WASHINGTON " Here on planet "What About Me," principled people are so rare as to be oddities. Thus, it was a head-swiveling moment Monday when former Vatican Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon quietly declined Notre Dame's Laetare Medal.
Glendon " a Harvard University law professor and a respected author on bioethics and human rights " rejected the honor in part because Barack Obama was invited to be commencement speaker and to receive an honorary degree.
In an April 27 letter to Notre Dame's president, the Rev. John I. Jenkins, Glendon wrote of her dismay that Obama was to receive the degree in disregard of the U.S. bishops' position that Catholic institutions "should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles."
Glendon decided she couldn't accept the award.
To non-Catholics, Glendon's act may seem of little importance, yet another feud within the church. Abortion, after all, is settled law and Obama is the duly elected president. Clearly, the American people have moved on.
Or have they? And should we? Is there really ever a time when we should be comfortable with the ratification of abortion? It has always seemed to me that the truest form of feminism, as in the earliest days of suffrage, would be to hold abhorrent the state-sanctioned destruction of women's unique life-bearing gifts. Out of material expedience, we've somehow managed to convince ourselves that life is a mistake.
While one may prefer to preserve the legality of individual discretion (my own reluctant, if withering, position), it is nonetheless consoling that there are still those who relentlessly defend life's sanctity. The alternative, after all, is far less comforting.
One needn't be a dedicated pro-lifer to understand the consternation Obama's invitation has caused. He is more radical than all previous presidents on the life issue, with his loosening of federal funds for abortion and embryonic stem cell research, as well as his campaign promise to pass the Freedom of Choice Act.
To his credit, Obama has left some Bush-era restrictions in place on embryonic stem cell research. Under new guidelines, federal funding may be used for research only on surplus embryos from fertility clinics, not on cells or embryos created just for research.
Nevertheless, his abortion stance is in direct conflict with Catholic teaching. And no place symbolizes Catholics in America quite the way Notre Dame does.
Offering this backdrop and extending the school's imprimatur to Obama constitutes a wink and a nod to abortion. By her symbolic gesture of self-denial, Glendon demonstrates that faith is an act, not a motto.
- Kathleen Parker's e-mail address is kparker@kparker.com.