Getting back to the topic of protests at Boston College over Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice being asked to give the commencement speech (because the previous thread has gone so far astray), Hub Politics lists a whole slate of other speakers at BC who didn’t get similar protests when they came to speak. Of course, small groups of pro-lifers and other orthodox Catholics voiced their opposition, but most of those who are now oppose Rice as unfit to be honored because she’s a Cabinet member in the Bush administration which went to war in Iraq and, oh yeah, she’s pro-choice as well, were silent on these others, such as:
- Walter Dellinger, former acting Attorney General for Clinton who has worked with NARAL Pro-Choice America.
- Kate Michelman, president of NARAL
- US Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass.; 100% pro-abortion voting record approved by NARAL
- Sen. John Kerry, 100% pro-abortion voting record approved by NARAL
- Sen. Ted Kennedy, ditto
- Three other Clinton Cabinet secretaries.
Is this rank hypocrisy? The opposition to Rice is not about Catholic teaching, especially not the fundamental teaching on abortion, but against her politics and her position in the Bush administration. And one thing that’s become clear in my experience is that many people don’t just disagree with Bush’s politics. They hate him with a deep and abiding antipathy and that transfers to everyone around him. I think this may be yet more examples of this.
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Technorati Tags: abortion, Boston, Catholic, college, commencement, politics
It is trendy and popular to oppose Condi Rice. The other speakers you list are hip with the “tolerant in crowd”.
More antics from the Jesuit school with the openly athiest theology professor.
Wow! nice PR spin.
If Condoleeza gets banned under the bishops’ principle that pro-abortion speakers should not be allowed to speak, and that’s spelled out clearly as the reason, it’s a good thing. Not really. The left-wing hypocrites will understand that the real reasons are (1) she’s a black conservative and (2) she works with Satan Incarnate Himself (a.k.a. George W. Bush).
On the 5 o’clock news on Ch.4,Mon. May 8, Boston College Theology professor, John McDargh, was featured expressing his opinion that Rice should not be honored at the B.C. graduation. This is the same John McDargh who is openly practicing and promoting same-sex sex and same-sex marriage, leading the Lesbian and Gay Faculty,Staff and Administrators Association(LGFSAA), inviting his students to come to visit him and his ‘partner’ at their home on Langley Rd. home in Newton and teaching a course on Spirituality and Sexuality to B.C. students. If anyone should not be allowed to flaunt the ‘Jesuit mission’ at Boston College it’s John McDargh! But, instead, McDargh’s LGFSSA
organization was welcomed by Jack Dunn, spokesperson for B.C. who stated:“The organization is certainly welcome here”.(“BC faculty band together to promote change” by Laura Kiritsy, Bay Windows,6/3/04). It appears that Dunn’s approval of John McDargh’s leadership, which was also supported by many more “including deans and vice presidents”, reveals the dark side of what is happening at Boston College and the betrayal of the Jesuit missioon.
Nice spin, Elizabeth, but comepletely wrong. Read the bishops’ document on this called “Catholic In Political Life”:
It’s not just awards, but also honors and platforms. That undercuts your whole post.
So those who are bound by the law get to interpret it? I’ll try that if I get pulled over by the police.
Frankly, I would hesitate to claim that non-enforcement of a law or regulation by a bishop is an indicator of the correct intent of the law. We’ve seen enough indicators of where that leads over the past four years (and forty years). McCarrick, for one, never liked the task in the first place and even apparently lied about Cardinal Ratzinger’s letter on the topic.
No interpretation is necessary anyway. The text is clear and it contradicts what you claim it says. Moreover, the plain wording of the bishops’ text is an even weaker stepchild of the several statements handed down by the Vatican (Ratzinger, Arinze, Ex Corde Ecclesia etc.) on this point in the past.
Making a distinction between awards and a platform for their objectionable ideologies is a red herring.