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1. Very disturbing piece. I imagine this woman thinks this will help boost her into heaven..oh well. Think of what she would have deprived these students of if she were at the controls. She is actually saying President Obama is bereft of morality. It is so inane as to warrant the raft of (bad)publicity the whole thing is getting; my only consolation.

   Posted By: Jacqueline O'M

2. This is intolerance.
   
   It never looks good, it is wrong, and people who engage in this level of rhetoric should be ashamed.
   
   It is not, in any way, shape, or form, of the teachings of Jesus.
   
   President Obama is a good man; a family man. You people make me sick with disgust.

   Posted By: Cyrus Clarke

3. I am very impressed by the integrity of Mary Ann Glendon. I do hope Notre Dame has at least the decency to feel shame over its actions, and its following of the crowd.

   Posted By: Adeodatus

4. She has written a beautiful letter and I admire her very much.
   
   To read the full letter please go to http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=33347

   Posted By: annemie

5. I wonder what Professor Glendon thought about President Bushs "PEACE" medal to Blair and Howard,the two boys who brought"Pieces" to Iraq and Afgahnistan etc.

   Posted By: John M Costigan

6. Mary Ann Glendon is an example of what all Catholic academics and politicians should be like - faithful and possessing real integrity. What a refreshing story in the face of so much corruption, double-standards, hypocrisy, infidelity, and dissent shown by Notre Dame University and its left-wing supporters.

   Posted By: Michael Bernard

7. Professor Glendon's & the US Catholic bishops' concern that a Catholic University such as Notre Dame, should neither invite Pres Obama to give the address nor give him an honorary doctorate is easily fixed.
   Don't have a Catholic University - nor a Baptist or Marxist or whatever else single focus belief. It's a contradiction in terms. And can't operate as a university.
   Proof would be that if Harvard University invited President Obama to speak at their commencement, Professor Gordon wouldn't raise a peep Why not? Because it's not a Catholic university so is open to examining views from all angles.
   Also the US Catholics' pursuit of abortion issues into all aspects of public life stands out as a single issue approach. Concern for life, after birth, is less forthcoming. Where is the same pursuit into the public domain of capital punishment where a number of US states still kill people, in cold blood, as a 'punishment'? Where is the same pursuit, into the public domain, of all those from the previous administration whose foray into Iraq for fraudulently concocted reasons has resulted in the deaths of enormous numbers of Iraqi people, as well as of US & allied soldiers?
   
   So Professor Gordon's concern would be fixed by turning Notre Dame into a religious school. Not a university. In that case, as a religious school they could concentrate on one ideological set of beliefs & positions - in this case, those of the Catholic Church.
   Then they could say & do what they believe, as a consequence, re President Obama. With no other perspective taken into consideration. Which would be the total opposite of a university.

   Posted By: Marie H

8. Thank you, Mrs Glendon.

   Posted By: Fr Sean Coyle

9. Here is "witness" and example for all to see and, importantly, contemplate. Congratulations to Mary Ann Glendon.
   What a distance she is from wishy washy Catholism and political correctness

   Posted By: Neville Ward

10. Professor Glendon shows up some Catholic bodies which, rejecting Catholic moral principles, have gone along with this extraordinary desire to honour someone who has thrown open in every possible way the access to (inter alia) abortion.

    Posted By: Anne Boyce

11. I find it extraordinary that some members of the Catholic Community do not support President Obama's visit to Notre Dame. You would think that they were all without sin themselves!

    Posted By: Peter Murphy

12. It's great to read that one person has enough moral attitude to forgo something so worthwhile. I admire her convictions. Maybe other Catholic Institutions can learn from this.

    Posted By: ann

13. Good for you, Mrs Glendon!

    Posted By: Paul

14. What a courageous, principled person Professor Mary Ann Glendon is.
    
    Cyrus Clarke, your ignorance of Barack Obama's disturbing track record when it comes to abortion makes me sick with disgust! How dare you say that Obama, a man who gleefully supports the mass-murder of our most innocent, is a 'good, family man?'

    Posted By: Aquino

15. Could this problem be solved by letting him do the commencement address and not giving thim an honorary degree? This should keep everyone happy without compromising principles.

    Posted By: Alex

16. (Marie H) “Don't have a Catholic University … It's a contradiction in terms.”
    The Catholic Church invented the idea of a university and for more than half of their history, universities were monasteries and their doctors and students were monks. Didn’t you ever wonder why the black robes, cloistered quadrangles and all the other uni traditions Marie?
    
    And what’s with this crazy US idea that all ambassadors have to resign when a new president takes office, leaving the posts vacant for months? Surely an ambassador represents his country, not its current government?
    

    Posted By: Ronk

17. God bless you for standing up for your Catholic faith. We need many more heroes like you today.

    Posted By: Mary Cormier

18. Congratulations Professor Glendon for opposing the shameful action of Notre Dame University in honouring a strong supporter of abortion.

    Posted By: Audrey Donnithorne

19. This is high regard for the dignity of all human life. This woman has courage! I'm very impressed.

    Posted By: ObamaNation

20. Cyrus Clarke,
    
    Yes, this is intolerance. Without it, we cannot begin to fight evil. Your implied indifference to the fate of unborn children in the States is what is truly sickening. Mary Ann Glendon's stance is precisely in line with the teachings of Jesus.
    .
    
    
    Incidentally, please tell us who "you people" are. If you're referring to those who post their opinions on this site, then how could you know what some of us were going to write?
    
    Jacqueline,
    
    She is actually suggesting that Obama's morality is twisted. If you also think, for example, that late term or even post-birth abortion is okay, then so is yours, I'm afraid to say.

    Posted By: Paul Keen

21. Pete Murphy,
    
    You've got things a bit mixed up, mate. I'm a Catholic, and certainly "with sin". I am also not in favour of it, and try to speak out against it when I can. Why don't you do the same? It's not as if I'm asking you to stone the President!
    
    Obama has sinned and continues to do so with his policies on abortion. Are you happy that he's doing that to himself (not to mention the children and women who suffer under that sin!)?

    Posted By: Paul Keen

22. Thomas Aquinas must be rolling in his grave at this act of gross intolerance.

    Posted By: bill

23. Professor Maryanne Glendon, a real statesman and Catholic. Thanks for your courage and humility.
    
    No-one has to be Catholic; but if you choose to be, be Catholic. It's so logical. The same goes for any other religion. For example, If you don't believe in the tenets of Islam, then don't become a Muslim; but if you do, be a real Muslim.
    
    How can a university that claims to be Catholic give its highest honour to someone who has spent his whole public life attacking one of its central beliefs; namely the not-necesarilly Catholic belief that life is sacred? It's not tolerance on the part of Notre dame; it's confused identity if not downright hypocrisy.

    Posted By: Les

24. I think she's all class.
    
    Abortion and contraception are the central pillars in the virulently anti-Christian sexual revolution. Its logical outcome is the normalisation of homosexuality and state imposed same sex marriage.
    
    What does this mean for religious freedom? The state has to teach homosexuality, its citizens can marry after all. The state will win in any conflict between it and Christian anthropology and sexual ethics. The Iowa Supreme Court has already ruled arguments against SSM could only be possibly motivated by religious bigotry.
    
    The Church will be considered equivalent to a racist organisation for its sexual teaching and publicly marginalised.
    
    The end result is outright persecution of Christians if they attempt to live out their faith in public.
    
    Anyone who contributes to this culture of death and props up this exhausted revolution will have contributed to the coming persecution of Christians.
    
    

    Posted By: Martin

25. Absolutely incredible. I have heard of people declining awards and honours for all manner of reasons, but never til now heard the person who made the sacrifice accused by the mob of being "intolerant".
    
    Yet none of the commenters here raised the slightest objection to Obama's gross display of intolerance last week when he demanded that another Catholic university remove or cover up all signs of Christianity during his visit. And bless their little "Catholic" souls, they complied with this outrageous demand.
    
    What is the hypnotic power this man has, that he can commit the most unspeakably evil acts and yet any even implied criticism of him is condemned as "intolerant" merely because he is "Black"? The fact that Ms Glendon's first husband and father of her eldest daughter was (really) Black, and that her now husband is Jewish, just adds to the irony which the baying mob of self-loathing "Catholics" refuse to see.
    
    Once more for those slow on the uptake: the Church teaches that there can be a just execution of a criminal, and there can be a just war; there can never under any circumstances be a just abortion. For all Bush's many faults and mistakes, he never AFAIK caused the deliberate murder of even one innocent child - apart from his failure to completely outlaw abortion. Now in one stroke, Obama has swept away the little restrictions which had been painstakingly placed on abortion over the last 35 years since the monstrous decision which imposed a death sentence on millions of innocents. And now Obama has the blood of untold millions more innocents on his hands. He can't charm his way out of that fact.

    Posted By: Ronk

26. 'ObamaNation',
    Fundamentalist-extremist Christians-Catholics already hijacked our Christian faith, now, you even want to hijack the US President’s Nation, I suppose fundamentalist extremists will stop at nothing.
    Fear is your adrenaline isn't it (like all jihadists)? I didn’t see anywhere in the Gospel saying “God is Fear”, only “God is Love”, I suppose we probably worship a different Jesus.

    Posted By: TJ Lawson

27. Martin, I am Christian and I don't find any of these threatening to me living out the Gospel and the teachings of Jesus Christ;
    Jesus stood on the side of the marginalised, the oppressed and the persecuted;
    
    As a Catholic and as a Christian, alike many members of my family and community (and even my catholic parish), we do not subscribe to your narrow interpretation and expression of the Universal (Catholic) Christian faith; it is far beyond some of the issues you are hyping up.
    
    Everyday, there are millions dying of wars and hunger, persecution and injustice, and all you can sum up in your code of Christian morality is painfully difficult situation of abortion and sister/brothers of the same-sex wanting to commit to love one another?
    I think you ought to re-think your worldview and perspective.

    Posted By: TJ Lawson

28. Bill, which Thomas Aquinas? Do you mean the 13th century Doctor of the Church, who argued (ST, Secunda Secundae, Q. 11, a. 3) that "it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death." or that "unbelief is the gravest of the sins" (Secunda Secundae, 10, a. 3) or that, in certain circumstances that it can be unlawful to communicate with unbelievers (Secunda Secundae, 10, a. 9), or do you mean some mythical creature concocted out of modern collective liberal imagination?
    
    Actually, in this case, the situation is much simpler. She was given an honour where she was going to be used as a smokescreen for something which she found objectionable, and she refused so to be used. As someone said above, that takes class.

    Posted By: Adeodatus

29. TJ it is a matter of fundamental justice that marriage be protected as the union between a man and a woman for the sake of civil society and children. It is not fair for children to be denied a mum and a dad nor for society as a whole to have to submit to a fundamental change in the ideal of marriage. Normal course of events, men mature by looking after women, children natural fruit of such. To - not normal (gays won't want to marry generally speaking), men won't commit to women and their children, and children won't be born.
    
    Civil society will not recover from this. Marriage is about children not about erotic attachments, in which the State per se does not have an interest. If it does public Christianity will become illegal.
    
    TJ you will get along quite nicely with Caesar. You have nothing to worry about. But the Catholic Church is not for you. To be in Communion with the Catholic Church one must submit to the teaching authority of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. Perhaps try a Christian atheist Uniting Church or something.
    

    Posted By: Martin

30. Oh and abortion is a black and white issue. It is the deliberate killing of an innocent human whose life begins at conception. Arbitrary violence of the strong against the weak is the stuff that undermines and destroys a society. Cardinal Pell recently wrote that abortion corrupts everything it touches. It promotes a principle (autonomy of the will) in direct opposition to our common Judeo-Christian principle of the inherent dignity of all human life. This is the only unifying principle of secular life. We can see this being eroded now, and you must understand the institution that most upholds it, the Church, is directly in the firing line. Save Australia and our families get involved TJ. Turn off your TV, the prime indoctrinator into anti-Christian ideologies, watch carefully depictions of normative human behaviour according to them, and denigrating language and behaviour toward Jesus' Church - RIP the mainstream media.

    Posted By: Martin

31. Abortion is not a black and white issue, it involves complex intelligence, consciousness and emotions. To simplify it, is to demean your very own 'belief' and the 'cause' you're proposing here Martin;
    
    Let's walk with each other as sinners, and finite human beings; let's struggle on 'together' and not throw stones at each other; after all, it could be just your sister, your mother, your partner or your friend...
    
    In your words of 'killing' and 'murder' and 'moral erosion'... spare a thought for the mother, children, father in Palestine, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, Sudan. There, adults are literally butchering and killing precious lives and innocence, families upon families starving to death. Do those lives count for anything at all? Or do you think those sorts of violence are acceptable; do you not front up your local MP demanding our armies stop participating in all this senseless violence and war?

    Posted By: TJ Lawson

32. LOL you're an astro turfer from the Greens aren't you TJ. Just how a callous society is spiritually able to respond to international problems is beyond me. Women's lives are destroyed, innocent children can't make it out of the womb and horrendous ideas about what sex is is perpetrated by a massive philosophical and cultural machine. If we can't form humans here, if the Church dies here, if injustice is legalised here, and we can use our taxes to kill here, what hope is there for an understanding of just war theory and its application? What hope for stable peace promoting international institutions with Australian leadership when we can't hold together the most fundamental - marriage and the family, and can't even protect tiny babies in the womb, nor women from the ghoulish and Godless?

    Posted By: Martin

33. TJ, you claim abortion is not a black and white issue. Therefore please describe the circumstances in which you think abortion would be morally good, or even morally neutral. Abortion is always a matter of “adults literally butchering and killing precious lives and innocence”. To claim otherwise is to demean your very own professedly “Christian” belief.
    
    Please provide evidence for your outrageous assertion that anyone in the Australian (or by implication, US) Army is indulging in “senseless violence”, “literally butchering and killing” innocent people, and starving families to death.
    

    Posted By: Ronk

34. And of course in the USA abortion is very much a Black and White issue in every sense, as Blacks (12% of the population) comprise 36% of abortion victims, shamelessly deliberately targeted by the racist abortionists. Yet a further irony to the myth of Obama as the Black Messiah.
    
    Probably the same or even worse racially-based abortion figures occur in Australia; we simply don’t know, because the Australian abortionists have pressured everyone into a “don’t ask anything, don’t tell anything” mode of behaviour. (Remember the orchestrated mock-outrage in the secular media a few years ago just because the Health Minister had had the temerity to ask his own Department for an estimate of how many abortions occur per year.)

    Posted By: Ronk

35. TJ, do you and “many members of your family and community (and even your Catholic parish)”, also assert that the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or Vatican II’s “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World”, is merely a “narrow interpretation and expression of the Universal (Catholic) Christian faith” and that the issue of abortion is “far beyond” it?
    
    The horrific crime of legalising the deliberate murder of tens of millions of totally innocent defenceless babies does not require any “hyping up”. Any description of it is at best a gross understatement.
    

    Posted By: Ronk

36. I am always given to chuckles when I read negative responses to someone like Ambassador Glendon's decision to not accept the invitation from Notre Dame on moral issues. Is it beyond their comprehension as to what a moral decision is? And as far as a one issue decision, Of course it's one issue, the issue being addressed! And regarding getting to heaven, I'm glad some people still believe in heaven and want to get there. As far as depriving the students from anything, should we make sure all students be exposed to everything! Is it Notre Dame's responsibility to expose them? Every day we make moral decisions, hers was just bigger than many of ours. But, when you are in the spotlight or a position affecting thousands of people, your decisions are very important and I, for one, am glad she has morals enough to even know it WAS a decision about ethics.

    Posted By: Linda M.

37. Ronk, the Catholic Church 'invented' what you call 'universities' before the age of the Enlightenment....& before the development of the scientific method which requires total objectivity.
    No issue is approached via a first step of an ideological screening, in the modern university. An ethical screening, yes.....but not an ideological one.
    Any 'university' that starts & finishes from an ideological point of view....whether it be Catholic, Marxist, or Baptist or whatever....is a contradiction in terms. It cannot operate as a university in the modern age.
    Colleges, such as a Catholic College, within a university community....yes. In such colleges, people are free to reflect on the issues & findings of scholarship....according to their faith or ideological beliefs. But they do not singly control the scholarly work of a university. Yet they contribure to discussions re value and meaning of that work.

    Posted By: Marie H

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