The opposition to President Obama speaking at the Notre Dame commencement is strickly a political exercise by the Republican far right wing. The issue is basically a sham. Others who have supported, or at least not opposed abortion, have spoken at the school.

"We'd ALL be better off igoring..." religious people. Good idea. Unfortunately, there's a lot of people on the far Left who enjoy bashing, degrading, insulting, deriding, mocking, and trashing everyone and anybody who disagrees with their narrow, often naive and childish, world view, so "ignoring" people who believe in God isn't going to happen. Too many mean, nasty people who feel superior and intelligent when they can name-call everyone and anyone who disagrees with them. Many Salon readers even think judges Scalia and Thomas are "stupid." Not just wrong or having different points of view, but "stupid." (See the SC appointment article.) Does anyone at Salon have any credibility?

It's really not that difficult to give a great speech when you have someone else writing it for you and you're reading it off a teleprompter. Have you heard him on his own or when the teleprompter has screwed up? Quite a different speaker then, isn't he? Someday you're going to get off your knees and get your nose out of Obama's ass. Your letters are pathetic and sickening. My little brother used to sound the same talking about Kurt Cobain. He grew up.

And D..NY, what about the body the woman is carrying inside her body? Does that person have rights? A lot of smarter, more intelligent people than either of us believe they do.

President Obama is a great man put in the most difficult position. He deserves to be heard at Notre Dame. I hated Ronald Reagan, but I didn’t protest his appearance at ND even though his alliance with the Contras caused the deaths of Catholic clergy. Jimmy Carter spoke at my ND commencement in 1977. We showered him with an honorary salute of peanuts.

Where was the outrage of the Pro-Life movement when President Bush caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians? How about the torture and deaths of detainees? Silence, because Bush is white and Republican.

If someone wants to protest something, how about raising hell about the rape of our Catholic children by pedophile priests? It happened at my Jesuit high school. The administration was warned to 30 years, destroyed the evidence, and did nothing:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15683

National surveys show that American Catholics, just like the American public in general, are pro choice. The majority of American Catholics agree with Obama's position on the abortion issue so it really is just a conservative minority screaming about this.

Salon would be better off asking average Catholics and not regurgitating what these self appointed “religious leaders” say Catholics believe.

We'd all be better off ignoring what ANY believer in imaginary sky beings "thinks" about morality.

They support a woman's responsibilities and wisdom when it comes to her own pregnancy over the state and especially over a bunch of superstitious, hate filled protestants.

They do not believe in a literal interpretation of the bible. (In fact, the great majority of Catholics consider people pushing for a literal interpretation to be hucksters and ignorant).

They do not blindly follow so called "church leaders" when they expose nonsense, for instance.

-No modern Catholic believes the Pope is infallible.

-Almost no modern Catholics believe in excommunication or give a rat's ass about it. (by the old definition, if you talk to someone who has been divorced you are automatically excommunicated anyway).

Right wing fundamentalist protestants are very fond of announcing what Catholics believe. Salon would be better off asking average Catholics and not regurgitating what these self appointed “religious leaders” say Catholics believe.

I would look for this as an opportunity for the President to speak about morality, about church and state, and other important topics that he hasn't had a chance to address so far given what's on his desk. I expect it will be a wonderful speech.

Boy, it sure is nice to have a President whose speeches you look forward to hearing. I recolied in embarassment and turned off the TV whenever our last President approached a microphone.

Paragraph 2267

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a5.htm

Yup.

The vast majority of Catholics don't even know their own religions official teachings, college professors included. Or rather they just like to pretend that their own morals are the same as the Church's.

It's good reading for both Catholics and non-Catholics.

I thought conservative American Catholics spoke for all Catholics!

Isn't that what Dobson and his ilk keep telling us?

Christopher 1988: It was my understanding that the Vatican was opposed entirely to the death penalty, as well.

Is that quote from the most current cathechism? I went to one of the most conservative Catholic colleges in the country—no exaggeration, it's known for that. And I never heard an argument in favor of capital punishment from any of my professors, including those in the theology and philosophy departments. Quite the opposite.

This is ridiculous. The fact that a University invites the President of the United States to address its graduating students in no way means that the school is saying it agrees with the president 100% on all issues. It is absolutely awful to have Thought Police at work, saying that the graduates at this school should not be exposed to the President of the U.S. How ridiculous!

The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/30/religion.torture