision. I suspect that, since Notre Dame will need a scapegoat for this debacle, and Fr. Jenkins will probably lose his job, at this point perhaps he ought to determine to lose it for doing something right instead of something wrong. He ought to disinvite the President, who I believe would graciously accept the decision. Notre Dame, instead, ought to give the honorary degree to Bishop John D’Arcy of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, who has supported and tried to guide the University, despite their too frequent waywardness, faithfully for 25 years.
D’Arcy, meanwhile recently urged Catholics to “stay away from unseemly and unhelpful demonstrations against our nation’s president or Notre Dame or Father John I. Jenkins, CSC.”
Tim Townsend has been the religion reporter at the Post-Dispatch since June 2004. He previously covered personal finance and consumer news for The Wall Street Journal. He holds master's degrees from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Yale Divinity School. In 2005 he won the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year Award, given by the Religion Newswriters Association. 
The invitation to Obama needs to be withdrawn. This is a slap in the face to Catholics for this man to speak at one of our Universities. His policies support the killing of millions of babies each year and it is not acceptable for him to rub our faces in the piles of dead fetal matter.
Hm, does a bishop in Kansas City have the authority to fire a college president in Indiana? It would appear to me that the President of the University of Notre Dame reports to the Trustees, not the Bishop. Him keeping or loosing his job is dependent on the Trustees, correct?
So, does being a good catholic these days mean one has to be a hyperconservative Republican? At least to Bishops Finn and Burke, it would seem so.
hs-
The Church holds many “liberal” view points in regard to social justice and equality. The pre-eminent issue of a right to life happens to be a plank of the Republican party. If there were a pro-life Democrat, they would probably be closer in line to the Church’s teachings.
However, when it comes to the murder of innocent children and honoring those that support that position, there is no compromise.
Pundits should stop trying to constantly view religion through the lens of left/right and recognize Catholicism as the complex belief system that it is.
Anybody ever watch the movie Chocolat? Every week, the priest ran his sermon past “The Count”. Now, does the head of Notre Dame need to run everything he does past the local bishop, the council of bishops, or the pope? Dealing with the issue of abortion is not accomplished by shunning or dis-invitation. Could Notre Dame have picked someone else? Duh! From now on, anyone speaking at a “catholic’ university will need to have their ticket punched by the powers that be, similar to a “temple recommend” in the LDS church. I am sure that bishop D’Arcy’s’ statement to catholics not to do anything stupid will surely be followed to the letter. As for fighting against Satan and evil, it is a shame that the church places a higher emphasis on the unborn rather than those that were violated by “Men of God”. At worst, abortion equals pedophilia/child abuse. As for my former friend from seminary days, Bob Finn, he has been ‘romanized’. There is a war brewing, but it is not between catholics and Satan. It is between church laity and the church hierarchy.
The more that bishops come out to publicly attack Notre Dame (and Fr. Jenkins individually) over inviting the President of the Unnited States to receive a degree and give the commencement talk, the more I realize that the real issue here is not abortion, but power.
The bishops have chosen a strategy that seeks to have our courts and legislatures make all abortions punishable as murder, even in cases of rape and incest, or where the woman could die as the result of the pregnancy coming to term. This is a legalistic, rather than pastoral, approach to the moral problem of women choosing to end a pregnancy.
Part of this strategy is to shun any government leader, Catholic or non-Catholic, who does not support their position.
Notre Dame’s offense was to ignore this approach, to say in effect that the Catholic Church and its universities will not be hijacked by the anti-abortion movement, nor subject to the control of the hierarchy.
Notre Dame has joined the mainstream of American higher education, much like the Catholic laity has joined mainstream American society. We will not voluntarily exclude others on some test of moral purity.
The bishops’ desire to impose their power over American Catholics and universities has been lost, and this is what infuriates them. They’ll have to learn that in America powers cannot be imposed; it has to be earned.
Fr. Jenkins will not lose his job. ND has long invited invite sitting Presidents to give its Commencement addresses, and the school does not regret the invitation to President Obama. The “controversy” is being manufactured by myopic, abortion-obsessed ultraconservatives from outside the ND community.
I’m proud of Notre Dame for not caving in to the one-issue wonders who are destroying the Catholic Church in America.
At the very least, if Notre Dame is to continue with policies that disagree with Catholic teaching, then the Catholic label needs to be removed.
It is correct the president may not get fired, however Catholic Universities will end up losing ultimately if they continue to by hypocrites.
This is not about power. This is about being Catholic, and holding values and principles that are Catholic. The bishops have responsibility to take action when Catholics in their diocese began to stray. Even if the local bishop does not have direct authority over the president being the president, you can be sure that they will do what they can to prevent Catholic institutions from advocating anti-Catholic policies.
The real issue IS abortion, and those in Church leadership who choose to honor the leading enablers of abortion should pay with their jobs.
The President of the University of Notre Dame is not in a position to set the institution he leads apart from the fundamental tenets of church belief. To both invite Barack Obama to speak and to bestow upon him an honor not only implies disunity with the fundamental beliefs of the Church, it insults the faithful.
If Fr. Jenkins wishes to set himself apart from the Church on this issue, he should do that not as the head of a major educational institution affiliated with the Church.
The church, at least at the bishop’s level, is sounding more and more like the Taliban these days. A war on civil society in the cause of supreme righteousness? Haven’t we seen enough of this in the past 8 years?
It’s not just about abortion. The numbers of abortions, as far as I know, have declined to some of their lowest levels since Roe. Rome and the bishops have decided theyre going to settle for nothing less than imposing their Catholic version of Sharia law on every aspect of our society - contraception, marriage, you name it. If they don’t get their way, they will attempt to belittle and politically destroy anyone who stands in their path.
Like the evangelicals, the RCC has made itself an unregistered political action committee for the Republican party, and it will follow the same path to irrelevancy because people in this country are done with extreme agendas and the politics of intimidation.
Kenneth-
That argument is so eloquent and well-reasoned. I now know the errors of my ways. Thank you.