A post-Notre Dame award reflection: Yes we can!

I have received several comments, both of praise and criticism for my column about President Barack Obama’s award from Notre Dame.  I’m honored that people take the time to read my articles and to send comments.  I wanted to make a response in the Denver Catholic Register. 
My article was written before the Notre Dame event and released afterwards—we apologize for that glitch!  If it were written afterwards, I would not have softened my critique, but I’d have titled it, “Yes we can!”—in praise of an increasingly vocal Catholic Church in America.

Seventy-plus U.S. bishops spoke out against the honors Obama received at Notre Dame, as did tens-of-thousands of Catholics, and it had an effect! 

Despite the fact that President Obama’s speech was full of well-crafted implications that the challenges he got from our bishops were close-minded attacks and attempts to personally demonize him, he listened.  You’ll note in Obama’s speech that he back-peddled (though not completely) regarding the attack of his administration on conscientious objection rights.  I can only assume it was because so many Catholics like me complained, but more importantly because Catholics like our archbishop complained, that President Obama did any back-peddling at all.  It was certainly not because of the honors he received.  If he received those honors from the Church with no public outcry, he’d only have been encouraged to stay the course he was on and deprive Catholic healthcare workers of their most basic freedoms. 

In his speech, Obama also expressed a desire to see a decrease in abortions and, among other things, to promote adoption.  Yet he supports FOCA, which would remove every state law that has proven to reduce abortions, and he has committed millions in U.S. dollars to promoting abortion in Mexico, some of which will be redirected from pro-life adoption agencies to pro-choice organizations.  Thank God for our bishops who are vocally calling him on his hypocrisy. 
Our conscientious objection rights and the future of the pro-life movement are still at risk and I hope our bishops stay as vocal as they have been.  They have shown that, yes, they still CAN change the course of American history!

Christopher Stefanick
Director of Youth, Young Adult and Campus Ministry
The Good News on Youth columnist
Denver