Monday, May 4, 2009

Defending Prof. Glendon

Patrick O'Hannigan, who runs the blog The Paragraph Farmer, has written a very thoughtful essay defending Professor Mary Ann Glendon from charges of hypocrisy over her refusal to accept an award from Notre Dame as part of a ceremony that will see an honorary degree conferred upon President Obama. There are many aspects to this story - political, religous and moral - and the left's bill of particulars now raised against Prof. Glendon. Mr. Hannigan addresses them with cogency and clarity in an article at The American Spectator.

The open letter from Professor Mary Ann Glendon to Fr. John Jenkins declining a Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame almost shimmers with clarity of thought, but some of the people unimpressed by her principled refusal to serve as a token for two presidents now accuse Glendon of hypocrisy.

In the letter, Glendon explains why she has a problem with Notre Dame awarding an honorary degree to President Obama. Although she highlights President Obama's sorry record on life issues, Glendon also makes clear that her chief gripes are with Fr. Jenkins, the university president whose gamesmanship turned a misconceived publicity coup into a betrayal of faith and episcopal confidence.

Read the entire article.

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1 comment:

  1. suekMay 5, 2009 at 12:24 PM

    Ok...I've missed something. How in heaven's name can she be considered a hypocrite? The honor she's refusing is one she'd be very honored to accept normally - and she's said so - and she's rejecting it because of the statements made by Jenkins about her presence balancing the presence of Obama and the awarding of an honor to him. It's definitely her loss which she's taking for a principle - so how can this be construed as hypocrisy?

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