Bishops support Bishop D’Arcy’s ‘pastoral concern’ for Notre Dame

CNS

WASHINGTON • Meeting in executive session in San Antonio, the U.S. bishops expressed “appreciation and support” for Bishop John M. D’Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., especially for “his pastoral concern” for the University of Notre Dame.

In a two-sentence statement made public June 22 in Washington, the bishops also affirmed Bishop D’Arcy’s “solicitude for (Notre Dame’s) Catholic identity and his loving care for all those the Lord has given him to sanctify, to teach and to shepherd.”

The statement made no direct reference to the controversy over the university’s decision to have U.S. President Barack Obama as commencement speaker May 17 and to give him an honorary degree or to a recent call by the Board of Directors of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities for the bishops to revisit their 2004 statement, “Catholics in Political Life.”

That document states: “The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”

More than 80 bishops voiced their disapproval of Notre Dame’s invitation to Obama and decision to give him an honorary degree, with some saying it violated the letter and spirit of “Catholics in Political Life.”

Critics of Obama said his support of legal abortion and embryonic stem-cell research also made him an inappropriate choice to be commencement speaker at a Catholic university.

Bishop D’Arcy, whose diocese includes the university, boycotted the commencement, saying Notre Dame’s decision to honor Obama had caused a “terrible breach ... between Notre Dame and the church.”