That...makes...no...sense

From a Huffington Report piece about class valedictorian Brennan Bollman, who will be on the stage with President Obama on Sunday and who is described as a "pro-life biology major":

In an interview with the Huffington Post, Bollman stressed that her peers do not view the president's overall values as inconsistent with Catholicism. In fact, Bollman says Obama is practicing Catholic values in his administration. Like Jesus, Bollman says, Obama is trying to invite "everyone to the table."

<snip>

Some of the strongest words against the Notre Dame invitation came from Chicago's Cardinal Francis George, who accused Notre Dame of showing it "didn't understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation."

Bollman called Cardinal George's statement out of tune with Catholicism. "We know exactly what it is to be Catholic because we are inviting President Obama to speak to us." She said the University's President, Father Jenkins, had even sent a letter earlier in the week to all graduates affirming he's proud that campus dialogue had not "led to divisions."[emphasis added]

Bollman, I gather, has not yet taken "Rhetoric 101" or "Introduction to Basic Logic," never mind a course on Catholicism requiring students to study the actual teachings of the Catholic Church. Sad. Meanwhile, the comments section of the article is a veritable freak show of people equally out of touch with reality and commonsense. For example:

Yes, let's talk about the innocent children who are killed, abused, raped. Where is the church and the "right to lifers" then. They want to push there religious and political agendas. If it were about the children they would be spending this time and money helping children, pushing for more laws to protect children, fostering children, adopting children, but that is not controversial enough and it doesn't get you on TV.

This particular line of "argument" is especially angering to me since my wife and I, as life-long "right to lifers" (first as Evangelicals and, for the past twelve years, as Catholics), have adopted two children and have had two other adoptions fall through (due to unstable and irresponsible birth parents). Almost half of my gross income last year was spent trying to help and protect a young baby who was placed with us for several months. We didn't give a damn about "controversy" or scoring media points; we simply wanted to care for children desperately needing a home and family.

The fact is, pro-lifers are continually spending money they don't have and investing endless amounts of time and energy in helping the unborn, the young, the helpless, the weak. But what I've seen, with few exceptions, is that they don't yap endlessly about how much they care, and how much they do, and how wonderful they are for having done so—no, they simply do it, without fanfare and media attention and public acclaim. (For the record, I'm not altogether impressed with how Randall Terry and Co. sometimes handle themselves, especially when Terry shamelessly abuses the trust of a leading American cleric. The ends do not justify the means, regardless of the evil being fought.)

You recognize that these pro-lifers know what it means to be Christian and Catholic because they care far more about the innocent, the unborn, the young, and the vulnerable than they do about the prestige and attention that accompanies a presidential visit. Pro-lifers don't just "invite" people to the table—they actually bring them to the table, feed them, clothe them, hold them, care for them, love them, parent them, raise them. They will get their due, in due time.

Finally, on a somewhat tangential note, Alasdair MacIntyre—a Permanent Senior Research Fellow at Notre Dame—made an observation worth mulling over a bit in light of the current controversy when he wrote, in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? [UND, 1988], "The lawyers, not the philosophers, are the clergy of liberalism." That remark is from a chapter, "Liberalism Transformed Into a Tradition," in which MacIntyre observes that the "liberal individualist order" continually invokes the formal legal system when it comes to handling disputes over any and all significant moral questions. "The function of that system is to enforce an order in which conflict resolution takes places without invoking any overall theory of human good."

His point, in part, is that authentic debate over crucial moral issues never really takes place within the strictures and structures employed by modern liberalism. Liberalism, in fact, insists that it is neutral on matters such as abortion and euthanasia; those decisions, we are told, are to be made by individuals who have a right to privacy. The committed liberal, in the words of one lawyer, just insists that such matters are above his pay grade. This is a farce, a feint that is both condescending and obscurant, for no political system or ideological construct is neutral toward essential questions, and all possess a particular view of man and his end that informs how they legislate, judge, and rule. For those committed to liberalism, there is no need or possibility for dialogue or debate about abortion; it has been settled by the lawyers/clergy (that is, the Supreme Court), and to say otherwise is to utter blasphemy.

Comments

[Thomas More]

Great post Carl.

Kmiec was infamous for making this straw man argument during the election: people who want pro-life laws spend no time or money on doing what they can to save little lives right now. Well, they shouldn't be able to get away with it any more. These statements are judgemental and calumnous. The accuse a whole segement of God-fearing Catholics of being hypocrites and having improper motivations without one shred of evidence. Plus it is untrue.

My favorite comeback to the "everyone at the table" analogy is to mention the Jesus overturned the moneychangers table and kicked them out of the Temple. If he did that to the tables where money changers sat, just imagine what he is going to do at the table where baby killers sit. I'd rather not find myself at that table.

Plus, as a lawyer, I apologize for my people. We are trained to determine the law and base our arguments on the law. If we don't take the time to remember the Higher Law and Natural Law and only get caught up in our man made law we easily get ourselves and those we interact with trapped in an artificial man made legal trap that has very little to do with what is right or wrong in reality: St. Thomas More Pray for Us Lawyers, including Barack Obama! Because right now is is sitting at the wrong table.

[Malory]

>>> Like Jesus, Bollman says, Obama is trying to invite "everyone to the table." <<<

It sounds like Bollman is talking about King Arthur, not Christ. Yah, the Church is just one big "round table."

[dim bulb]

Like Jesus, Bollman says, Obama is trying to invite "everyone to the table."

Along with apparently never having studied "Rhetoric 101" and "Introduction to Basic Logic," it also appears that Miss Bollman also never took a course in Scripture Studies. Our Blessed Lord's dining experiences usually involved or ended in controversy. The reason for this is that He has somethings which the average liberal seems to lack; namely, a spine and vertebrae. Jesus didn't invite people to His table in accord with their lax morality, rather, He invited them in accord with his stringent moral demands, and he was not squeamish about making those demands known, even when he was the guest rather than the host. It is foolish to invite someone to the table without providing them an opportunity to cleanse themselves. The same Lord who once criticized a Pharisee for not providing him with water to bath His feet is also the one who spoke the Parable of the Great Feast:
The King said to his servants, "`The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore to the thoroughfares, and invite to the marriage feast as many as you find.' 10 And those servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11 "But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment; 12 and he said to him, `Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?' And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, `Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.' 14 For many are called, but few are chosen."

Those who invite people to the table on terms other than those set by our Lord are no better than Jezebel, who by their actions mislead the faithful into an idolatrous banquet (Rev 2:20). They should remember Jezebel's last banquet, she was the main course and was devoured by dogs (2 Kings 9:30-37), and what was left of her was described as fit only for a latrine (2 Kings 9:30-37).

"Good Ol' Panty-waist Jesus" is a figment of liberal delusion.

[Jack]

Kmiec reeks of the pseudo-intellectual hubris that I saw so often in Catholic higher ed institutions. The highest value is "dialogue" - - even though BC's "theology" department actually objected to Condoleeza Rice receiving an honorary degree. The first African American woman to reach her high office, yet BC's religion professors were there objecting to an honorary degree to her. ND and Jenkins crave and live for the prestige that a presidential visit affords. They get to pretend that they're better than Harvard for a few hours.

[Gail F]

This person is VALEDICTORIAN??? Are you kidding?