Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented today on an article by Michael Sean Winters posted on the blog site of America magazine:
“More and more bishops are publicly disagreeing with the decision by Notre Dame President Father John Jenkins to invite President Barack Obama to deliver the commencement address this year; Obama is also to be awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree.
“Michael Sean Winters not only disagrees with the bishops, he has written an attack piece that accuses them of ‘disrespecting’ President Obama by calling him ‘pro-abortion.’ He also accuses the bishops of being ‘out of touch’ with American culture.
“Catholics United, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, and Catholic Democrats join Winters in promoting the fiction that Obama is not pro-abortion. Consider the following: when Obama was in the Illinois state senate he championed a bill to deny health care to a baby born alive who survived an abortion; he condemned the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court outlawing partial-birth abortion; he has already signed executive orders overturning previous orders restricting abortion; he has appointed nothing but radical pro-abortion attorneys to his administration; he has consistently received a 100 percent approval rating from NARAL, the most extreme pro-abortion group in the nation; and he has told Planned Parenthood he will sign the Freedom of Choice Act, the most dangerous pro-abortion bill ever authored.
“And yet, after all this, we are to conclude that Obama is not really pro-abortion. Worse, we are to believe that the bishops have been ‘disrespectful’ for telling the truth. Nice to know whose side Winters is on. Moreover, it is not the job of the bishops to be ‘in touch’ with the dominant culture when the conventional wisdom is morally wrong—it is their job to change it. But to Catholic journalists whose goal in life is to win the plaudits of their cohorts in secular circles, such a challenge is obviously too much to bear.”
