"Pro-life" activists plan to keep on being arrested at the University of Notre Dame in the run-up to May 17, when President Barack Obama shows up in South Bend, Ind., to deliver the commencement address and accept an honorary degree.
The Roman Catholic university has no business honoring a man who supports abortion, stem cell research and same-sex marriage, all of which defy Catholic teaching, critics insist.
Dr. Alan Keyes, a conservative Republican who ran for the U.S. Senate seat that Barack Obama ended up winning in 2004, says he plans to be among those arrested at Notre Dame.
Keyes is urging like-minded people to join him: "I will go to South Bend. I will step foot on the Notre Dame campus to lift up the standard that protects the life of the innocent children of this and every generation," he said in a statement posted at StopObamaNotreDame.
"If this be trespass, then forgive us our trespasses and join us in trespassing until the South Bend jail is filled to overflowing with witnesses to truth; filled beyond capacity; filled until we break the most onerous shackles of all -- the ones that bind the heart and mind to evil and our nation to the path of its destruction," Keyes wrote.
Keyes is asking others who have "prayed and labored for the unborn" to join him and others in the protest that is expected to culminate in mass arrests.
Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, says he is "elated" that Dr. Keyes will join the protest at Notre Dame. "Local Catholics are already planning to be arrested with him," Terry said. "Let us pray that Notre Dame will see the light after they feel the heat," he said.
Terry was arrested last Friday, after refusing an order to leave school grounds. He was part of a protest in which demonstrators pushed baby carriages with dolls covered in fake blood.
As CNSNews.com has reported, at least 19 Catholic bishops, including Cardinal Francis George, who is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, have spoken against Notre Dame's invitation to Obama.
The Rev. Hugh W. Cleary, the head of the Catholic religious order that founded and now sponsors the University of Notre Dame, declared in an "open letter" to President Barack Obama that many good Catholics are scandalized by his pro-abortion policies, which, Cleary said, are "regarded by us as an intrinsic evil."
Contact: Susan Jones
Source: CNSNews.com
Publish Date: May 6, 2009
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