NOTRE DAME UNIVERSITY: THE OBAMA CONTROVERSY & HOW SOME STUDENTS ARE REACTING TO IT

Notre Dame University is one of the proudest of American institutions. Its identity as a centre of Catholic education may sometimes be overshadowed by its reputation as a football powerhouse, but no one should under-estimate how the former informs the latter. In recent years, both students and faculty have tried to encourage ND to re-discover not only its Catholic roots, but a loyalty to the teachings of the Magisterium as should be expected of a Catholic institution, but which, to many, had seemed lacking during the preceding decades.

We have deeply-engrained memories of our single visit there, happily one undertaken on a football weekend. One strain of all that is best and most admirable in the American ideal revealed itself in manifold ways as we took our seats in the hallowed stadium on a freezing cold November afternoon. The band, perhaps four-score strong, played the Fight Song; the crowds cheered; and the team took the field fresh from the special Mass it attends before every game. This was Fall in its American essence: clear, patriotic, determined under the bright blue sky of God's Providence. Warm-hearted is another adjective we could add - though we had bedecked ourselves in turtlenecks and tuques purchased at the University shop, our jeans and cotton shells were no match for the mid-West wind chasing around the stadium. A kindly couple turned around in their seats and, seeing our discomfiture, insisted we borrow one of their blankets - a spontaneous gesture of generosity we gratefully accepted !

But an even more unforgettable memory stems from our campus tour the day previous. The young sophomore taking seven or eight of us around a place obviously very special to him passed by its celebrated grotto without any comment beyond mentioning it is a replica of that at Lourdes, Our Lady's most venerated Shrine in the southwest of France. I mentioned to him that I was surprised to see so many students - easily 15 or 20 - kneeling and apparently praying at the low stone wall outlining this central focus of the campus. His natural and most artless response moved me to tears: "Oh, a lot of the guys like to stop and visit Our Lady - you'll always see plenty of students there - especially on football weekends !"

Which leads us to reflect on the current controversy about the University Administration's having invited President Obama to speak and accept an honorary degree at the Commencement ceremonies this Spring. South Bend's own Bishop will not attend, and has indicated, along with other prelates, a host of alumnae and students, his displeasure. It is true that ND has invited most US Presidents to speak - but the special nature of Commencement, the peculiar honour of an honorary degree and the definite pro-choice stance of the President make the choice particularly galling to many of the vast ND family, and especially to many Catholics who respect the Office of President deeply, who otherwise admire Mr Obama and who wish him nothing but success as he confronts the daunting challenges facing him at home and abroad.

We have give kudos to a group of students representing several different campus organizations which have now banded together to lead opposition to the Presidential invitation. One senses that an especial part of their motivation is to overcome the perception that the furor over the visit stems mainly from crusty alums and "extreme" Catholic right-wingers rather than from current students for whom the Commencement ceremonies are theoretically designed. They have mounted a vigorous campaign, and a web site at http://www.ndresponse.com/

Consider their cause, and keep them and the wonderful institution they love so dear in your prayers, that a dignified way out of this unhappy situation may be found which allows all parties to live together in charity, and which maintains Notre Dame's fidelity to Holy Church and its teachings.

MUST READING: HYPOCRISY AMIDST THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

A NY Times Op-Ed piece of Wednesday, March 25, is must reading. You can probably find it on line, as the Times has not yet proceeded with its tentative plan to charge for web access to at least some sections of its venerable and of late electronic pages.

Headlined, Dear AIG, I Quit ! the article is in fact a letter of resignation sent the day previous by Jake DeSantis, an Executive Vice President of AIG Financial Products, to the beleaguered firm's President, $1-a-year man Edward M Liddy.

Scrupulously fair, and giving credit to Mr Liddy and his selfless service as appropriate, but also hard-hitting, DeSantis lays out the case for the bonuses deserved by him and many of his colleagues who worked hard and brought profits to their firm. He also excoriates those vicious and even threatening attacks on those individuals - and outlines his and these colleagues' resentment over Mr Liddy's "failure to stand up for us in the face of unfair and untrue accusations" from media and elected officials.

We feel the only thing more regrettable than Mr Liddy's submitting himself to the intemperate and hypocritical cries of Congressmen in their ivory tower Committees (the same individuals who had obviously neither read the bill permitting the bonus payments nor heeded the several months of comment about bonuses that preceded it) is the nauseating self-righteousness of NY State's Attorney General, the ambitious Andrew Cuomo, (potential candidate to take on a very weak Governor in a primary challenge) whose posturing and revealing of names of bonus recipients endangered not only these men but their entirely-blameless families.

We also regret that Mr Obama did not immediately say that while he found the appearance of the bonuses odious (as he has the right and doubtless the obligation to do pace his friends and controllers on the left) that their sum is small potatoes, irrelevant to the solution of the financial crisis, a distraction for purely political purposes and an example of how government "oversight" of large enterprises in a supposedly free-market environment is anything but.

And these are the folks who now are telling GM and the rest of the auto manufacturers how to conduct their affairs...

False Intimacy Demeans Presidential Office

Has anyone noticed the "new normal" whereby politicians - not to mention others in public life - feel constrained when cameras are whirring to greet their colleagues with a hug or even a kiss, gender-regardless ?

We feel it demeans both the office and society to have such intimate expressions of human feeling displayed for all and sundry, President Obama being the latest victim of this disease.

It demeans the office of President of The United States - arguably the most powerful position in the world - for either the President or his business visitors to embrace one another. It suggests a false intimacy that cannot cover the fact that POTUS has no equals. If Mr Obama wishes to embrace his real friends in private, that is entirely his business, of course. A handshake is the appropriate way to show mutual respect, and it is congenial for both sexes - especially, we would imagine, for men not yet "so comfortable with their bodies" as the modern rubric goes, that they really wish to hug anyone in public except their wives and children (maybe sisters, cousins and aunts, too, if they are liberal or hip enough to feel so inclined !)

Routine hugging in public - by President or peon - also demeans the special nature of intimacy. We embrace those whom we truly love and have long known. In so doing, we are sharing a part of human nature that Christ gave us, Love. We are affirming that we stand with them in a special relationship. Fling this special sign around with random abandon (as well-intentioned but naive churches inflict on their attendees in a most horrid fashion at the mis-named "passing of the peace" - better called "gassing at Mass") and you cheapen the depth and mystery of the most special human bonds.

Happily, whatever his other faults, this horror of the modern age does not appear to have infected Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.