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Obama Gets Mixed Response at Notre Dame

February 17, 2011

By Staff Reporter

Inside the Joyce Center, Obama got a boisterous and enthusiastic reception from the 2,600 graduates and their families. while on the South Quad about 1,000 people gathered peacefully to pray and protest the school’s decision to give Obama an honorary degree.
Obama, who has rolled back restrictions on funding overseas abortions and has lifted restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, told the graduates during his commencement address that differences on abortion in the pro-life and pro-choice camps are “at some level…irreconcilable,” and that people should stop “reducing those with differing views to caricature.”
In his introductory remarks, Notre Dame president, Rev. John Jenkins, praised Obama for accepting the invitation to come to Notre Dame, a school with a proud Catholic identity.
“President Obama has come to Notre Dame, though he knows full well that we are fully supportive of the church’s teaching on the sanctity of human life, and we oppose his policies on abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, ” Rev. Jenkins said to loud applause.
Some of the graduates in the center had yellow crosses with baby feet drawn atop their mortar-boards as symbols of quiet protest. They and some other students remained seated during the ovations.
The two dozen seniors who boycotted the event and instead received their degrees at a ceremony at the Grotto were joined by about 300 family members and friends. Their event was shown live on a large screen set up on the South Quad after student organizers asked that the rally participants not attempt to crowd into the Grotto area. Bishop John D’Arcy of the Fort Wayne-South Bend diocese boycotted the event at the Joyce Center and told the protesting students that they were “heroes” with whom he was proud to stand.
Obama ended his address with a plea for civility and an attempt to reach common ground through “good works, kindness and mutual respect.”

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