The creeping secularization of Notre Dame University

President Obama will deliver the commencement address at this year’s graduation ceremony at Notre Dame University. He will also be given an honorary doctor of laws degree. Let us assume for the moment that being elected President by itself qualifies one to be the recipient of an honorary degree that is traditionally predicated on a lifetime of great service to the institution or the greater community to which the institution is connected. Certainly, Mr. Obama has achieved little of greatness apart from that election. He also is not an alumnus of the university. Nor has he provided a lifetime of service to the institution, to the larger Notre Dame-community, or to the human race.

The problem in this instance, however, is that Notre Dame is a Catholic university. As such, it is affiliated with a faith that places significant value on human life, and that also expends considerable social and political capital militating in favor of the sanctity of human life. Mr. Obama, on the other hand, has, in short order since taking office, reversed pro-life policies regarding abortion funding and embryonic stem cell research. Further, his administration is seriously promoting policies to drop freedom-of-conscience exceptions for health care providers that exempt them (doctors, nurses, hospitals) from having to provide services, such as abortions, to which they are opposed on religious grounds. And that’s not even getting into his earlier political oeuvre, such as opposing a state law requiring care for babies born alive after an abortion, the type of law that at the federal level was even supported by the likes of Barbara Boxer. For a Catholic university to extend to such an individual the honor of a graduation speech forum and, worse, an honorary degree, identifies the university with his publicly-voiced ideas and values. Those ideas and values and, hence, the institution’s embrace of them, is in clear conflict with the teachings of the church that so admires the university’s namesake.

Nor can this be explained as an exercise in “dialogue,” as the Notre Dame president so disingenuously said while trying to deflect attention from his actions. This isn’t an academic conference. There won’t be formal expressions of contrary opinions.

Nor is the decision just a practice of honoring every president in non-partisan fashion, as the Notre Dame president also claimed. The university did not so honor Bill Clinton, whose pro-abortion and pro-embryonic stem cell research agenda flowered over eight years rather than spring forth fully-developed within hours of the inauguration. The other Presidents so honored all could be seen as pro-life. Even Jimmy Carter emphasized his claimed personal opposition to abortion.

Opposition to Mr. Obama’s appearance is not simply an attempt to reject as graduation speaker someone whose ideas one finds offensive. I am very much opposed to that type of decision, especially since it is usually directed at conservatives. But here we do not have a case of some vague unease with, or general opposition to, the speaker’s political views. Had the President not done and spoken as he in fact did regarding abortion, embryonic stem cells, freedom of conscience, and survivors of abortion, there would be no case. Mere opposition to his handling of foreign affairs or domestic economic policies would not be enough to question the university’s choice. As long as he kept political matters out of his speech, one would simply look at him as the President speaking. Similarly, if he had been invited by Harvard or other openly secular institutions, his views regarding the aforementioned “sanctity of life” issues would not conflict with the university’s core identity.

But, given Notre Dame’s background and mission, the conflict between the university’s supposed ideals and its action here is central—and fatal. Mr. Obama needs a Catholic university to burnish his pro-life appearance, all the while as he acts in a radically contrary manner. The university, in turn, has sold out its ideals for the sake of appearing “relevant” in its competition with other, secular institutions of higher learning. “Relevance” is fleeting, but the selling out of one’s ideals is like an acid. It keeps corroding the institution’s foundations. Clearly, Mr. Obama got the better deal. Notre Dame did not even get thirty pieces of silver.

National Review provides responses from some Catholic theologians, priests, and professors.