Obama's speech at Notre Dame

Saturday May 16, 2009

By Heidi Schlumpf
Created May 17, 2009 by National Catholic Reporter online.

When a man in the cheap seats near the top of Notre Dame’s Joyce Center interrupted President Obama’s commencement speech, shouting “Abortion is murder,” the crowd boo’d loudly, then errupted into the cheer, “We are … ND!” To which Obama responded, “We’re not going to shy away from things that are uncomfortable.”

He didn’t.

Obama tackled the controversy surrounding his speech [1] at the Catholic university directly, calling for “fair-minded words” and a “presumption of good faith” to those with whom we disagree. Applause for this line: “Those who speak out against stem cell research may be rooted in admirable conviction about the sacredness of life, but so are the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son’s or daughter’s hardships might be relieved.” (Read the complete text. [2])

Jenkins also mentioned the controversy in his introduction of Obama, but stressed the importance of dialogue, especially at a Catholic university. The crowd burst into applause when Jenkins pointed out that most of the attention has focused on Notre Dame’s invitation to Obama, but little attention on his decision to accept.

“President Obama has come to Notre Dame, though he knows well that we are fully supportive of church teaching on the sanctitity of human life (interupted by applause) and we oppose his policies on abortion and embrynoic stem cell research. Others might have avoided this venue for that reason. But President Obama is not someone who stops talking to those with differ with him. (More applause) Mr. President: This is a principle we share.” (Applause)

The cheers and standing ovation that greeted the president when he entered the Joyce Center were repeated when Obama recieved his honorary degree, which specifically cited his “willingness to engage with those who disagree with him and encourage people of faith to bring their beliefs to the public debate.” The yellow crosses and baby’s feet on the top of the caps of about a dozen students protesting the president’s appearance disappeared during the degree conferral, as those students remained seated.

A man tried to shout down the president and was escorted from the center, just as the president joked that honorary degrees are “pretty hard to come by. So far I’m only one for two as president” (a refererence to Arizona State University’s decision to not give him an honorary degree). He also joked again about his willingness to join the Bookstore basketball team named after him. “Next year, if you need a 6’2” forward with a decent jumper, you know where I live.”

The third interruption, again from the seats near the press box where parents and guests were seated, came, somewhat ironically, as Obama was saying, “Your generation must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity: diversity of thought, of culture, and of belief. In short, we must find a way to live together as one human family.”

His speech closed with a story—on this, the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education—about the Civil Rights Commission, which included former ND president Father Ted Hesburgh (who received almost as much applause as Obama). As the story goes, the group had difficulty finding a hotel or restaurant that would serve the black and white members of the commission together. So Father Ted flew the group to the university’s retreat house in Wisconsin, where they hammered out what would eventually become the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“Years later, President Eisenhower asked Father Ted how on Earth he was able to broker an agreement between men of such different backgrounds and beliefs,” Obama said. “And Father Ted simply said that during their first dinner in Wisconsin , they discovered that they were all fishermen. And so he quickly readied a boat for a twilight trip out on the lake. They fished, and they talked, and they changed the course of history.”

Obama implored the graduates to remember that lesson. “Remember that in the end, in some way we are all fisherman,” he said. “If nothing else, that knowledge should give us faith that through our collective labor, and God’s providence, and our willingness to shoulder each other’s burdens, America will continue on its precious journey towards that more perfect union.”
____________

Obama calls for understanding, respect in abortion debate

President Barack Obama, speaking at Notre Dame University today, called for understanding on both sides of the abortion debate.

He told graduates at the South Bend, Indiana university that he knows the pro- and anti-abortion camps are “irreconcilable.” But he says the debate must avoid “reducing those with differing views to caricature.”

The following is a text of the president’s speech as it was released by the White House May 17th

Thank you, Father Jenkins for that generous introduction. You are doing an outstanding job as president of this fine institution, and your continued and courageous commitment to honest, thoughtful dialogue is an inspiration to us all.

Good afternoon Father Hesburgh, Notre Dame trustees, faculty, family, friends, and the class of 2009. I am honored to be here today, and grateful to all of you for allowing me to be part of your graduation.—————————————————————————————————————-
Full test of President Obama’s address:

I want to thank you for this honorary degree. I know it has not been without controversy. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but these honorary degrees are apparently pretty hard to come by. So far I’m only 1 for 2 as President. Father Hesburgh is 150 for 150. I guess that’s better. Father Ted, after the ceremony, maybe you can give me some po inters on how to boost my average.

I also want to congratulate the class of 2009 for all your accomplishments. And since this is Notre Dame, I mean both in the classroom and in the competitive arena. We all know about this university’s proud and storied football team, but I also hear that Notre Dame holds the largest outdoor 5-on-5 basketball tournament in the world—Bookstore Basketball.

Now this excites me. I want to congratulate the winners of this year’s tournament, a team by the name of “Hallelujah Holla Back.” Well done. Though I have to say, I am personally disappointed that the “Barack O’Ballers” didn’t pull it out. Next year, if you need a 6’2” forward with a decent jumper, you know where I live.

Every one of you should be proud of what you have achieved at this institution. One hundred and sixty three classes of Notre Dame graduates have sat where you are today. Some were here during years that simply rolled into the next without much notice or fanfare—periods of relative peace and prosperity that required little by way of sacrifice or struggle.

You, however, are not getting off that easy. Your class has come of age at a moment of great consequence for our nation and the world—a rare inflection point in history where the size and scope of the challenges before us require that we remake our world to renew its promise; that we align our deepest values and commitments to the demands of a new age. It is a privilege and a responsibility afforded to few generations—and a task that you are now called to fulfill.

This is the generation that must find a path back to prosperity and decide how we respond to a global economy that left millions behind even before this crisis hit—an economy where greed and short-term thinking were too often rewarded at the expense of fairness, and diligence, and an honest day’s work.

We must decide how to save God’s creation from a changing climate that threatens to destroy it. We must seek peace at a time when there are those who will stop at nothing to do us harm, and when weapons in the hands of a few can destroy the many. And we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity—diversity of thought, of culture, and of belief.

In short, we must find a way to live together as one human family.

It is this last challenge that I’d like to talk about today. For the major threats we face in the 21st century—whether it’s global recession or violent extremism; the spread of nuclear weapons or pandemic disease—do not discriminate. They do not recognize borders. They do not see color. They do not target specific ethnic groups.

Moreover, no one person, or religion, or nation can meet these challenges alone. Our very survival has never required greater cooperation and understanding among all people from all places than at this moment in history.

Unfortunately, finding that common ground—recognizing that our fates are tied up, as Dr. King said, in a “single garment of destiny”—is not easy. Part of the problem, of course, lies in the imperfections of man—our selfishness, our pride, our stubbornness, our acquisitiveness, our insecurities, our egos; all the cruelties large and small that those of us in the Christian tradition understand to be rooted in original sin. We too often seek advantage over others. We cling to outworn prejudice and fear those who are unfamiliar. Too many of us view life only through the lens of immediate self-interest and crass materialism; in which the world is necessarily a zero-sum game. The strong too often dominate the weak, and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice. And so, for all our technology and scientific advances, we see around the globe violence and want and strife that would seem sadly familiar to those in ancient times.

We know these things; and hopefully one of the benefits of the wonderful education you have received is that you have had time to consider these wrongs in the world, and grown determined, each in your own way, to right them. And yet, one of the vexi ng things for those of us interested in promoting greater understanding and cooperation among people is the discovery that even bringing together persons of good will, men and women of principle and purpose, can be difficult.

The soldier and the lawyer may both love this country with equal passion, and yet reach very different conclusions on the specific steps needed to protect us from harm. The gay activist and the evangelical pastor may both deplore the ravages of HIV/AIDS, but find themselves unable to bridge the cultural divide that might unite their efforts. Those who speak out against stem cell research may be rooted in admirable conviction about the sacredness of life, but so are the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son’s or daughter’s hardships can be relieved.

The question, then, is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common ef fort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?

Nowhere do these questions come up more powerfully than on the issue of abortion.

As I considered the controversy surrounding my visit here, I was reminded of an encounter I had during my Senate campaign, one that I describe in a book I wrote called The Audacity of Hope. A few days after I won the Democratic nomination, I received an email from a doctor who told me that while he voted for me in the primary, he had a serious concern that might prevent him from voting for me in the general election. He described himself as a Christian who was strongly pro-life, but that’s not what was preventing him from voting for me .

What bothered the doctor was an entry that my campaign staff had posted on my website—an entry that said I would fight “right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman’s right to choose.” The doctor said that he had assumed I was a reasonable person, but that if I truly believed that every pro-life individual was simply an ideologue who wanted to inflict suffering on women, then I was not very reasonable. He wrote, “I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words.”

Fair-minded words.

After I read the doctor’s letter, I wrote back to him20and thanked him. I didn’t change my position, but I did tell my staff to change the words on my website. And I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that—when we open our hearts and our minds to those who may not think like we do or believe what we do – that’s when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.

That’s when we begin to say, “Maybe we won’t agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions.
So let’s work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term. Let’s honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are groun ded in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women.”

Understand—I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. No matter how much we may want to fudge it—indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory—the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable.. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.

Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words.

It’s a way of life that has always been the Notre Dame tradition. Father Hesburgh has long spoken of this institution as both a lighthouse and a crossroads. The lighthouse that stands apart, shining with the wisdom of the Catholic tradition, while the crossroads is where “…differences of culture and religion and conviction can co-exist with friendship, civility, hospitality, and especially love.” And I want to join him and Father Jenkins in saying how inspired I am by the maturity and responsibility with which this class has approached the debate surrounding today’s ceremony.

This tradition of cooperation and understanding is one that I learned in my own life many years ago—also with the help of the Catholic Church.

I was not raised in a particularly religious household, but my mother instilled in me a sense of service and empathy that eventually led me to become a community organizer after I graduated college. A group of Catholic churches in Chicago helped fund an organization known as the Developing Communities Project, and we worked to lift up South Side neighborhoods that had been devastated when the local steel plant closed.

It was quite an eclectic crew. Catholic and Protestant churches. Jewish and African-American organizers. Working-class black and white and Hispanic residents. All of us with different experiences. All of us with different beliefs. But all of us learned to work side by side because all of us saw in these neighborhoods other human beings who needed our help—to find jobs and improve schools. We were bound together in the service of others.

And something else happened during the time I spent in those neighborhoods. Perhaps because the church folks I worked with were so welcoming and understanding; perhaps because they invited me to their services and sang with me from their hymnals; perhaps because I witnessed all of the good works their faith inspired them to perform, I found myself drawn—not just to work with the church, but to be in the church. It was through this service that I was brought to Christ.

At the time, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was the Archbishop of Chicago. For those of you too young to have known him, he was a kind and good and wise man. A saintly man. I can still remember him speaking at one of the first organizing meetings I attended on the South Side. He stood as both a lighthouse and a crossroads—unafraid to speak his mind on moral issues ranging from poverty, AIDS, and abortion to the death penalty and nuclear war. And yet, he was congenial and gentle in his persuasion, always trying to bring people together; always trying to find common ground. Just before he died, a reporter asked Cardinal Bernardin about this approach to his ministry. And he said, “You can’t really get on with preaching the Gospel until you’ve touched minds and hearts.”

My heart and mind were touched by the words and deeds of the men and women I worked alongside with in Chicago . And I’d like to think that we touched the hearts and minds of the neighborhood families whose lives we helped change. For this, I believe, is our highest calling.

You are about to enter the next phase of your life at a time of great uncertainty. You will be called upon to help restore a free market that is also fair to all who are willing to work; to seek new sources of energy that can save our planet; to give future generations the same chance that you had to receive an extraordinary education. And whether as a person drawn to public service, or someone who simply insists on being an active citizen, you will be exposed to more opinions and ideas broadcast through more means of communications than have ever existed before. You will hear talking heads scream on cable, read blogs that claim definitive knowledge, and watch politicians pretend to know what they’re talking about. Occ asionally, you may also have the great fortune of seeing important issues debated by well-intentioned, brilliant minds. In fact, I suspect that many of you will be among those bright stars.

In this world of competing claims about what is right and what is true, have confidence in the values with which you’ve been raised and educated. Be unafraid to speak your mind when those values are at stake. Hold firm to your faith and allow it to guide you on your journey. Stand as a lighthouse.

But remember too that the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt. It is the belief in things not seen. It is beyond our capacity as human beings to know with certainty what God has planned for us or what He asks of us, and those of us who believe must trust that His wisdom is greater than our own.

This doubt should not push us away from our faith.. But it should humble us. It should temper our passions, and cause us to be wary of self-righteousness. It should compel us to remain open, and curious, and eager to continue the moral and spiritual debate that began for so many of you within the walls of Notre Dame. And within our vast democracy, this doubt should remind us to persuade through reason, through an appeal whenever we can to universal rather than parochial principles, and most of all through an abiding example of good works, charity, kindness, and service that moves hearts and minds.

For if there is one law that we can be most certain of, it is the law that binds people of all faiths and no faith together. It is no coincidence that it exists in Christianity and Judaism; in Islam and Hinduism; in Buddhism and humanism. It is, of course, the Golden Rule—the call to treat one another as we wish to be treated. The call to love. To serve. To do what we can to make a difference in the lives of those with whom we share the same brief moment on this Earth.

So many of you at Notre Dame—by the last count, upwards of 80%—have lived this law of love through the service you’ve performed at schools and hospitals; international relief agencies and local charities. That is incredibly impressive, and a powerful testament to this institution. Now you must carry the tradition forward. Make it a way of life. Because when you serve, it doesn’t just improve your community, it makes you a part of your community. It breaks down walls. It fosters cooperation. And when that happens—when people set aside their differences to work in common effort toward a common good; when they struggle together, and sacrifice together, and learn from one another—all things are possible.

After all, I stand here today, as President and as an African-American, on the 55th anniversary of the day that the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Brown v. the Board of Education. Brown was of course the first major step in dismantling the “separate but equal” doctrine, but it would take a number of years and a nationwide movement to fully realize the dream of civil rights for all of God’s children. There were freedom rides and lunch counters and Billy clubs, and there was also a Civil Rights Commission appointed by President Eisenhower. It was the twelve resolutions recommended by this commission that would ultimately become law in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

There were six members of the commission. It included five whites and one African-American; Democrats and Republicans; two Southern governors, the dean of a Southern law school, a Midwestern university president, and your own Father Ted Hesburgh, President of Notre Dame. They worked for two years, and at times, President Eisenhower had to intervene personally since no hotel or restaurant in the South would serve the black and white members of the commission together. Finally, when they reached an impasse in Louisiana, Father Ted flew them all to Notre Dame’s retreat in Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin, where they eventually overcame their differences and hammered out a final deal.

Years later, President Eisenhower asked Father Ted how on Earth he was able to broker an agreement between men of such different backgrounds and beliefs. And Father Ted simply said that during their first dinner in Wisconsin , they discovered that they were all fishermen. And so he quickly readied a boat for a twilight trip out on the lake. They fished, and they talked, and they changed the course of history.

I will not pretend that the challenges we face will be easy, or that the answers will come quickly, or that all our differences and divisions will fade happily away. Life is not that simple. It never has been.

But as you leave here today, remember the lessons of Cardinal Bernardin, of Father Hesburgh, of movements for change both large and small. Remember that each of us, endowed with the dignity possessed by all children of God, has the grace to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we all seek the same love of family and the same fulfillment of a life well-lived. Remember that in the end, we are all fishermen.

If nothing else, that knowledge should give us faith that through our collective labor, and God’s providence, and our willingness to shoulder each other’s burdens, America will continue on its precious journey towards that more perfect union. Congratulations on your graduation, may God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.

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And this from Joan Cittister:

It was a ‘face-up-to-the-life-you-have-just-inherited’ speech

By Joan Chittister – “From Where I Stand”
Created May 18, 2009

Yes, I know, I know. At least according to the media and the anti-abortion movement, President Obama’s presence at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana as graduation speaker and recipient of an honorary degree, was all about abortion. Except that it wasn’t.

The speech was not about abortion at all. It was about lots of Catholic things—if Catholics will only remember them—but it was not about the morality or ultimate moral meaning of abortion at all. It was, in fact, more about the model of a Jesus who could talk to Roman soldiers and Samaritan women, to Pharisees and to adulterers with respect and with care. It was a recall of the Jesus who refused to condemn either the Roman emperor or his soldiers. It was also a call, at least indirectly, to the next generation to “put down their swords,” to stop calling their opposite numbers—those who seek to make abortion unnecessary than to criminalize it—“murderers” and to listen to one another.

No small graduation speech.

Obama identified this year’s Notre Dame graduates with a generation that must negotiate a global panoply of differences, a crossroads in time in need of lighthouses of faith to enable all of us to find our way.

Essential to the process, Obama insisted, was the willingness not to demonize those who hold faith-based positions different from ours, to realize their own sincerity, to take their positions as seriously as our own.

The speech was a breath of fresh air after living through an administration that fed on—thrived on—enemies and hate, that practiced ruthless partisanship in a pluralistic society, that chose party politics over the common needs of the country, that talked about “new crusades” and “terrorists” rather than attempt to relate to the needs and frustrations and ideals of peoples from whom such violence emerged, that chose ill-designed wars over the alliances necessary to marginalize such extremists even from their own.

Obama’s speech was, in fact, far more than the standard-brand graduation rhetoric. It didn’t extol aphorisms or meander down the Brady Bunch memory lane. It was not a feel-good speech. It was a “face-up-to-the-life-you-have-just-inherited” speech.

It was a call not only to this year’s graduates but to all of those who have preceded them intent more on winning than on working things out.

It was a call to adults to stop acting like sophomores in the name of faith. It was a cry to those on both sides of every issue to refuse to suppress complexity in a global, interfaith world. It was an attempt to move beyond force, beyond the denunciation of those who are just as committed to resolving problems as we are without making outlaws of those for whom the issue cannot wait for long-term answers.

It was, most of all, a very Catholic speech.

It deals with issues that have been a Catholic agenda for over 100 years of social justice encyclicals.

Obama asked graduates to see themselves as responsible for the global good as well as for their own success. He challenged them to go beyond the commitment to personal advantage to global good. He taught them that the zero-sum game, the notion that for me to win everyone else must lose, only means that everyone else will lose, and I, too, eventually. How can anyone in that audience who just went through an economic meltdown driven by greed which eventually brought the entire country down, doubt the value of those words, of that kind of commitment to a pro-life agenda.

He asked them, as an article of faith, to recognize the value of self-doubt that leads us to forego our own self-righteousness and inspires us to learn to listen to the wisdom of those around us.

He called them not to revel in the grandeur of their degrees from an isolated perspective but to remain open to the rest of the world. He called them to live their ideals but to resist the attempt to force them onto others.

He taught them to gain their hope from what has already been done in the past, what we as a people have already worked through and achieved, already overcome as a people together like the oppression of a king, the disregard for civil rights, the exploitation of laborers, the enslavement of a people, the struggle for animal rights, the recognition of women’s equality, the movement beyond racism. It was, indeed, a very Catholic speech.

From where I stand, the struggle at Notre Dame to maintain a civil dialogue despite a difference in faith perspectives was another step in Catholic growth. We spoke clearly for the sacredness of life, yes, but we were also called not to leave any part of life out of our search for its sacredness.

Seventy out of 450 bishops criticized the presence of President Obama at a Notre Dame graduation and they denied the value of it. But the President did not. Instead, he modeled his own commitment to engage the country in common cause rather than divide it into mutually disrespectful camps. In the process, he may well have taught every bit as much about the gospel and total respect for life as the bishops did. For the sake of the growth and impact of the church, I hope so.

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And still more from The NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER:

Obama at Notre Dame: Incomplete Eloquence

The presidents were there in splendid form; the bishops were not.

Three presidents stood upon the stage: Father Jenkins, the embodiment of academic integrity informed by faith; Father Hesburgh, Notre Dame’s president emeritus and civil rights champion, and Barack Obama, whose inauguration just months earlier was greeted with virtual national euphoria, but whose visit to campus was claimed to be “in defiance of church teaching.”

And the bishops? Sadly absent. Some, no doubt, honestly believed the President to be their antagonist. Most were silent. Notwithstanding repeated entreaties, the pastoral shepherds of the Church chose not to extend a simple pastoral blessing upon the graduates of the flagship Catholic university in America and their families.

God bless retired San Francisco Archbishop John Quinn, whose pension must be fully vested, since to my knowledge he alone conquered the intimidation of his peer group to praise President Obama for his “fine example of married life and the love and devotion to [his] children” as well as his “measured, thoughtful approach to issues of public concern. . . .”

In introducing President Obama, Father Jenkins completed Quinn’s much-needed act of Catholic hospitality and in so doing set the bar for the afternoon’s eloquence and insight extraordinarily high. From my teaching days at Notre Dame, I remember John Jenkins as a soft-spoken, scholarly Thomist who would think twice about asking even an overly talkative student to observe library silence. Yet, it was this man of gentle heart and unassuming mien who stepped to the podium and reset the terms of the whole debate.

The controversy, Jenkins noted, centered entirely on the invitation. “Less attention has been focused on the President’s decision to accept.” With that singularly important insight; much of the far right’s huff and puffery/ “we are at war” rhetoric fell harder than an opposing quarterback trying to maneuver past a formidable Notre Dame line.

As Jenkins noted, President Obama “is not someone who stops talking to those who differ with him.” Indeed, this was and is the reason 54 percent of Catholics nationwide came to Obama’s side in the last election. This was and is an aspect of why more than two thirds of American Catholics approve of President Obama’s early administration, notwithstanding the difference on life issues. Of course, to the discomfort of conservative partisans who had presumed to keep Catholics in a one-issue pocket in perpetuity, Father Jenkins relished making note of a leader who “respects the role of faith,” whose witness “transcends racial hatred,” whose goals of “extending health care,” “improving education,” “promoting renewable energy,” beginning “arms reduction,” “fighting poverty and disease,” and “reforming immigration.” These social justice matters might all be rank Catholic plagiarism were it not for their neglect in far too many parishes.

President Obama wasted little time addressing abortion, too. Calling it “a heart wrenching decision with moral and spiritual dimensions,” he called upon the graduates to help reduce the number of women seeking abortions . . ., to make adoption more available and to provide care and support for women who do carry their child to term.” This, he knew, would not end the debate or settle all differences, since some are “irreconcilable,” but differing views surely ought not to be reduced to caricature.”

Graduation ceremonies are not academic symposia, as both George Weigel and the-last-minute-medal-declining-Mary-Ann-Glendon asserted in their outspoken criticism of Notre Dame. No, they are not, but Father Jenkins proved these celebrations to be what they must always be with world leaders, an opening of a channel of discussion, which the university president wisely observed, “doesn’t begin and end in an afternoon.”

No, of course, it doesn’t. Yet, without the academic and faith-based discernment of Father Jenkins’ invitation which opened the oval office door to the Catholic perspective and this President’s implicit understanding and embrace of Gaudium et Spes “to show respect and love to those who think or act differently . . .in social, political and even religious matters,” the ubi caritas prayer that “all divisions cease” would have gone unarticulated.

The legendary four horsemen of Notre Dame have taken on a fifth rider.

Grantland Rice would have gladly added Barack Obama to that 1924 legendary ND backfield, except that those players inspired fear in their opponents. Obama conquers with a message of hope and a call for common ground – and he did so masterfully on graduation Sunday, 2009.

Football metaphor aside, there is work to be done. In a few days, President Obama will likely nominate a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s probably too much to contemplate, but seated directly behind the President was Notre Dame’s highly respected law dean, Patricia Ann O’Hara. If empathy is truly to be incorporated into the legal process, there are few socially progressive lawyers more capable of incorporating this much needed sensitivity into legal interpretation. A securities law specialist, no derivative-wielding purveyor of subprime nonsense would escape Dean O’Hara’s justice.

Is it presumptuous to make such suggestion? Not really. Why would one keep the best talent a secret from a friend, and fellow alumnus. And, of course, she is pro-life. Now, that would be a game changer.

Go Irish!

Kmiec is Chair and Professor of Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University; author of “Can A Catholic Support Him? Asking the big question about Barack Obama” (Overlook Press/Penguin).

More from the Washington Post

Conciliatory Fighting Words
By E. J. Dionne
Monday, May 18, 2009

Facing down protesters who didn’t want him at Notre Dame, President Obama fought back not with harsh words but with the most devastating weapons in his political arsenal: a call for “open hearts,” “open minds,” “fair-minded words” and a search for “common ground.”

There were many messages sent from South Bend. Obama’s opponents seek to reignite the culture wars. He doesn’t. They would reduce religious faith to a narrow set of issues. He refused to join them. They often see theological arguments as leading to certainty. He opted for humility.

He did all this without skirting the abortion question and without flinching from the “controversy surrounding my visit here.” The thunderous and repeated applause that greeted Obama and the Rev. John I. Jenkins, Notre Dame’s president who took enormous grief for asking him to appear, stood as a rebuke to those who said the president should not have been invited.

For his part, Obama gave what may have been both the most radical and the most conservative speech of his presidency. Acknowledging the Roman Catholic Church’s role in supporting his early community organizing work, the president drew on the resources of Catholic social thought. It combines opposition to abortion with a sharp critique of economic injustice and thus doesn’t squeeze into the round holes of contemporary ideology.

“Too many of us view life only through the lens of immediate self-interest and crass materialism,” Obama declared. “The strong too often dominate the weak, and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice.”

Yet his argument drew on very old ideas, notably original sin and the common good. Obama was as explicit in talking about his faith as George W. Bush ever was about his own but with distinctly different inflections and conclusions.

The former president often emphasized the comfort and certainty he drew from his religious beliefs. Obama said that “the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt.”

“This doubt should not push away our faith,” Obama preached. “But it should humble us. It should temper our passions, cause us to be wary of too much self-righteousness.” It was a quietly pointed response to his critics.

Obama sent many signals to Catholics, extolling such heroes to progressives and moderates as the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, Notre Dame’s former president, and the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago.

He also tried to undo mistakes made early in his administration, making clearer, for example, that his revisions of an earlier Bush executive order on the rights of health professionals would continue to “honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion.”

He paid more respect to opponents of stem cell research—he spoke of their “admirable conviction about the sacredness of life”—than he had in his original announcement altering Bush’s policies.

And on abortion, the issue that ignited the protests against him, Obama endorsed a broad agenda: “Let’s reduce unintended pregnancies. Let’s make adoption more available. Let’s provide care and support for women who do carry their children to term.”

Almost as significant as Obama’s speech were the words of introduction offered by Jenkins. Rather than cower before his critics or apologize, the Notre Dame president warned against the tendency of competing political camps to “demonize each other” and praised Obama for appearing despite the university’s opposition to “his policies on abortion and embryonic stem cell research.”

“As we serve our country, we will be motivated by faith, but we cannot appeal only to faith,” Jenkins said. “We must also engage in a dialogue that appeals to reason that all can accept” and do so “with love and a generous spirit.”

Although Jenkins made no reference to them, the scriptural readings at Catholic Masses yesterday drew on St. John’s emphasis on the law of love. “This I command you: Love one another,” Jesus declares in John’s Gospel.

It was hard to square that message with the rage directed toward Obama and Jenkins by their detractors. Yet in raising the stakes entailed in Obama’s visit, the critics did the president a great service.

By facing their arguments head-on and by demonstrating his attentiveness to Catholic concerns, Obama strengthened moderate and liberal forces inside the church itself. He also struck a forceful blow against those who would keep the nation mired in culture-war politics without end. Obama’s opponents on the Catholic right placed a large bet on his Notre Dame visit. And they lost.

ejdionne@washpost.com

And here is the latest from Notre Dame Presisdent:

Wenesday, September 16, 2009

Dear Members of the Notre Dame Family,

Coming out of the vigorous discussions surrounding President Obama’s visit last spring, I said we would look for ways to engage the Notre Dame community with the issues raised in a prayerful and meaningful way. As our nation continues to struggle with the morality and legality of abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and related issues, we must seek steps to witness to the sanctity of life. I write to you today about some initiatives that we are undertaking.

Each year on January 22, the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, the March for Life is held in Washington D.C. to call on the nation to defend the right to life. I plan to participate in that march. I invite other members of the Notre Dame Family to join me and I hope we can gather for a Mass for Life at that event. We will announce details as that date approaches.

On campus, I have recently formed the Task Force on Supporting the Choice for Life. It will be co-chaired by Professor Margaret Brinig, the Fritz Duda Family Chair in Law and Associate Dean for the Law School, and by Professor John Cavadini, the Chair of the Department of Theology and the McGrath-Cavadini Director of the Institute for Church Life. My charge to the Task Force is to consider and recommend to me ways in which the University, informed by Catholic teaching, can support the sanctity of life. Possibilities the Task Force has begun to discuss include fostering serious and specific discussion about a reasonable conscience clause; the most effective ways to support pregnant women, especially the most vulnerable; and the best policies for facilitating adoptions. Such initiatives are in addition to the dedication, hard work and leadership shown by so many in the Notre Dame Family, both on the campus and beyond, and the Task Force may also be able to recommend ways we can support some of this work.

I also call to your attention the heroic and effective work of centers that provide care and support for women with unintended pregnancies. The Women’s Care Center, the nation’s largest Catholic-based pregnancy resource center, on whose Foundation Board I serve, is run by a Notre Dame graduate, Ann Murphy Manion (’77). The center has proven successful in offering professional, non-judgmental concern to women with unintended pregnancies, helping those women through their pregnancy and supporting them after the birth of their child. The Women’s Care Center and similar centers in other cities deserve the support of Notre Dame clubs and individuals.

Our Commencement last spring generated passionate discussion and also caused some divisions in the Notre Dame community. Regardless of what you think about that event, I hope that we can overcome divisions to foster constructive dialogue and work together for a cause that is at the heart of Notre Dame’s mission. We will keep you informed of our work, and we ask for your support, assistance and prayers. May Our Lady, Notre Dame, watch over our efforts.

Notre Dame, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.

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