Former National Security Advisor Opposes Notre Dame Giving Honorary Degree to Obama

Richard Allen, former National Security Advisor to President Reagan, has spoken out against Notre Dame, his alma mater, giving Barack Hussein Obama an honorary degree. His op-ed in The New York Times follows:

Degrees of Acceptance at Notre Dame

By Richard V. Allen

THERE is turmoil in South Bend, Ind. — and around the country. The Rev. John Jenkins, the president of Notre Dame, has invited President Obama to deliver the commencement address at the university on May 17 and to receive an honorary degree.

As a result, many alumni are up in arms denouncing the decision. Priests, bishops, archbishops and cardinals have criticized the university and its president. South Bend’s own bishop, John D’Arcy, has announced that he will not attend. At the same time, other members of the Notre Dame community have responded, with similar force, that Mr. Obama should be allowed to speak.

Both sides are entrenched. Is there a way out?

Inviting a president to the campus of Notre Dame ought not be an issue. Mr. Obama should be welcomed at the school — just as other presidents before him were.

But Father Jenkins also overstates the case when he says that the president is coming to Notre Dame to further “positive engagement.”

American presidents don’t go to commencements to engage in dialogue; they go to use the university platform to deliver a message, their message, not a two-way message. They fly in, speak, then fly back to Washington. Notre Dame provides a great photo op and seal of approval for any elected official.

What’s more, it’s important to remember that Notre Dame is a Catholic institution. The school openly flouts the guidelines of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops when it bestows an honorary degree upon a president who supports something anathema to the faith: abortion. Catholic doctrine holds that life begins at conception; as a candidate, Mr. Obama said that determining when life begins “is above my pay grade,” not an answer at all. There is every sign that his administration has a pro-abortion orientation.

The moral conflict could not be clearer. But here’s a solution: Notre Dame should welcome President Obama as its principal commencement speaker but should not give him an honorary degree. You see, policy positions do matter when it comes to honorary degrees, because the degrees honor something.

In his first appearance after an attempted assassination on March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan traveled to Notre Dame to deliver its commencement address. As Mr. Reagan’s national security adviser, and as someone who earned two degrees at Notre Dame, I went along. Mr. Reagan had special ties to the school. He portrayed the Notre Dame football legend George Gipp in the 1940 classic “Knute Rockne — All American.” (This may be why so many people thought he was Catholic — this, and his Irish name.)

But the reasons for his invitation went much deeper. The Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, the university’s president at the time, told me that he conferred an honorary degree on Mr. Reagan because he admired his unflinching stance during the 1980 campaign on the protection of the unborn. This was a difficult position at the time, for pressures were building in support of abortion rights after the passage of Roe v. Wade in 1973. Mr. Reagan’s views and policies were recognized in the honorary degree he received.

The Obama policy on abortion is pretty much the opposite of Ronald Reagan’s. It is precisely what the Catholic Church fights against. That is why my alma mater, while welcoming him in its midst, ought not confer an honorary degree on Mr. Obama.

Richard V. Allen, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, was Ronald Reagan’s national security adviser.