The Most Rev. Eusebius J. Beltran, archbishop of Oklahoma City, recently sent a letter to Notre Dame President John Jenkins accusing the university of turning against the Catholic Church.
It wasn't an April Fools' Day joke. And it wasn't in response to the Fighting Irish breaking the University of Oklahoma's 47-game winning streak in 1957.
What was the dealio with the Golden Domers?
"I am appalled, disappointed and scandalized!" Beltran wrote.
"I believe you have a moral responsibility to withdraw the invitation to President Barack Obama to be your commencement speaker in May. I also ask that you refrain from giving him any award whatsoever."
Beltran went on to ask the prez to have the courage to take a stand in light of the "extraordinary scandal" he generated. Obama is slated to be the sixth sitting president to speak at Notre Dame's commencement.
"President Obama has publicly and ruthlessly affronted the Catholic Church of America during the short time of his presidency," Beltran wrote. "His single-handed actions have totally reversed decades of successes of the Church in the pro-life cause. Needless to say, he deserves no honor or recognition from Notre Dame or any other Catholic institution."
Picking the first Catholic vice president doesn't count as a bonus?
Notre Dame students reportedly protested in opposition of the death penalty when Obama's predecessor, President George W. Bush, spoke at the university in 2001. According to Sister Helen Prejean, author of "Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States," Bush presided over 152 executions during his six-year tenure as governor of Texas.
Meanwhile, others are slamming the Obama invite.
"It's clear Notre Dame didn't understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation," Francis Cardinal George, archbishop of Chicago, told the Chicago Tribune.
CFN wonders if Notre Dame understood that Joseph Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago, who was commencement speaker in 1983, was an early proponent of the "Consistent Ethic of Life." The ideology, which contends that all life is sacred, is opposed to capital punishment, economic injustice, assisted suicide and " last, but not least " abortion.
Red-state Oklahomans tend to agree with the "Consistent Ethic of Life" thing, except for, you know, the 169 people we've executed.
