By ADAM CASSANDRA
In a video posted on the University of Notre Dame’s website the past week, President Fr. John Jenkins, CSC, cited the university’s commitment to the “common good” as explanation for its controversial decision to award the Laetare Medal, “the oldest and most prestigious honor accorded to American Catholics,” to Vice President Joe Biden and former Speaker of the House John Boehner.
“One of our great challenges today is people who disagree often will vilify, attack, demean the opposition and then they can’t work with the opposition,” Fr. Jenkins said. “So we come to this impasse of acrimony of intransigence, and it doesn’t serve society.
“There’s a wonderful Catholic concept of the common good,” he said. “What is the common good? What would serve everybody? You and I may disagree, or Boehner and Biden may disagree, but we have to recognize that whatever we think, we have to act for the common good.”
Of course it’s true that all Catholics are called to work for the common good, and there is an entire section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church describing the elements of the common good, along with personal and political responsibilities. The problem with Fr. Jenkins’ position is that Biden has not worked toward the common good as outlined in the Catechism, and neither does Notre Dame by bestowing this award on him that is meant for praiseworthy Catholics.
Fr. Jenkins and Biden fail to appreciate that the common good is not achieved through political deals in the name of “progress,” especially when such compromise erodes the moral order of society. The Catechism teaches that the first “essential element” of the common good is that it “presupposes respect for the person as such. In the name of the common good, public authorities are bound to respect the fundamental and inalienable rights of the human person” (emphasis in original).
Criticizing Notre Dame’s claims to celebrate “respectful dialogue,” “compromise,” and “working for the common good” in honoring Biden and Boehner, The Cardinal Newman Society pointed out:
“Catholic Biden has compromised his fidelity to Church teaching on intrinsic evils far too many times in his career in the interest of political compromise. He has publicly supported Roe v. Wade and legal abortion, legal redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples, taxpayer funding for embryonic stem-cell research, and the HHS contraception/sterilization/abortifacient mandate.”
Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., the diocese where the university is located, also disagrees with Notre Dame’s scandalous decision and its impact on the common good.
“My principal concern about this whole matter is scandal,” he wrote. “In honoring a ‘pro-choice’ Catholic who also has supported the redefinition of marriage, which the Church considers harmful to the common good of society, it can give the impression to people, including Catholics in political office, that one can be ‘a good Catholic’ while also supporting or advocating for positions that contradict our fundamental moral and social principles and teachings.”
According to the Catechism, the common good “concerns the life of all. It calls for prudence from each, and even more from those who exercise the office of authority. . . . Political authority must be exercised within the limits of the moral order and must guarantee the conditions for the exercise of freedom.”
Throughout his political career, Biden has worked against the moral teachings of the Church to push a political agenda that degrades human dignity and denies the right to life of human persons. Biden readily admits that life begins at conception, and he acknowledges what the Church teaches on the protection of human life, but still he has said, “I just refuse to impose that on others.” In taking this position, he refuses to morally exercise his political authority and compromises the common good.
As vice president, Biden has been an outspoken advocate for legalized same-sex marriage, and he has disparaged those who oppose same-sex marriage as “homophobes” and as “narrow-minded and reactionary forces.”
Responding to the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage last June, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), stated, “It is profoundly immoral and unjust for the government to declare that two people of the same sex can constitute a marriage.”
“Mandating marriage redefinition across the country,” he said, “is a tragic error that harms the common good and most vulnerable among us, especially children. The law has a duty to support every child’s basic right to be raised, where possible, by his or her married mother and father in a stable home.”
Fr. Jenkins said he hopes Notre Dame leads students “to understand they can disagree but they need to talk to one another, reason with one another, and despite disagreements, should always respect the other person and not demean or attack personally the other person.”
“Unless we can do that, we just can’t work together. We can’t serve the common good. We can’t build a better society,” he said. “We’re just in this gridlock of antagonism that is all too common today.”
But sometimes gridlock is a great thing, especially when you’re fighting off attempts to enshrine legitimacy for intrinsic evils into our nation’s laws. Such antagonism should be applauded in service to the common good and a better society.
“In a way, that’s why we gave these two leaders from different parties who disagree with one another on many things [the Laetare Medal],” he continued. “But the interesting about them, they’re friends, they’re personal friends. Each will say that. We need more of that: People who can disagree and be friends.”
Fr. Jenkins is right that we should be respectful of one another, even when we disagree, and that people who disagree can still be friends. Jesus became friends with some of the most hated sinners in society, but He never honored or in any way condoned their life of sin. Jesus commanded that they “sin no more.” We should strive to see Jesus in everyone we meet, without condoning evil for the sake of getting along.
Catholic individuals can’t serve the common good, and a Catholic university can’t teach students how to serve the common good, by confusing people about what it means to be an honorable Catholic public servant.
In bestowing this great honor on Biden, Notre Dame is recognizing him specifically because of the compromises he has made in his political career as one who has “illustrated the ideals of the Church and enriched the heritage of humanity.”
By doing so, Notre Dame does great harm to its identity as a Catholic institution — and to the common good.
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(Adam Cassandra is the news editor at The Cardinal Newman Society [www.cardinalnewmansociety.org], which promotes and defends faithful Catholic education. Follow him on Twitter: @adamcassandra.)
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