Inside The Obama Notre Dame Controversy

(CBS)  President Barack Obama's planned commencement address at Notre Dame has prompted outrage from students and activists upset that the Catholic university has invited a pro-choice politician to its campus. The controversy has generated headlines and with them consistent debate in the media about whether or not the president should show up at all.

But the situation is less controversial than it may seem from all the chatter over the past few weeks. Indeed, it seems that the most vocal opponents of the president's visit only represent a small minority of the college community.

"Most people that I speak to are either happy and excited or indifferent," said Tara Pillai, a 21-year-old junior from Kentucky. "I don't know very many students who are super upset. Maybe they didn't vote for him, but they're flattered to have him speak here."

On a national level, a new survey finds a markedly similar response: A majority of Catholics, some 60 percent, say that Notre Dame should not rescind its invitation to Mr. Obama, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released Thursday. Thirty-four percent of those surveyed thought the university should go back on its decision.

Before you take that as evidence that a sizable minority of Catholics are upset with the president, however, consider this: The numbers are nearly identical among the general population. Fifty-six percent of U.S. voters say the invitation should stand while 31 percent believe that it should be pulled. The similarity would suggest the opposition to the president's address is grounded more in ideology than religion.

While conservative groups and abortion rights opponents have gobbled up the lion's share of attention around the invitation, the announcement that the president would speak at graduation has been well received by the majority of students. In a special commencement issue,The Observer, Notre Dame's student newspaper, noted that of the 345 letters it received on the issue authored by students, 74 percent were in favor of the invitation.

The student groups who do plan to demonstrate against the university's decision are pledging to be decorous in their protests. The most dramatic actions are mostly consigned to outside agitators such as Alan Keyes, the conservative political activist, and Randall Terry, the author and anti-abortion activist.

"On the top of our priority list is respect for the seniors and respect for university in everything that we're planning," said Mary K. Daly, a 21-year-old junior from Kentucky and a spokesperson for ND Response, a coalition of 12 anti-abortion campus groups. "We are being careful not to detract from the seniors while remaining true to the Catholic pro-life mission of this university."

At the root of the protests is Mr. Obama's support for abortion rights and, to a lesser extent, embryonic stem cell research. The strongest objections are being voiced by the most partisan members of the Catholic community; other Catholics, both on campus and throughout the country, are less doctrinaire in their positions on those issues than the coverage of the controversy might have led one to think. Many students who were enthusiastic about the president's visit to campus said that while they disagreed with the president's views on abortion, they felt that his policies, particularly those relating to social justice and poverty, were reflective of their faith's emphasis on humanitarianism.

"There are a great number of people here who as Catholics and as people raised as Catholics have come to a more complex understanding of our heritage," said Kelly Wilkinson, a 24-year-old senior from Texas. "It's not that we think abortion has to happen more often. We just do not see [Mr. Obama] coming here as an endorsement of more abortions."

Catholic leaders have been divided over the proper response to Mr. Obama's speech. Most voiced opposition to the president's position on abortion, but others lauded him for voicing support for finding ways to reduce the number of abortions that take place each year. On CBSNews.com's "Washington Unplugged" this week, James Salt, communications director of Catholics United, and Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, clashed over the Obama invitation. Both men believed that Mr. Obama should be allowed to speak, but Donohue, whose group has opposed to Notre Dame's decision, felt that the university should have refrained from bestowing an honorary degree on somebody who differed with the church on abortion.

"I don't think it's possible to find somebody who's a greater champion of abortion rights," said Donohue. "He's diametrically opposed to the Catholic Church's teachings on an issue which we consider to be intrinsically evil."

Salt agreed with Donohue's opposition to abortion, but said that such a stance ignored the work the president was doing to try to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and reduce poverty.

"We believe that the attacks on Notre Dame are really being orchestrated by those who'd like to make cheap political points rather than address the serious moral challenges facing our country today," he said. (You can watch the full debate here.)

Salt and Donahue were both relatively restrained compared with the anger expressed by Randall Terry, who has been in Indiana since April with a group he organized called Stop Obama Notre Dame. He says that he is committed to turning the graduation into a "circus."

Never one for understatement, Terry says that he believes that the university's decision to invite the new president is a crime and that conferring an honorary degree on Mr. Obama is a sin. To show his displeasure, he and other protestors have been picketing university entrances while holding graphic images of aborted fetuses. Both Terry and Keyes have been arrested; they say that they hope they will be able to not just disrupt the ceremony, but to get Notre Dame to cancel the speech.

Though they are bound to attract media coverage, it's important to note that Terry's protests are completely divorced from the ones being organized by campus groups. By Terry's own admission, that's not for lack of trying.

"The students are anemic," he said. "I've reached out to them repeatedly, when they told me they didn't have any problem with President Obama coming, I said 'they must be joking.'"

Consequently, Terry says his group has no qualms about shifting the focus from the day's graduates. That doesn't sit well with many students.

"I feel like its selfish on their part," said Jonathan Boyle, a 21-year-old senior from Texas. "I guess his aim is to try to ruin the graduation to make a point. I'm pro-life, but I think the money could be better spent by giving it to a local women's shelter than by using it for a publicity stunt."

[petesis]

Catholic child molesting Bishops will always be on the other side of progressive movements.

I hope their football team takes another azzwhuppin this year too.

[bradkt1]

The students aren't struggling with anything except getting ready for graduation. The overwhelming majority of them want President Obama to come to Notre Dame and speak at their graduation, while the right wing is trying to spoil it by making it a media event and turn Catholics against each other...and turn other Christians who agree with the President (there are a lot of them, too!) against Roman Catholics. People recognize this for what it is...dividing people against each other. The right wing has no solutions and dividing people through religion, prejudice and/or fear is the only thing that the right wing knows how to do. It won't work...there will be e demonstration and this, too, shall pass.

[cregis]

I don't care for any religion that discriminates against women, so therefore, I don't like the Catholic Church. I do like Obama and don't particularly want him to speak at Notre Dame. I wish he had told them to take a hike.
Do the students at Notre Dame get federal financial aid? If so, then this is not strictly a private school. The protestors do appear to be hypocrites in that they didn't protest Bush's wars and executions, not to mention torture, but hey, this controversy is small potatoes considering all the problems we have.

[mrzerato]

I really do not want my president going to a university based on a religion that allows pedophilia for their priests. What a group of hypocrites are the catholic leadership.

[johnb8888]

When the Catholic church and its secretive gerontocracy of sexually disfuntional males brings back to life all the millions of people they have slaughtered in the name of Jesus, peace, and love:

only then can they direct the rest of us on how to live.

[oneofmanyvets]

I see the birthers are still at it. And the poor diminished capacity folks who are using the trillions in debt to ridicule Obama. They all need to stop rolling out the worn out right wing propaganda and dig into the credible conclusions reached by most of the economists that the only way out of the cataclysmic economic hole GW put us into is the course of action chosen, reluctantly, by Obama.

[cs4466]

There is a time and place for discussion of fetuses. Or "unborn children" as the religious right politically correct like to call them.That time is the day when every last unwanted, starving, orphaned or mentally or physically challenged child on the planet finds a loving home, enough food, a good education and a positive support environment.Until then rescuing fetuses is a 100% hypocritical act. It means NOTHING.

[cs4466]

There is a time and place for discussion of fetuses. Or "unborn children" as the religious right politically correct like to call them.That time is the day when every last unwanted, starving, orphaned or mentally or physically challenged child on the planet finds a loving home, enough food, a good education and a positive support environment.Until then rescuing fetuses is a 100% hypoc

[oneofmanyvets]

"When a Catholic priest is arrested and jailed for protesting on Catholic property protesting the death of the unborn supported by an athiest President recieving an honorary degree it tells me that the Catholic church is finished as a religous institution in America."

How wrong you are! Christ's Church has suffered through many trials and the Church will prevail, no matter what some of its members do. On the subject of the President's appearance:

First, the President is a Protestant, not an atheist. Second, he has openly stated he struggles with this issue like many other people. He does not promote abortion, he is on the side of choice being left to each individual as in free will.

I disagree with him since like millions of others (not only Catholics), I believe life begins at conception. On the invitation by Fr. Jenkins at seems he ( Jenkins) has been pre-judged by a vocal minority. For all we know, he saw an opening to bring Obama into an early stage of dialogue with the pro-life community and some of those very people now damn him. For your information, he is being supported by the head of his order and a good number of open-minded U.S. Bishops and the heads of the Jesuit Colleges and Universities in the U.S.

The only weekly Catholic magazine in the U.S. just this past week suggested that the sectarians among us cool down and the Vatican has done the same. Christ 'honored' sinners by dining at their homes while the religious types stood back aghast at His associating with the worst of society.

Mary Ann Glendon's refusal to accept an honor from Notre Dame adds to the hype and she is entitled to do so. However, given her very stringent and absolute stand on abortion, it is puzzling that she accepted the position of ambassador under the very pro-choice Condoleezza Rice.

Finally, the objections raised to Obama's appearance at ND are apparently focused more on his receiving an honorary degree rather than his speech. The objections are based on a 2004 document from the U.S. bishops dealing with honoring people who differ with the Church's teachings on abortion. That being the case, where was the uproar from the dedicated moralists when this November 13, 2002 letter to President G W Bush from the bishops was ignored???

"Based on the facts that are known to us, we continue to find it difficult to justify the resort to war against Iraq, lacking clear and adequate evidence of an imminent attack of a grave nature. With the Holy See and bishops from the Middle East and around the world, we fear that resort to war, under present circumstances and in light of current public information, would not meet the strict conditions in Catholic teaching for overriding the strong presumption against the use of military force."........................The bishops who are vocal today were strangely silent in 2003.

[jxknowles]

The only controversy is why this below-average Division II, football program has a network TV deal. The Irish have been stinking it up for years. Who cares about Notre Dame? They are irrelevant. I wish President Obama would have spent this weekend at another school.