Archbishop Burke Slams Obama's Appearance at Notre Dame

One of the Vatican's highest ranked clerics and a frequent critic of President Obama said Friday that Notre Dame is causing a "scandal" by giving the president an honorary degree and a platform to address graduates at its commencement next weekend.

'The proposed granting of an honorary doctorate at Notre Dame University to our president, who is so aggressively advancing an anti-life and anti-family agenda, is rightly the source of the greatest scandal," said Archbishop Raymond Burke, who is the prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican's highest court.

Burke, the former archbishop of St. Louis and vocal opponent of giving communion to politicians who support abortion rights, told Catholics at a national prayer breakfast in Washington, D.C., that "with unparalleled arrogance, our nation is choosing to renounce its foundation on the faithful."

He pointed to several Obama administration decisions that he said have damaged "the fundamental society that is the family," citing the repeal of the conscience clause, which prohibits health care workers from refusing to participate in abortion-related services; repeal of the Mexico City policy, which allows federal funding to be used abroad to provide abortions; presidential support of the Freedom of Choice Act, which prevents government from in any way denying or interfering with a woman's right to choose; and support of the U.S. Population Fund, which he noted supports China's one-child policy.

>>Ppeople who have fallen away from the evangelical or Protestant churches tend to either identify themselves as “protestant” or “unaffiliated” or something like that.

Catholics, because of a strong cultural identity, tend to identify themselves as Catholic even if they haven’t been to mass since they were kids. Those people are lumped in with the practicing Catholics in order to arrive at that number. Obama’s support among weekly mass attenders was much smaller.<<

I was having a debate with a friend and we both started googling. We were both right.

I said the Catholic church is the fastest growing - that’s true because most immigrants are Catholic.

He said the Catholic church was the fastest declining - he had a point because their church attendance is declining most and they have more parishes closing.

Well, first the Catholic Church does NOT have a doctrinal position against the death penalty. Pope John Paul II had an opinion that the death penalty was not morally beneficial in the Western world (i.e., Europe and North America), given the stability of democracy and conformity of the rule of law. However, consider:

* John Paul was speaking only as to OPINION on matters of PRUDENTIAL judgement. He emphatically rejected the notion that he was establishing doctrine, and harshly condemned any attempts to morally equivocate abortion to the death penalty, not only on the basis that abortion is tens of thousands of times more common in the West, but on the basis that abortion is certainly a grave evil, whereas the death penalty is not.

* John Paul’s statements were stated very precisely, and are thus doctrinally sound, but the more casual interpretation of them is, in fact, heresy: The Catechism of the Council of Trent, published with the authority of the ecumenical council of Trent, and written by Saint Charles Borromeo, one of only 33 Doctors of the Church, stated that the death penalty was in fact morally obligatory to rescue the souls of the aggrieved from the temptation to retribution or despairing against divine justice.

* John Paul’s statements were based on the assertion that Western democracies’ rule of law was unchallenged by criminal activity, an assertion appeared true in the 1990s when John Paul asserted it, but seems less true today.

However,... I believe Ronald Reagan was given an honorary degree. In any case, the degree Obama is being given is a law degree. This can only be taken as an endorsement of Obama’s legal notions, which are an absolute abomination to not only Christ and humanity but rational thought, itself. His law exams were literally exercises in creating rationalizations to subvert democracy and morality. (and I mean “literally” literally!) For instance, a typical question notes that the prevailing interpretation of a state constitution supports an at-face reading. A ballot initiative reaffirmed the constitution by an overwhelming majority. (meaning the majority of the constituents, the courts, the legislature, and the at-face text of the constitution all support a law.) The students’ task was to create a legal ruling to subvert the law. And no, this wasn’t like Spock’s unwinnable academy exam; they were expected to nullify democracy if they wanted to pass.

A law school giving Obama an honorary law degree is like a Tibetan monk ordaining the Chinese dictators.

As a convert, I was shocked that some of the things I knew about the Church and her teachings was unknown to cradle Catholics in my own parish.

Thankfully, things are beginning to turn around, but the Barque of Peter is a large ship, which turns slowly. It will probably be another 10 years before things are really squared away. The Holy Gather is a true blessing to us, and may he live long years more and confound those who want to wreck the Church.

*********************

I was thinking to myself, goodness, she's go me there, I've never heard of the "Holy Gather". Heh. :)

Thank you for replying to me.

May I ask... do you know when this was released? I remember reading something that was said to have been from Fr. Jenkins that had a blatantly ‘screw you’ tone to it. That was when this issue first arose.

The statement I just read is disgusting. I think I prefer the ‘screw you’ tone over the ‘Obama is the greatest man ever. We need to count ourselves blessed that this near perfect man is coming and if you don’t agree it is because of race’ (at least that is what *I* get from that statement)

May I also ask.... Is there any chance that Fr. Jenkins will face punishment for this...perhaps removal from the school?

We signed a petition to have ND removed from the Kenedy Directory.

Thanks for your time.
:)

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